William Caxton was originally apprenticed as a mercer, a trader
in luxury materials such as silk, and as a merchant travelled
extensively in western Europe. His visits to Germany familiarised
him with the new technology of the printing press. He first set up
a printing press in Burges in collaboration with a Fleming in 1473,
and together they produced the first printed book in English, a
French courtly romance translated by Caxton himself as
Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye
. Three years later, he established a press of his own at
Westminster. His first production was an edition of Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales
.
Please
log in to
consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing
institution (
see List), you should be able to access the LE on
campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we
offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a
personal user account with your institutional email address. If
you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal
subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under
Individual Subcriptions.
101 words
Save this article
If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to
your 'Account' here