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.
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