CAXTON, WILLIAM (c.1422-91). The first English printer. Ile was horn in the \Yeah! of Kent, and the particulars of his life are scanty. Ile was apprenticed in 1138 to Robert Large, a wealthy London mercer. At the death of the latter. in 1411. he went to Bruges. where. from 1462 to 1470, he was governor of a chartered association of English adventurers trading to foreign parts. In 1471 Caxton entered the ser vice of 'Margaret. Duchess of Burgundy. formerly au English princess: and. apparently toward the end of 1476, he -et up his wooden printing press at the Sign of the Red Pale, ill the Ahnonry. at. We.tininster. The art of printing he had acquired while abroad, either at Cologne or at Bruges, more likely at the latter place. from Colard :Mansion• a well-known printer of that city: and in 1474 he put through the press (without doubt Mansion's) the first book printed in the English tongue. the Becayell of the Ilistoryes of Troye, a translation of Raoul de Fevre's work. The Name and Plume of the ('/cc..ssc (probably 14751 was another of Caxton's earliest publications: but the Dietes and Nolahle Wise of the Philosophers, Novem ber 18, 1477) is the first book which can with certainty be maintained to have been printed in England. All the six font of type from which
Caxton printed may be called black letter. Of the 99 known distinct productions of Caxton's no fewer than 38 survive in single copies or in fragment- only. Caxton. who was an ac complished linguist, and translated many of the works that issued from his press, was diligent in the exercise of his craft or in translation until within it few hours of his death, which oc curred in 1491. By his numerous translations he helped fix the English speech, and his many Looks prepared the way for the literary out bur-4 in the Elizabethan era. In 1877 the great printer and his work were fittingly commemorat ed by a typographical exhibition in London. Con sult: Knight, The Ohl Printer and (London, 1S61 I ; Blades, Life and Typography of William Carton ( London, I S61-63 ; and Biographic and Typography of Cilston (London, )!*;..?.).