William Caxton

William Caxton was an English merchant, diplomat, and printer who established England’s first printing press and published the first book printed in English.

Bruges: A Belgian city that was a major commercial center in medieval Europe. Caxton traded and worked in Bruges, where he encountered printing.
Movable type: Reusable individual characters arranged to form text for printing. Caxton’s press printed pages by arranging and reusing metal type.
The Canterbury Tales: Geoffrey Chaucer’s collection of tales told by pilgrims traveling to Canterbury. Caxton printed editions that helped circulate Chaucer’s work.
English language: A West Germanic language that developed in England and is now spoken worldwide. Caxton’s printed books helped stabilize some written forms while preserving variation.
Geoffrey Chaucer: A fourteenth-century English poet best known for The Canterbury Tales. Caxton printed Chaucer’s works and helped preserve their readership.
Cologne: A German city on the Rhine and an early center of European printing. Caxton learned printing in Cologne before setting up his press.
Incunabulum: A book printed in Europe before 1501, during printing’s earliest decades. Caxton’s books belong to this first generation of printed works.
Le Morte d'Arthur: Thomas Malory’s prose compilation of Arthurian legends, first printed by Caxton in 1485. Caxton’s edition established a durable printed form of Malory’s narrative.
Standard English: The socially established forms of English used in formal writing and speech. Caxton’s choices contributed to, but did not alone create, later written standards.
Thomas Malory: An English author traditionally credited with compiling Le Morte d'Arthur. Caxton published Malory’s Arthurian work in 1485.

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