(b Kent, ?1427; d London, 1492). English printer, publisher, translator and merchant. In 1437-8 he entered the London Mercers' Company, apprenticed to wool merchant Robert Large after whose death (1441) he moved to Bruges, where he established a position of considerable prestige in the English trading community; in 1462 he became governor of the settlement of English merchants in Bruges known as the English Nation and subsequently entered the service of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy. Several documents refer to Caxton's diplomatic activities. In 1469 he began a translation of Raoul Le F?vres's Recueil des histoires de Troye, which he completed in 1471 in Cologne, where he also learnt the trade and art of printing; however, his first books were probably printed in Bruges, to which he returned probably in early 1473. On his return to England he set up the first printing press in the country in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. His earliest dated London work is an ecclesiastical indulgence dated 13 December 1476, of which only one copy survives (London, PRO). The exact chronology of most of his books can be established only on the basis of analysis of developments in type style; his earliest London books were probably small quarto children's books, and his first folio, The Canterbury Tales, was probably produced late in 1476. For his Bruges and early London work Caxton employed the typographer Johannes Veldener ( fl 1472-86) to design his type and probably instruct him in printing techniques. Veldener designed at least three types for Caxton, which are used in the early Westminster works. Caxton produced c. 100 books in his long career, including many devotional works, two editions of The Canterbury Tales (1476, 1482), his own translation of Aesop's Fables (1484), the Golden Legend (1483) by Jacopo da Voragine and a celebrated Morte d'Arthur (1485) by Sir Thomas Malory (d 1471). He translated 22 of his own works, while 74 of his books were issued in English and represent a significant contribution to the development of a vernacular prose style. Following his death, his press was taken over by his assistant Wynkyn de Worde (c. 1456-1535).

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The first English printer, William Caxton (1422-1491), printed a total of about 100 different works. He also translated some 24 books, all but one of which he printed.

William Caxton said that he was born in the Weald of Kent, but his exact birthplace is unknown. In 1438 he became an apprentice to a prominent London mercer, Robert Large. Shortly after Large's death in 1441, Caxton moved to Bruges, where he worked as a merchant for 30 years. His success won him an important place in the Merchant Adventurers Company. He became governor of the English Nation, a company of English merchants, at Bruges. In 1469 he entered the service of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, the sister of King Edward IV of England. Margaret asked him to complete an English translation of Raoul le Fevre's history of Troy. Caxton finished his translation during 1471-1472 at Cologne, where he also learned the trade of printing.

When Caxton returned to Bruges, he and Colard Mansion set up a printing press. There the first book printed in English was made. It was Caxton's translation of Le Fevre, called The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye. During his 2 years with Mansion, Caxton also printed his translation of the work of Jacobus de Cessolis, The Game and Playe of the Chesse, a moral treatise on government that he dedicated to the Duke of Clarence.

In 1476 Caxton returned to London, where he set up a printer's shop. Wynkyn de Worde became his foreman and, on Caxton's death in 1491, his successor. Among Caxton's early books was an edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. He also printed Chaucer's translation of Boethius in 1479. Dissatisfied with his text of the Tales, he issued a second edition about 1484, when he also printed Troilus and Criseyde. About the same time he printed the Confessioamantisby John Gower. Malory's Morte d'Arthur was issued from his press in 1485. King Henry VII asked Caxton to translate the Faits d'armes et de chevalrie of Christine de Pisan, which he printed in 1489. Many of Caxton's books were religious. One of the most important of these was The Golden Legend, an enormous collection of legends of the saints.

As a translator, Caxton had to work with an unsettled medium, the English of his time. Recognizing that "English that is spoken in one shire varyeth from another," he sought, not always successfully, to employ "the common terms that do be daily used." Caxton and his successors among the printers did much to stabilize literary English, and especially to regularize its spelling.

Further Reading

The standard account of Caxton and his work, now somewhat outdated, is William Blades, The Biography and Typography of William Caxton (1877; 2d ed. 1882). There is a simplified biography by H.R. Plomer, William Caxton (1925). George Parker Winship, William Caxton and His Work (1937), provides a brief introduction. A lively essay together with a facsimile reprint of Caxton's preface to his Eneydos may be found in C. F. Bühler, William Caxton and His Critics (1960).

Additional Sources

Blake, N. F. (Norman Francis), Caxton: England's first publisher, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1976, 1975.

Childs, Edmund Lunness, William Caxton: a portrait in a background, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979 1976.

Deacon, Richard, A biography of William Caxton: the first English editor, printer, merchant, and translator, London: Muller, 1976.

Knight, Charles, William Caxton and Charles Knight; with an introd. by Kenneth Da, London: Wynkyn de Worde Society, 1976.

Painter, George Duncan, William Caxton: a biography, New York: Putnam, 1977, 1976.

Painter, George Duncan, William Caxton: a quincentenary biography of England's first printer, London: Chatto & Windus, 1976.

Pearman, Naomi, The Lincoln Caxton, Lincoln: Lincoln Cathedral Library, 1976.

For more information on William Caxton, visit Britannica.com.

Caxton, William (c.1420-c.1492). A prominent merchant from Kent, Caxton established the first successful press in England. He learned printing in Cologne and the Low Countries, producing the first printed book in English—his own translation of Le Receuil des histoires de Troye—in Bruges c.1473-4. His press at Westminster, established in 1476, printed nearly 100 volumes, including works by Chaucer, Gower, John Lydgate, and Malory.

c.1421–91, English printer, the first to print books in English. He served apprenticeship as a mercer and from 1463 to 1469 was at Bruges as governor of the Merchants Adventurers in the Low Countries, serving as a diplomat for the English king. He learned printing in Cologne in 1471–72, and at Bruges in 1475 he and Colard Mansion printed The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, his own translation from the French, and the first book printed in English. In 1476 he returned to England, and at Westminster in 1477 he printed Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, the first dated book printed in England. Caxton is known to have printed about 100 books, many dealing with themes of chivalry. He was the translator, from French, Latin, and Dutch, of about one third of the books that he printed, and for some he wrote original prologues, epilogues, and additions. His books are of superb craftsmanship and are carefully edited. One of the typefaces used by Caxton is the original Old English type. The size of this type of Caxton's (14 point) is known as English. Wynkyn de Worde, his successor as a printer, was his assistant at Westminster, and the printers Richard Pynson and Robert Copland refer to Caxton (possibly figuratively) as their master.

Bibliography

See biographies by N. S. Aurer (1926, repr. 1965), H. R. Plomer (1925, repr. 1968), N. F. Blake (1969) and G. D. Painter (1977).

Caxton, William (c. 1422–1491), English printer and publisher. William Caxton, the first English printer, began his career as a London trader, becoming, after an apprenticeship, a freeman of the powerful Mercers Company. For about thirty years, from the mid-1440s until 1476, he lived for the most part in Flanders, as a merchant adventurer trading from Bruges. From 1462 to 1470 he was the governor of the English merchant adventurers, whose dominant members belonged to the Mercers Company. His responsibilities involved him at times in English diplomacy on matters of trade.

In 1470 Caxton resigned or was forced from the governorship. He moved to Cologne, where he lived in 1471–1472. Here he first encountered the new phenomenon of printing shops, although he may well, while in Bruges, have seen some early printed books imported from Mainz and Cologne. Direct contact with Cologne's expanding printed-book trade seems to have awakened new ambitions, for Caxton soon took financial control of one of the Cologne shops, and produced there three printed books, all in Latin. The first was the massive natural history encyclopedia of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De Proprietatibus Rerum (1472; On the properties of things).

In 1473 Caxton returned to Bruges and set up a new printing shop. The first of some half-dozen books he produced was his own translation from the French of the chivalric romance Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, completed in late 1473 or early 1474. He dedicated it to Margaret, duchess of Burgundy and sister of King Edward IV. This was the first of a number of royal or noble dedications he made. Four of Caxton's Bruges books were in French and among the earliest to be printed in that language, making him a pioneer in both English and French vernacular printing.

In 1476 Caxton returned to England and set up his third printing shop, near the royal courts and Parliament, within the precincts of Westminster Abbey. He produced some hundred editions, ranging in size from single-leaf printed indulgences to his most substantial translation, Jacobus de Voragine's late thirteenth-century collection of saints' lives, the Golden Legend (1484), a large folio of almost nine hundred pages. Caxton's publishing program ranged widely, including school books, law books, and prayer books, but the central emphasis was on vernacular literature, chronicles, and works of popular edification. The discursive prologues and epilogues he contributed to many of the books give them a lively actuality that remains attractive and accessible. No other early printer, in any language, addressed himself so directly, personally, and often amusingly to his intended audience.

In Caxton's lifetime and for generations after, the major Latin works of learning and literature, such as were studied in Oxford and Cambridge, were imported to England from continental shops. For readers of English, however, Caxton was the dominant figure in respect of both number and quality of publication. He produced the first editions of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1477; reprinted 1483 with woodcuts), of works by John Lydgate and John Gower, and of Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur (1485). Among his many translations are The Game and Play of Chess (1474; reprinted 1483 with woodcuts), Aesop's Fables (1484, with woodcuts), The History of Charlemagne (1485), and Reynard the Fox (1481; reprinted 1489).

In 1478 and after, other printing shops were begun in London, Oxford, and Saint Albans; they all ceased operation around 1486, and their combined output amounted to little more than half of what Caxton produced.

From Caxton's death in 1491 to the end of the 1520s, as the quantity of English printing considerably expanded, two printing shops dominated: those of Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's former workman, who succeeded to his master's shop and equipment; and of Richard Pynson, who once referred to Caxton as "my worshipful master," but whose direct connection with Caxton is less clear. Between them, until Pynson's death in 1529, they produced about three-quarters of all printing in England: about 1,350 out of some 1,800 editions. About two hundred more editions were printed in Paris, Antwerp, and other continental cities for export to the English market.

Although they overlapped, it appears that, by and large, de Worde and Pynson divided rather than competed for single control of the bookbuying market. De Worde specialized in cheap pamphlets of popular reading, often illustrated from his large stock of woodcuts, partly inherited from Caxton. He was also active in printing Latin schoolbooks. Pynson's publishing program was in general aimed at a more learned audience, with a particular specialty in books of English common law.

Apart from Caxton himself, almost all the personnel of the English printing shops came from the continent: de Worde was a native of Holland, and may well already have worked for Caxton in Bruges; Pynson was a native of Normandy. An Act of 1484, under Richard III, had specifically exempted "merchant strangers" from any restrictions on either printing in England, or bringing in books from abroad. But the presence of foreigners was always unpopular in the turbulent London of this age, leading to many threats, personal attacks, and even riots. In 1534, under Henry VIII, a new act was passed, placing restrictions on the sale of foreign books and on printing within England by foreigners. A part of Henry's motivation was to exert tighter controls on books and printing at a time when Protestant pamphlet literature was spreading widely and clandestinely. The effects of the act, however, were also agreeable to London merchants in general, who were eager to see that it was enforced. The act of 1534 coincided closely with the death of Wynkyn de Worde. Within a few years, the printed-book trade of England was transformed from a primarily foreign occupation to one that was almost entirely native English.

Bibliography

The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain. Vol. 3, 1400– 1557. Edited by Lotte Hellinga and J. B. Trapp. Cambridge, U.K., 2000.

Duff, E. Gordon. The English Provincial Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders to 1557. Cambridge, U.K., 1912.

——. The Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders of Westminster and London from 1476 to 1535. Cambridge, U.K., 1906.

Hellinga, Lotte. Caxton in Focus: The Beginning of Printing in England. London, 1982.

Needham, Paul. The Printer & the Pardoner: An Unrecorded Indulgence Printed by William Caxton for the Hospital of St. Mary Rounceval, Charing Cross. Washington, D.C., 1986.

Painter, George D. William Caxton: A Quincentenary Biography of England's First Printer. London and New York, 1976.

—PAUL NEEDHAM

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