William Caxton

Before he became a printer, William Caxton worked as a merchant and spent many years in the Burgundian Netherlands, where he was close to courtly and commercial life. That wider European experience mattered: it connected him to the new technology of printing and to the fashionable French texts he would later translate into English.

Caxton is generally remembered as the first person to print books in English. In the 1470s he produced early printed editions of works including his translation of Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, and he later set up a press at Westminster. There he printed a remarkable range of books, helping move English literature from handwritten manuscripts into print.

He was not only a businessman but also a translator, editor, and practical mediator between languages, readers, and markets. Because he printed and translated at a time when English spelling and usage varied widely, his work is often seen as part of the long process that gave written English a broader national reach.