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While all this was going on William Caxton
published the very first printed book in England. The book was called 'Dictes of Sayengs of the Philosophres'. Note the old English spelling.
The printing press, which Caxton used to make the book, was invented in Germany by a guy called Johannes Gutenberg. A printing press is a device that
applies pressure to an inked surface which rests on paper and transfers the inked type to the paper. This would then make a book, or at least a page of a book.
Before this any copies had to be handwritten and that would take a very long time. A press could, in those days, produce over 3,000 pages a day.
Caxton built his press in Westminster in London in 1476. He actually
showed it to Edward IV so it sort of had royal approval.
Caxton had been encouraged to translate his first book, 'The Recuyell
of the Histories of Troye' from French to English by Margaret, the duchess of Burgundy, who was the sister of the English king Edward IV. She became one of his
most important patrons. This book had been the very first to be printed in the English language, probably in Belgium. A copy was sold a few years ago and cost £1
million.
There is no doubt that the printing press was one of the most important inventions of all time. Think where we would be if all books still had to hand
written. Yes, I know we have the kindle but if no one had started mass producing books so many things would have been very, very different. By 1500 it is thought
that printing presses all over Europe had produced over 20 million books. Caxton himself printed over 100 different books in his lifetime. He died in 1492, the same
year as Columbus reached the American continent.
In 1479 Caxton published a book written by a man called Geoffrey Chaucer. The book was called The Canterbury Tales and is now a very famous book. It had
been written some 100 years earlier. Chaucer had died, almost unknown, in about 1400AD. The only examples of his work had been written copies and someone who had
been given a handwritten copy told Caxton that the printed version wasn't the same as his written copy so Caxton reprinted The Canterbury Tales four years later in
1483, using the original manuscript.
Forward to 1483AD
