CAXTON, WILLIAM

(1422-91), first Eng. printer; 6. in the Weald of Kent; apprenticed to a London mercer, after whose death he went to Bruges to complete his apprenticeship, was succe ful in busine , and became gov. of the Company of Merchant Adventurers in the Low Countries. Afterwards he entered the service of Margaret, Duche of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV., and about this time he learned the art of printing. Returning to England in 1476, he set up his printing-pre at the Red Pale in the Almonry of Westminster. His first book known to have been printed in England was the Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, 1477; but he had already printed in English at Bruges the Recuyell of the His to ryes of Troye (1474), and the Game and Playe of Che e. He printed, among other books, the principal works of Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, and Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Arthur, and was himself the of numerous works.