Printing Money

#4705 Caxton 1

William Caxton brought the recently invented printing press to England in the 1470s and soon produced exquisite pages like this. Taken from ‘The Game and Playe of the Chesse’ which he printed in 1480, he had already translated and published The History of Troy (1473), then in Flemish or French, making it the first book ever printed in English, albeit in Bruges. While Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is considered the first work printed here in England on Caxton’s first Westminster press in London, 1476. ‘The Game and Playe of the Chesse’, once thought to hold that honour, is an allegory of rank and role in late medieval society (evidently written with razor sharp wit). Translating, printing & publishing made Caxton unique in England, and likely made him the first retailer of printed books.