William Caxton

Caxton Showing the First Specimen of His Printing to King Edward IV at the Almonry, Westminster by Daniel Maclise, 1851.

From Wiki: William Caxton (c. 1415~1422–c. March 1492) was an English merchant, diplomat, writer and printer. As far as is known, he was the first English person to work as a printer and the first to introduce a printing press into England. He was also the first English retailer of printed books (his London contemporaries were all Dutch, German or French).

Game of Chesse, from Jacobus de Cessolis, Westminster, about 1483 (Medieval Woodcuts Clipart Collection)

Sarum Missal, 1487: "This missal is the only surviving copy of the first ever edition of the pre-Reformation English prayer book and contains the first instance of Caxton's use of his publisher's mark as well as being an exceptionally early example of dual-colour printing." The Art Fund, http://www.artfund.org/artwork/10154/missale-ad-usum-sarum-sarum-missal

The full text of 2 of his works are in Gutenberg project. (By the way, this is a really worthy project which is commercial free so please donate to it when you get the chance. Dialogues in French and English. By William Caxton. (Adapted from a Fourteenth-Century Book of Dialogues in French and Flemish.) edited from Caxton's printed text (about 1483), with introduction by Henry Bradley, M.A., Joint-Editor of the New English Dictionary. Caxton's Game and Playe of the Chesse. 1474.

Fig. 11 Woodcut of a King and a Bishop playing chess, illustrated in William Caxton, Game and Playe of the Chesse,(London: Elliot Stock, 1883)viewed on the kostis velonis blog



The Game of Chess was the second book printed in the English language. The first book, also printed by Claxton was The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, also translated from French (of Raoul le Fèvre) and also in 1474. Caxton printed almost 100 books, and of these 20 were translations from French or Dutch into English. The Game of Chess has the second distinction of being the first book to be reprinted! "(The Printing Press)

The State Library of Victoria has a display of images of the woodcuts from the Myrrour of the Worlde in an online exhibit in a flash slideshow.

"Myrrour of the Worlde is one of the first English illustrated books, a translation of L’image du Monde (1464) - which in turn was chiefly derived from the medieval Latin text Imago Mundi. It is an introduction to the history of science, covering: geography, economics, music, cosmography, zoology, meteorology and astronomy. Myrrour of the Worlde ... was produced by England’s first printer, William Caxton (1422–91)."


From Chess Archaelogy, Jacopo da Cessole (Jacobus de Cessolis) was an Italian monk (1) from the Dominican brotherhood.

Books on or by William Caxton

William Caxton and English Literary Culture by N.F. Black, 2003.
Dialogues in French and English by William Caxton, reprinted 2010