William Caxton is familiar as England's first printer, but there has not been a full-length scholarly study of him in this century. The result is that a false picture of Caxton has arisen. From the fact that he produced the first editions of Chaucer and Malory, and made many translations from French and Dutch, it was presumed that Caxton was a man of considerable literary talents. It was thought that his motives for introducing printing to England were primarily literary and the sketchy facts of his career were interpreted in this light. In this comprehensive new biographical and critical study, N.F. Blake, Senior Lecturer in English Language at Liverpool University, has discovered much new material about Caxton and reinterpreted the old evidence. A far more detailed portrait emerges, and a very different man. Caxton was a mercerwho made a success of his trade in the Low Countries, and became Governor of the English Nation at Bruges. Among the luxury items he probably sent back to London were Flemish illuminate manuscripts. The printing press he set up in Bruges and then moved to Westminster was designed to supply the demand for fashionable literature more cheaply and effectively. From Mr Blake's analysis of the many productions of Caxton's press, it appears that the editions of Chaucer were not from the best manuscripts; that Caxton's own translations were very hastily executed; and that his prologues and epilogues to his patrons are little more than advertisements in a pastiche of the court style. Caxton was a merchant and not a man of letters; he was simple, pious, successful, and in many ways a very typical fifteenth-century merchant. Detailed research and careful historical method make Caxton and his world a most valuable contribution to our understanding of the man and of the age in which he lived. (Inside cover).