William Caxton

William Caxton was born in Kent around 1422, studied and apprenticed in London, where he rose in the merchant's guild and became a successful wool merchant. Appointed by the guild to a governorship in Bruges, Caxton traveled to several European cities where he learned about the movable type developed by Gutenberg. Caxton bought a printing press and published the first book printed in the English language: his translation of the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye in 1474, followed shortly thereafter by his translation of The Game and Play of Chess.

Caxton returned to England with his printing press and soon set up shop near Westminster Abbey under the heraldic banner "The Sign of the Red Pale" -- the closest we can come to the name for the first English language publishing house. There he published the first books printed in England, including the first dated book (1477), The Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers, translated from the French by his friend and patron Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, brother-in-law to Edward IV.