Caxton's Chaucer

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  • Intro

    In 1476, Caxton introduced the printing press to England, revolutionising forever the way that books were created. This book, produced in the same year, is the first printed edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Caxton printed all kinds of texts: mythic tales, popular stories, poems, phrasebooks, devotional pieces and grammars. Thanks to the invention of printing, books became quicker to produce and cheaper to purchase - although they were still a luxury. An ever-increasing number of writers were able to publish their works, literacy rates rose, language gradually became more uniform, and an early form of modern English began to emerge.

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