ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -William Caxton (b. 1415–24–1492) was the person who brought the technology of printing to England. Before Caxton set up his printing press in Westminster, London, in 1475 or 1476, books in England were copied out by hand, by scribes.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Printing Press In 1476, Caxton set up a printing press in the vicinity of Westminster Abbey and began to print books, some in Latin as had been traditional, but Caxton also printed books in English. Because there was no standardization in English spelling, Caxton’s choices often became the standard.

Detailed explanation-3: -Caxton is credited with standardising the English language through printing-that is, homogenising regional dialects and largely adopting the London dialect. This facilitated the expansion of English vocabulary, the regularisation of inflection and syntax, and a widening gap between the spoken and the written word.

Detailed explanation-4: -William Caxton was the first Englishman to learn to use a printing press. The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye was his first printed book, and the first book printed anywhere in English. It was produced in 1473 on the Continent, in either Bruges or Ghent.

Detailed explanation-5: -Goldsmith and inventor Johannes Gutenberg was a political exile from Mainz, Germany when he began experimenting with printing in Strasbourg, France in 1440. He returned to Mainz several years later and by 1450, had a printing machine perfected and ready to use commercially: The Gutenberg press.