William Caxton was an English merchant, writer, printer and translator. Caxton started his career as a merchant, apprenticing under Robert Large’s Mercers’ Company. Trained at the profession, he went on to establish his own company and in the course became a successful and wealthy merchant. Meanwhile, he even took up the role of the governor of the Company of Nation of Merchant Adventurers of London. The 1460s witnessed a turn in Caxton’s career, as he slowly drifted towards literature. He tried his hand at translation, translating in English works by French originals. However, the major turn in his career came when he visited Cologne. Impressed by the German printing technology and realizing the commercial potential of the same, he introduced England to the world of printing press. He became the first English person to work as a printer and also the first English retailer of printed books. Over the course of his latter career, he printed over 108 books in different genres, four-fifth of them being in English language. He is greatly responsible for standardizing English language through printing. Such was the demand for his printed books that even after his death in 1492, the press continued to thrive for another 40 years under Wynkyn de Worde, one of his immigrant workers.
