Bruges, The Game and Playe of the Chesse. In 1477, he was "in the abbey of Westminster, by London," and then and there published The Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers. He was then a very old man, but he did good service as a printer before his death in 1491. Blades estimates the entire product of his press at 18,000 pages, nearly all of which were of folio size. Compared with his great rivals on the Continent, Caxton cannot be accorded high rank as editor or publisher, but there was no printer of his time who labored more diligently.
In 1480, Lettou and Machlinia began to print at London. Wynken de Worde, Richard Pynson, Julian Notary and William Faques were also printers of that city before 1500.
In 1480, Theodoric Rood, of Cologne, printed at Oxford. In the same year, an unnamed printer, known to bibliographers as The School-master of St. Albans, was at Saint Albans.
The first printing press in Scotland was put up at Edinburgh in 1507; the first in Ireland at Dublin in 1551.
Printing was first practised in the New World in the city of Mexico, by Juan Cromberger, or his agent Pablos, between 1536 and 1540.[1] The second printing press in North America was put up by Stephen Daye at Cambridge, in 1638, and the first work printed on it, the Freeman's Oath, was dated 1639.
The German origin of printing is fairly shown by the names, unquestionably German, of nearly all the men who introduced printing in Southern Europe. The workmanship of these men leads to the same conclusion, for the expert will see in their books evidences of the use of the punch,
- ↑ Thomas, in his History of Printing, said that printing was done in Mexico before 1569. The subsequent discovery of Mexican books with earlier imprints has compelled a gradual putting back of the date to 1540, which is that of the earliest existing book. There is a tradition about a Mexican book said to be printed in 1536, but the book is not in existence, and the correctness of this date has not been proved. Harrisse quotes an author who says that printing was taken to Mexico in 1532, by the Viceroy Mendoza, and that Pablos was the first printer. But Mendoza did not go to Mexico until 1535. Pablos was the foreman of Cromberger, who had one office in Seville and one in Mexico.
