Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Before Caxton -- Caxton in Bruges : merchant and diplomat -- Caxton and Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy : his first translation -- Caxton in Cologne (1471-2) -- Caxton's plan for a printing house -- The first books printed in English : a tale of the known and the unknown -- Caxton and his patrons in Westminster -- Books multiplied : Caxton's publications until 1486 -- Printing in Oxford (1478-83) -- The first printers in London (1480-c. 1486) -- The press at St. Albans (1479-81, 1486) -- Caxton's final years (1487-92) -- 'Standing abasshed' : between patrons and readers -- Richard Pynson : the canny entrepreneur (1491-1529) -- Wynkyn de Worde : taking over Caxton's firm (1492-6) -- Wynkyn de Worde's career as independent publisher (1497-1535) -- Printing devotional texts in English -- Contemporaries outside the mainstream.

This work takes a fresh approach to the first 60 years of printing in England by placing Caxton, his contemporaries and the later generations in the broad context of the history of book production between the middle of the 15th century and the Reformation.