It was an enterprise that helped transform a marginalised language into a global powerhouse. Lydia Zeldenrust tells Spencer Mizen how, some 550 years ago, a middle-aged merchant called William Caxton did something that would change the course of literary history: he produced the first book ever printed in the English language. She also explores the challenges Caxton faced – from defying the hegemony of Latin and French to deciding which of England’s many regional dialects to plump for – in order to go where no printer had gone before.

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