The first book with an unmistakable imprint was his _Dictes and Sayings
of Philosophers_, which had been translated for him by the gallant but
unfortunate Lord Rivers, who was murdered in Pomfret castle by order of
Richard III. The colophon of this states that it was printed in the Abbey
of Westminster in 1477. He appears to have printed but one single volume
upon vellum, which is _The Doctrynal of Sapience_, 1489, of which a copy,
formerly in the King's Library at Windsor, is now in the British Museum.
This is a very interesting work as connected with Caxton, being entirely
translated by himself into English verse. It is an allegorical fiction,
in which the whole system of literature and science comes under
consideration.

Caxton died in 1491, after having produced, within twenty years of his
active career, more than fifty volumes of mark, including Chaucer, Gower,
Lydgate, and his own _Chronicle_ of England. Before Caxton's time the
youths of England were supplied with their school-books and their
reading, which was necessarily very limited, by the Company of
Stationers, or text-writers, who wrote and sold, by an exclusive royal
privilege, the school-books then in use. These were chiefly the A B Cs,
(called _Absies_), the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the address to the
Virgin Mary, called _Ave Maria_.

The location of these stationers was in the neighborhood of St. Paul's
Cathedral, whence arose the names Paternoster Row, Creed Lane, Amen
Corner, and Ave Maria Lane. Manuscripts of a higher order, that is, in
the form of books, were mostly supplied by the monks, and were scarcely
accessible to any but the wealthy, from their extreme cost. Thus, a
Chaucer, which may now be bought for a few shillings, then cost more than
a hundred pounds; and we read of two hundred sheep and ten quarters of
wheat being given for a volume of homilies.