greatest things which ever happened for literature, for books
then became much more plentiful and were not nearly so dear as
they had been, and so many more people could afford to buy them.
And thus learning spread.

It is not quite known who first discovered the art of printing,
but William Caxton was the first man who set up a printing-press
in England. He was an English wool merchant who had gone to live
in Bruges, but he was very fond of books, and after a time he
gave up his wool business, came back to England, and began to
write and print books. One of the first books he printed was
Malory's Morte d'Arthur.

In the preface Caxton tells us how, after he had printed some
other books, many gentlemen came to him to ask him why he did not
print a history of King Arthur, "which ought most to be
remembered among us Englishmen afore all the Christian kings; to
whom I answered that diverse men hold opinion that there was no
such Arthur, and all such books as be made of him be but fained
matters and fables."

But the gentlemen persuaded Caxton until at last he undertook to
"imprint a book of the noble histories of the said King Arthur
and of certaine of his knights, after a copy unto me delivered,
which copy Sir Thomas Malory tooke out of certaine bookes in the
Frenche, and reduced it into English."

It is a book, Caxton says, "wherein ye shall find many joyous and
pleasant histories, and noble and renowned acts. . . . Doe after
the good and leave the ill, and it shall bring you unto good fame