Literature in the other languages of Britain The most important work of literature surviving from the Middle Cornish period is "An Ordinale Kernewek" ("The Cornish Ordinalia"), a 9000-line religious drama composed around the year 1400. Three plays in Cornish known as the Ordinalia have survived from this period. The spread of printing affected the transmission of literature across Britain and Ireland. The first book printed in English, William Caxton's own translation of "Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye", was printed abroad in 1473, to be followed by the establishment of the first printing press in England in 1474. The establishment of a printing press in Scotland under
Printing press Printing press A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the cloth, paper or other medium was brushed or rubbed repeatedly to achieve the transfer of ink, and accelerated the process. Typically used for texts, the invention and global spread of the printing press was one of the most influential events in the second millennium. Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith by profession, developed, circa 1439, a printing system by adapting existing