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 well as the sharp fall in unit costs, led to the issuing of the first newspapers (see "Relation") which opened up an entirely new field for conveying up-to-date information to the public. Incunable are surviving pre-16th century print works which are collected by many of the libraries in Europe and North America. The printing press was also a factor in the establishment of a community of scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries through the establishment of widely disseminated scholarly journals, helping to bring on the scientific revolution. Because of the printing press, authorship became more meaningful and profitable. It