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 in Tamil language press at Madras. In South India the printing press had been established as early as 1578, but printing activities came to an end owing to a gradual decline in the religious zeal of successive generations of missionaries. Tamil printing stopped after 1612, as the numerous writings of Nobili and Manoel Martin lay unpublished in 1649 and 1660. There were some attempts to revive printing, but they proved short-lived. For instance, there is a reference to a Latin–Tamil grammar by Father Beschi, a Sanskrit scholar, having been printed at Ziegenbalg’s press. Ziegenbalg explained in a number of letters that the books