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
Rotary printing press also patented by William Nicholson, invented by Beaucher of France in the 1780s and by Friedrich Koenig in the early 19th century. Rotary drum printing was invented by Richard March Hoe in 1843. An 1844 patent replaced the reciprocating platforms used in earlier designs with a fixed platform served by rotating drums, and through a series of advances a complete rotary printing press was perfected in 1846, and patented in 1847. It appeared in Edinburgh in 1851 and then traveled to London where it was used by the Times newspaper in 1853, where it then traveled to France in 1866