Robert Recorde was the first person to write an original book on arithmetic in English, rather than in the then-standard Latin or Greek--and thus the first to write about math in a way that ordinary people could understand. He was, in effect, the first mathematics teacher in the English-speaking world. This biography, which provides a comprehensive overview of Recorde's life and work, traces the major influences on his study and his writing and charts his contribution to the development of mathematical and scientific thinking in Europe.