Gutenberg's Apprentice - Softcover

Christie, Alix

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1443433837 ISBN 13: 9781443433839

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014

Synopsis

The untold story of the world's first technology start-up.

Alix Christie's rich and enthralling debut novel reveals the explosive human drama behind the world-changing invention of the printing press and the creation of the world's most famous book: the Gutenberg Bible.

The year is 1450. Peter Schoeffer, an ambitious young scribe, returns from Paris to Mainz, his hometown on the Rhine, at the behest of his foster father, a forward-thinking merchant and bookseller. There he is unwillingly thrown into a workshop that his father has financed, a strange, dark place run by a driven, caustic master named Johann Gutenberg. Its purpose is the manufacture of books in a new-and according to some, blasphemous-way: with a secret invention known as a printing press.

Gutenberg's Apprentice is the story of Peter's journey from reluctant apprentice to overseer of the most important book ever made, and all that he seeks and is forced to understand along the way. It is the tale of a young man torn between two fathers, his resentment and grudging love for a man both brilliant and stormy, and their battle to prevail against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, including struggles within the workshop and against the crushing power of the Catholic Church. Each step they take awakens age-old conflicts between art and commerce, tradition bristling against technological progress, and fate versus human agency. This is the untold story of the last great communications revolution, with all the wonder and doubt the digital world provokes today vividly experienced half a millennium ago, in the workshop that produced the world's first printed book.

Writing with a rare sense of authenticity, Alix Christie has created in her debut novel a richly imagined, emotionally powerful and spectacularly convincing account of one of the most important events in Western history. Gutenberg's Apprentice is a profoundly moving story that will change forever your perception of what a book-handwritten, printed, or electronic-is or can be.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

An enthralling literary debut that evokes one of the most momentous events in history, the birth of printing in medieval Germany—a story of invention, intrigue, and betrayal.

Youthful, ambitious Peter Schoeffer is on the verge of professional success as a scribe in Paris when his foster father, the wealthy merchant and bookseller Johann Fust, summons him home to corruption- riddled, feud-plagued Mainz to meet "a most amazing man."

Johann Gutenberg, a driven and caustic inventor, has devised a revolutionary—and, to some, blasphemous—method of bookmaking: a machine he calls a printing press. Fust is financing Gutenberg's workshop, and he orders Peter to become Gutenberg's apprentice. Resentful at having to abandon a prestigious career as a scribe, Peter begins his education in the "darkest art."

As his skill grows, so too does his admiration for Gutenberg and his dedication to their daring venture: printing copies of the Holy Bible. But when outside forces align against them, Peter finds himself torn between two father figures—the generous Fust and the brilliant, mercurial Gutenberg, who inspires Peter to achieve his own mastery.

Caught between the genius and the merchant, the old ways and the new, Peter and the men he admires must work together to prevail against overwhelming obstacles in a battle that will change history . . . and irrevocably transform them all.

About the Author:

Alix Christie is an author, journalist, and letterpress printer. She learned the craft as an apprentice to two master California printers, and owns and operates a 1910 Chandler & Price letterpress. She holds a master of fine arts degree from Saint Mary's College of California and lives in London, where she reviews books and arts for The Economist. Gutenberg's Apprentice is her first novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1443433837
• ISBN 13: 9781443433839
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416