Some have taken me to task for my unflattering portrayal of the great inventor of printing, Johann (or Johannes) Gutenberg. Why, reviewers and readers often ask, did you portray him as so egocentric and selfish? There are two answers to this question.

The first is that I don’t see him at all that way. In my view, he’s less egocentric than driven; he’s not so much selfish as wholly devoted to achieving his goal, no matter what the cost. I don’t believe that his goal was mainly to achieve glory for himself, although this cannot be excluded as playing a role. I believe he was one of those obsessive geniuses so focused on his prize that the rest of life—human interactions, basic hygiene, you name it—came far behind. Today we might call him autistic or Asperger’s or “on the spectrum” – he was arrogant, combative, vituperative, and absolutely pig-headed in his determination to see the thing through. It took ten to fifteen years to perfect the technology he began work on in the 1440s in Strassburg, and through it all, he didn’t give up.

The second answer is: I surmise all this from the historical record. I didn’t set out to topple Germany’s most cherished hero from his pedestal. Not at all. But as I delved into his life, and began to grasp the way he dealt with people, I began to see him as a brilliant but fairly callous guy. He was ruthless in defending his own interests; he did have the Mainz treasurer seized for nonpayment of his annuities; two of his three businesses ended in acrimonious lawsuits. The most telling lawsuit for me was one filed against him by a jilted woman who claimed he had promised her marriage. Gutenberg won the suit, but apparently insulted one of her witnesses so colorfully that he was fined for his foul language.

He was a complex character: devout and close to clerics of the cathedral chapter, and yet bitter, too, possibly seeing himself as a victim of the endless strife between the guilds and his own patrician class. Ultimately Johann was not accepted as a full-fledged member of the “Elder” class, because his mother was a commoner. Because he didn’t have four patrician grandparents, he wasn’t allowed to be a member of the elite club the Companions of the Mint. He left Mainz in his early 20s to seek his fortune elsewhere. His biographer, Albert Kapr, noted that he drank “impressive quantities” of wine. I imagined him as a person driven not only by creative energy, but a chip on his shoulder and a need to make his mark.

In the novel, Peter constantly asks himself and the Abbot Trithemius whether a person has to be hard in this way to achieve something truly great. (The movie “Whiplash” raises the same question). It’s a question for which psychologists don’t really have an answer. It is necessary to have a kind of tunnel vision, to not care in the least what others think or do or say, to create something truly new and transformative? Many great artists have been this way; megalomaniacal behavior is fairly common among tech innovators and fine printers alike. Maybe it goes back to the God of Hebrew scripture: yes, he was generative, but a little too heavy on the fire and brimstone for my taste.

Many novelists create timelines as they’re writing. I had a big brown paper scroll on my study wall on which I tracked the historical actions of the pope, the archbishop, the guilds, and Gutenberg’s printing workshop. But the real timeline, the one that made my heart beat fast, was something much smaller and more arcane: two taped sheets of paper that by now are soft with folding and scribbling and use. (One half is here above, the full thing is below)

These scanned images don’t do justice to my enlargement of the production schedule for the Bible of 42 lines first developed by the German bibliographer Paul Schwenke in 1923. This was the key to it all: the secret heart of Peter’s story, his and my Holy Grail. Schwenke had analyzed the typesetters’ peculiarities and come up with 6 compositors with different stylistic tics; each had a number of “production units” assigned to him. A testament to Schwenke’s brilliance arrived sixty years later, when physicists at UC Davis analyzed the composition of the ink in two different copies of the Gutenberg Bible. What they found blew everyone’s mind: they could actually identify pages that had been printed with the same batch of ink; this occurred at two different places, marked with a big dot and a star. Even more incredibly, perhaps, their analysis absolutely confirmed Schwenke’s ordering of when each quire had been set and printed.

For me this chart was heaven-sent. No one to my knowledge had done what I did next: determine which books of Scripture corresponded to the pages. You can imagine the nerdish pleasure I derived in puzzling this all out: which compositor was setting exactly which pages on what day. They were not, of course, printed in reading order, but parceled out to different compositors; thus the Book of Jeremiah, for example, was set concurrently with Luke and some of the Psalms. I also had to establish a larger timeframe for when the crew began the actual printing and finished it: this was made easier by a recently rediscovered letter from the Kaiser’s secretary, Piccolomini, asserting that he’d seen quires in Frankfurt in October 1454. I was able to overlay a calendar at the top, in smudged pencil, incorporating political events and specific proven moments in the Bible production, like the decision to increase the size of the edition just after three quires had been printed.

Closely studying this chart, one can observe many things. There were pauses and breaks; there were moments when one compositor took over the work of another. There were periods where two presses were used in a curious zigzag fashion, printing each other’s recto and versos, as proven by the ink. There are days of long and short light, freezing days of winter and boiling days of summer, and on each of these days I could make an educated guess at which exact gospel texts these men were reading as they set them. I felt so privileged that in my omniscient capacity as author I gave a similar chart to Peter, too, to hang up in the workshop. Making a book, whether in the 15^th century of the 21^st, is what the French call “un oeuvre de longue haleine” ––a work of long breath. It helps to have a chart to see the end.

 

 

The first question readers of historical fiction usually ask is how much is real, and how much made up. It’s a fair and important question, given that that novels and films reach a larger audience than those who read books of history. How close is this story to the real story? all of us should ask. I’ve been amused by the assumptions some have made about Gutenberg’s Apprentice. One reviewer said “obviously, Christie made the whole thing up;” another lauded my historical accuracy. A surprising number turn to Wikipedia to “refute” my version of the tale. And that is the main point I want to make here: however well-grounded this story may be in fact, it will always only be my version, one interpretation, of the complex, fragmentary history of the invention that has come down to us.

Much as an author has to finally believe in her version, literally fall in love with her story, we should never lose sight of the fact that this is just one reasonably well-informed view of what may have really happened. Others steeped in the same research may and have come to very different views of the roles played by Gutenberg, Fust and Schoeffer. I based my view on contemporary accounts from the 15^th century of Schoeffer as a gifted typographer, as well as his own documented conversations with the Abbot Trithemius that he had invented something key at a point early on in the Bible’s production. Others have doubted the veracity of Trithemius’s account, but I am not among them.

What I will say is that I have been a journalist for thirty years, and am therefore a stickler for facts. Anyone who’s been fact-checked for a long magazine article knows that you have to double- and triple-check every assertion you make. Many have also asked me why I didn’t simply write this book as nonfiction. The answer is simple: there’s not enough proof on which to build a nonfiction book. Thanks to invading armies and bombs and the natural reticence of medieval people to conveniently document their actions for posterity, reading the Gutenberg record is like reading tea leaves. There are some facts; there are the books; the rest is inference. The journalist in me built this story on fairly solid bedrock; I spell out all my assumptions and sources in a detailed Historical Note on this site (under “Gutenberg Bible”). Unlike a lot of novelists I admire, I didn’t put it in the back of the book, which was long enough already. It lives in perpetuity online—that’s one nice gift of the digital world to the age of print.

 

 

 

How incredibly beautiful illuminated manuscripts and early printed books can be. One of the joys of the digital age is getting gems from painted margins delivered directly to your desktop via scholars like Erik Kwakkel and Jesse Hurlbut. Maybe because I spent so much time in the mind of my former scribe Peter Schoeffer, I often stop to think about the man or woman whose artistry we so admire.

They bent over intently, like we do, above an angled surface, their necks and shoulders tense. This, to me, is the enduring interest of history, realizing that people who lived half a millennium before us behaved much as we do today. As I type now, I’m remembering the words of the British medieval manuscript expert Michelle Brown, who says the scribe “unleashes tongues with the fingers.” It’s the physical aspect of that work that interests me. Because they didn’t only “enter the desert of the book to preach with the pen,” you see. They endured brutal, backbreaking, eye-fogging hours and weeks and years of work for God—which is to say for beauty and transcendence.

We know this because medieval scribes didn’t just leave us gorgeous copies of the great works of antiquity, and all those shimmering and gilded forms. In margin after margin, they also left us little bombshells of complaint. I quoted a few of them in “Gutenberg’s Apprentice,” but couldn’t include them all. So here without further ado are a few gems culled through the ages from the marginalia—a little tour of calligraphic hell. Next time you carp about your neck from hours spent scrolling through your Facebook feed, consider this: at least they left us something of enduring value.

 

“Let the reader’s voice honor the writer’s pen. Let the copyist be permitted to put an end to his labor.”

“The parchment is hairy.”

“Thank God it will soon be dark.”

“Thin ink, bad vellum, difficult text.”

“The lamp gives bad light.”

“X labored on the writing of this book, and his body was much debilitated by early rising.”

“Three fingers write, but the entire body toils.”

“Just as the sailor years for port, the writer longs for the last line.”

“Now I’ve finished. For Christ’s sake give me a drink.”

 

 

 

There won’t be any other like it. Indulge me in sharing a few highlights before 2014 fades utterly away. It was the year not only of “Gutenberg’s Apprentice,” but the unveiling of a unique replica 15^th century press at the St Bride Foundation in London, (shown at left) handcrafted by the printer and woodworker Alan May. I had the privilege of launching my novel right next to it, but couldn’t share the photos until it was formally presented two weeks later at the Printing History Society’s 50^th anniversary conference “Landmarks in Printing.” To my delight and not a little abashment, I was allowed to address the conference’s heavy-duty contingent of early printing experts. Fresh from my three-week American tour, which included bookstores and type foundries, literary centers and colleges and libraries, I felt reasonably prepared, and thrilled to be able to share the few nuggets of hitherto unremarked research that might be of interest to bona fide scholars.

Many remarkable meetings occurred in my travels, but several in particular bear noting. Thirteen years ago I read about some research at Princeton; in Seattle last October I actually met the physicist who did that research (with the noted incunabulist Paul Needham) and thereby launched me on the mad enterprise of telling the story of the Gutenberg Bible. The odds of me meeting Blaise Agüera y Arcas were hugely long; it happened only through the happy chance of sitting next to his neighbor at a booksellers’ convention. The perfect synchronicity of it amazed me – as did Blaise’s timely appearance at a technology conference in London that allowed him to attend my British launch party. Another thrilling encounter took place in cyberspace, when I tweeted a photo of Peter Schöffer’s earliest 2-color types back at Erik Spiekermann, a world-renowned typographer and graphic designer who at the time I hadn’t heard of. A lively friendship has ensued, and the exchanging of many books and impressions as we both migrate between Berlin and London, and shortly, Munich (stay tuned for news of our panel at the DLD conference on the persistence of print in a digital age, which I’ve secretly titled “Gutenberg’s Revenge.”)

Twitter enabled that connection, as social media and email have allowed me to spread the news of the book far and wide to potential readers. I preached the Gutenberg gospel in newspapers, on the radio, in person, and even on TV. Through it all, I felt a marvelous, circular serendipity at work. I had followed my bliss, as Joseph Campbell would say, and it led me back home. The publication of my first novel, about my first love, printing, has sewn together so many disparate strands in my life, from printing to tech, from London to San Francisco. It is being read by atheists and Catholics, technologists and craftspeople; besides the big papers, it’s also been written up in Fine Books and Collections, InfoWeek and CatholicHotDish. I can’t help but think what a kick my grandfather, the mid-century type founder and compositor, would have gotten out of it all. Remarkably, my private obsession has done its own small part in bringing the wonderful craft of letterpress back into view.

*with a tip of the hat to Tom Lehrer, maker of irreverantly brilliant songs

How much do we love books? Let us count the ways—till Christmas and beyond. Starting today, your favorite quote about the beauty and value of the book could win you this beautiful letterpress keepsake, as well as a chance at a free copy of the gorgeous hardback edition of Gutenberg’s Apprentice.

The keepsake was printed on a Vandercook proofing press in Santa Cruz, California, at the Foolscap Press. It features a woodblock print by the prolific 16^th century German artist Jost Amman, showing a view of a contemporary printing house. The birth of the printed book took place in just such a workshop, though probably not one with such lovely light streaming through arched and leaded windows!

Winning entries will receive a keepsake in the mail from Harper Books, my American publisher, and we’ll put your name in the hat for a free copy of the book. It’s truly beautiful, as I’ve written before.  Please submit your favorite quote about books or literature more generally here. (We can only ship to U.S. addresses, alas.)

I’ll feature the best quotes at gutenbergsapprentice.com as time goes on. And to start us off, here’s mine—from the year 1493, in keeping with our medieval theme. It’s from the great Nuremberg printer Anton Koberger, who sent out his magnus opus to customers with this printed wish:

“Speed now, Book…a thousand hands will grasp you with warm desire, and read you with great attention.”

My novel of early printing has appeared in beautiful dress on both sides of the Atlantic, and foreign editions coming next year will offer other feasts for the eyes. But one binding, it must be said, trumps them all.

I received it while on tour in California, thoughtfully swaddled in bubble wrap and pre-packaged for the journey home. Flush from a wonderful literary lunch at the Montalvo Arts Center, I was utterly unprepared for the extraordinary objet de luxe I would unwrap.

Master binder Peggy Gotthold, half of the Santa Cruz, California, fine printers Foolscap Press, had been secretly hand-binding a special presentation copy of “Gutenberg’s Apprentice” for several months. (I say ‘secretly’ because I had been working closely with Foolscap, who printed the lovely letterpress keepsake for the novel; I’ve been friends with Peggy since we both apprenticed at the Yolla Bolly Press decades ago.)

Like the novel, it’s a kind of Bible in a box. The box containing this unique copy is covered in black moiré and sectioned to open flat onto textured white linen linings that feel equally ecclesiastical. The book itself is bound in full black leather with raised cords along the spine; its title and author are stamped in gold textura letters on that spine, on inlaid leather squares of ruby red. In the hand it feels exactly like a finer version of a Bible or pocket encyclopedia that once held pride of place in many homes. What most brought tears to my eyes, though, were the designs that Peggy also tooled in red on the front cover and the back. The front reads “Incipit” in Gutenberg’s own letters, Latin for “Here begins”—a sentiment that applies as much to my own writing life as to every book of Scripture. The back cover features the beautiful double shield that was Peter Schoeffer’s printer’s sign, and for many years the emblem of the Frankfurt Book Fair.

In the hand the book is elegant, compact, with ivory endpapers of Fabriano Roma that blend perfectly into the subtle, handsome pages of the Harper hardback. It should come as no surprise that I think books are for holding, and the better ones will hold through time. The Gutenberg Bible certainly did—and in its own modest way, my beautifully bound new book promises the same.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you only get to be a debut author once. It has been a marathon, but from the start I was determined to enjoy the ride. Author tours are a rare privilege these days—so every stop was a gift (though I might have skipped the 200-mile round trip on a rainy Saturday for a half-dozen hardy souls).  Above all, the three weeks I spent on the west and east coast of America reaffirmed my faith in readers and books; everywhere I went, audiences were keen to talk about the meaning of books today, print or digital, and learn more about the story of the first printed book my novel tells.

What blew my mind most, though, were the many moments of serendipity and staggering coincidence. My very first event was at Book Passage, one of the most dynamic bookstores in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a parting gift, event manager and book artist Melissa Cistaro gave me a tiny volume she’d found scouring used book sales: one of the famous thirty miniature Christmas Keepsakes printed by AR “Tommy” Tommassini between 1947 and 1977, which my grandfather Les Lloyd collected. This one was titled “Pages from the Gutenberg Bible in miniscule facsimile,” but that wasn’t the only thing that stopped my heart. That very afternoon, I had received an email out of the blue from a stranger who’d picked up a copy of my grandfather’s book about Tommy’s collection, called “Thirty Plus One” and wanted to know more about it.

Another stop in San Francisco was the Arion Press, home of the hot type foundry M&H Type, which in its previous incarnation as Mackenzie and Harris my grandfather ran for decades. The whole family turned out for my talk and a tour of the Monotype casting operation by Lewie Mitchell, 83, who’s been making type there for the past 60-plus years. As it happens, he’s also the man who trained the typecasters at Portland’s C.C. Stern Type Foundry, where I was privileged to present my talk the following week. After the talk, one Arion printer even turned up with a copy of a little book of printing terms Les and I printed long ago, called “A Printer’s Ollapodrida.”

The most extraordinary connection of all came in Tacoma, when I learned that a fellow author’s neighbor was the physicist and early printing lover Blaise Aguera y Arcas, whose research at Princeton was the actual spark for my novel. Without his high-resolution scans of Gutenberg’s early types, and the questions they raised, I never would have thought of writing about the subject at all. I’d always wanted to meet Blaise and discuss his research; to my amazement and joy, we met at my Seattle reading and have since shared the excitement only fellow nerds focused on an arcane subject can share. The whole story came full circle in London, a few weeks later, but that is for another post. (All I can say is that it involves another landmark in printing and a press embargo.)

 

 

 

 

Every now and then a leaf (a single two-sided page) from the Gutenberg Bible turns up for sale at auction. I was recently asked if I would buy one, if I had the cash. As it happens, I—and the rest of you—have a chance to put that question to the test next week. At New York’s Swann Auction Galleries on Oct 21^st, a single page from the Acts of the Apostles printed on paper will be offered for a guide price of between $40,000 and $50,000. (A similar leaf went last year for $55,200). This new leaf (pictured) has two handsome blue and red illuminated initials; I’d dearly love to know from which original copy of the Bible it comes.

The history of these so-called “Noble Fragments” may give us a clue. In the 20^th century, two different owners dismembered what they believed to be incomplete copies, and sold them leaf by leaf. The Gutenberg Bible is usually bound in two volumes, sometimes three. The dealer Gabriel Wells took apart a lone Volume II in 1921; Charles Scribners Sons did the same to a different Volume II in 1953, according to the Museum of Biblical Art. There was only one problem. Scribners’ volume was not in fact ‘incomplete’. It had merely been separated by historical misfortune from its companion Volume I, later discovered in Mons, Belgium.

The illumination of the leaf offered in New York differs from both the Wells and Scribners “Noble Fragments,” which MOBIA has reproduced here. Maybe it matches some other copy preserved in part, or one of the 130 or so lost to posterity; sharp incunabulist eyes and search engines will surely know. So much that went missing during the second world war has turned up in recent years, with scholars exchanging news and digital views online.

I’m not a collector, myself. But even if I were, and could afford it, I wouldn’t buy a piece of something that belongs to something else. It’s a little bit like paying ransom: when there’s money to be made, the abductions start.