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Summary
Summary
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, rich in atmosphere and historical detail, told through the lives of the three men who made it possible.
Youthful, ambitious Peter Schoeffer is on the verge of professional success as a scribe in Paris when his foster father, wealthy merchant and bookseller Johann Fust, summons him home to corrupt, 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, his adopted son, 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: copies of the Holy Bible. But mechanical difficulties and the crushing power of the Catholic Church threaten their work. As outside forces align against them, Peter finds himself torn between two father figures: the generous Fust, who saved him from poverty after his mother died; 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--a battle that will change history . . . and irrevocably transform them.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This detailed historical novel takes readers into Gutenberg's 15th-century Mainz workshop to experience the frustration and exhilaration of designing, typesetting, and rolling the first printed Bible off the press. Focusing on contributions made by Gutenberg's associates, the story follows the apprenticeship of future publishing pioneer Peter Schoeffer from the day Peter's adopted father, merchant-investor Johann Fust, tells him to give up life as a Parisian scribe in order to learn a new trade using Gutenberg's secret technology and techniques. For unhappy Peter, printed texts seem less sacred, and certainly less artistic, than hand-copied manuscripts. Demanding and sometimes devious, Gutenberg proves a difficult boss; worst of all, the equipment still has bugs to work out. Only when Peter comes up with his own innovation does he appreciate print's artistry and power. Despite obstacles posed by the Church, guilds, family, and friends, Fust, Gutenberg, and Schoeffer's tenuous collaboration culminates in the Gutenberg Bible. Contemporary readers suspicious of digital texts will sympathize with Peter's mixed feelings towards print. History buffs will savor the moment the inventor, the scribe, and the merchant make a decision that leads them out of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance. Journalist Christie's fiction debut descriptions of technical processes and medieval society are enthralling; the romance and personal melodrama are less compelling. At her best, she demonstrates a printer's precision and a dogged researcher's diligence in her painstakingly meticulous account of quattrocento innovation, technology, politics, art, and commerce. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Christie debuts with a literary exploration of Gutenberg and his printing press, which sparked a technological revolutionas well as the other men involved who were left in history's shadows.Johann Fust, prosperous merchant of Mainz, Germany, gathered guilders and gold for Gutenberg. Peter Schoeffer, Fusts ward who was training in Paris as a scribe, was called home to become Gutenberg's apprenticeand watch over the mad genius. An orphaned peasant boy, cousin of Fusts first wife, Schoeffer resented being drawn away from intellectual circles but came to see his chance to raise again thelamp of learning. Schoeffers the primary protagonist, his interior journey from frustration to reconciliation to obsession with Gutenbergs press deftly chronicled against the panorama of the 15th centurythe jealous craft guilds, the iron hand and depraved greed of the church hierarchy, the free towns like Mainz controlled by the machinations of oligarchs called Elders. Schoeffer anchors the story, but Gutenberg flashesmegalomaniacal and duplicitous, with hair wild and bristling to his shouldersbeard cascad[ing]glinting here and there like twists of wire, and glowing, canine eyes. Christie masterfully depicts the time and energy required to print the first Bibles, a yearslong process of trial and error, tinkering with ink and type, lines and paper, guilder after guilder spent without return, all against a catastrophic backdrop of plague, the fall of Constantinople, the violent superstitions of the peasantry, and a vested intelligentsia fearing the press would generate crude words crudely wrought...smut and prophecy, the ranting of anarchists and antichrists. Bibles, 180 in all, are printed in the strictest secrecy lest the press be seized as a threat to the scriptoria whose proceeds kept the landed cloisters fat. While rendered chronologically, with a second narrative thread about Schoeffers courtship of his first wife, the narrative is given texture through intermittent chapters in which Schoeffer, years laterworried that Gutenbergs triumph was more corrupt than holyrelates his story to Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim.A bravura debut. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* This gorgeously written debut, set in the cathedral city of fifteenth-century Mainz, dramatizes the creation of the Gutenberg Bible in a story that devotees of book history and authentic historical fiction will relish. When scribe Peter Schoeffer gets called home from Paris by his foster father, Johann Fust, to be trained by the headstrong, brilliant Johann Gutenberg in the groundbreaking art of movable-type printing, he is resentful and apprehensive. With a confident hand, Christie illuminates the daily life and religious mindset of late medieval Germany as Peter grapples with new ideas. In an era that sees manuscript copying as an act of spiritual communion, is the mass production of letters blasphemous or an efficient way of spreading God's word? As tensions flare between the wealthy archbishop and the reform-minded pope, and as local guilds rise in power, Gutenberg establishes a secret workshop where he, Peter, and Fust, his financial backer, become an unstoppable trio. Readers are offered a captivating view of early printing techniques and the obstacles encountered over the several years in which each successive line of the Bible is inked onto vellum and paper. An inspiring tale of ambition, camaraderie, betrayal, and cultural transformation based on actual events and people, this wonderful novel fully inhabits its age.--Johnson, Sarah Copyright 2014 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
According to Christie, herself a letterpress printer, the genius of Johann Gutenberg wasn't his invention of the printing press but rather a cutthroat marketing prowess that convinced the world he'd done it all alone. The success of what Gutenberg called Ars impressoria lies heavily with a 25-year-old apprentice named Peter Schoeffer, working as a scribe in Paris until his foster father, a financial backer of Gutenberg, calls him home to Mainz to toil in the printer's workshop. In considered though frequently overheated prose, Christie depicts the vainglorious Gutenberg as full of caprice, willing to print anything (doggerel prophecy, letters of indulgence) in pursuit of a fast buck. Schoeffer, in turn, is a Wunderkind who endures his master's abuse to create the letterforms that give the Gutenberg Bible its central artistry. By juxtaposing the lexicon of traditional printing with references to modern concepts like intellectual property theft, Christie spotlights intriguing parallels between 15th-century Europe and the digital media of the 21st-century world. A pious citizenry must decide if the new technology is a soulless black art or a mechanized fulfillment of God's will. Christie leavens her otherwise stately diction with anachronistic idioms - "time's-a-wasting"; "eat our dust" - and sketches characters that, if somewhat one-dimensional, remain majestically propulsive. Although there is a litigious parting, Schoeffer remains in command of a seemingly essential truth: "Whoever held that press held total power."
Library Journal Review
The year is 1450, and Peter Schoeffer, who has been working as a scribe in Paris, is recalled to the German city of Mainz by his foster father, Johann Fust. A successful merchant, Fust is burning with excitement over an encounter with a "most amazing man." The man, known as Gutenberg, has invented a method of printing a book using a machine. Fust promises to fund Gutenberg's workshop, but only if Schoeffer is accepted as an apprentice. At first, Schoeffer finds the idea of a mechanically printed book to be blasphemous but feels he must look out for Fust's interests. Gutenberg and Schoeffer, needing more money and finding themselves in the middle of a power struggle between the merchants and the church, pursue the publication of a Bible. As the years-long process draws to a close, Gutenberg breaks rules and bullies his way to the production of a book that was thought by many to be a miracle. VERDICT Christie's slow-paced debut is rich in historical detail. Although the writing can be overblown, the story of the birth of the printing press is fascinating. Readers who enjoy historical fiction such as Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures will enjoy this admirable outing. [See Prepub Alert, 3/31/14.] Terry Lucas, Rogers Memorial Lib., Southampton, NY (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
