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GUTENBERG'S APPRENTICE
By: Alix Christie
Harper
October 2014
On Sale: September 23, 2014
Featuring: Johann Gutenberg; Johann Fust; Peter Schoeffer
416 pages
ISBN: 0062336010
EAN: 9780062336019
Kindle: B00HLIYY2E
Hardcover / e-Book
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Paperback (September 2015)
Fiction
An enthralling literary debut that evokes one of the most momentous events in history, the birth of printing in medieval Germanyβa 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 βa most amazing man.β Johann Gutenberg, a driven and caustic inventor, has devised a revolutionaryβand to some, blasphemousβmethod of bookmaking: a machine he calls a printing press. Fust is financing Gutenbergβs workshop and he orders Peter, his adopted son, to become Gutenbergβs apprentice. Resentful at having to abandon a prestigious career as a scribe, Peter begins his education in the βdarkest art.β 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 obstaclesβa battle that will change history . . . and irrevocably transform them.
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