Johannes
Gutenberg is famous as the inventor of Europe’s first typographic printing
method, and his life and legacy have long fascinated a wide audience. Due to
scant and vague fifteenth-century documentation, however, Gutenberg’s career
has long been obscured by derivative storytelling, competing agendas and
scholarly guesswork. This new biography removes these barriers to retell his
story directly, through his pioneering work: schoolbooks, pamphlets,
indulgences, broadsides and, notably, the first printed Bible. The book also
describes Gutenberg’s posthumous fortunes, and his eventual recognition as
‘Man of the Millennium’. This much-needed corrective to the old legends and
conjectures brings Gutenberg to life through the books that remain his lasting
monument.