The Justification of Johann Gutenberg by Blake Morrison

The inventor of printing makes his case

Good Condition - Covers are scuffed and creased with worn corners and small chips/surface loss. Page edges are browned.

Blake Morrison imagines Johann Gutenberg looking back on his life and explaining the achievements, compromises and betrayals behind his great invention. Set against the world of fifteenth-century Mainz, the novel follows a man whose determination to develop printing draws him into difficult entanglements involving money, friendship, love and ambition. As Gutenberg offers his account, questions arise about the price others have paid for his success and how a life should be judged. Written as a fictional testimony, this historical novel brings the beginnings of a transformative technology into focus through the fallible, complicated person credited with creating it.