| The Justification of Johann Gutenberg |
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About this book‘I have no fear of dying. What I fear is that Around 1400, in the city of Mainz, a man was born whose heretical invention - moveable metal type - was to alter the course of civilisation. Sixty-odd years later he died, robbed of his business, his printing presses and, so he thought, his immortality. Reading between the lines of history, this novel gives us Gutenberg’s testament – his confession and apologia, as dictated to the kind of scribe whom his invention made redundant. Through the eyes of the ageing narrator, the Middle Ages are seen in a strange new light: the Plague, craft guilds, religious wars, chivalric love, sexual politics, the rise of capitalism – all are here, without seeming ‘historical’ or remote. The novel – Blake’s first - captures moment of cultural transition as dramatic as the communications revolution of today. |
© blakemorrison.com 2006
death will rub out what I have done, till not a trace of me is left upon the earth.’