How the Printing Press Changed the World by Avery Elizabeth Hurt

Author:Avery Elizabeth Hurt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC

For the first time anywhere, books could be mass-produced. This was the greatest advance in communication since the invention of writing. The consequences would be enormous.

Keeping the Books

Gutenberg was a master at overcoming technological challenges. However, he was not so good at dealing with financial challenges. Though in the long run printing would be a profitable venture, getting the process started was very costly.

Gutenberg was not a man to cut corners. He could have used only the bare minimum of typefaces— uppercase and lowercase letters, punctuation and a few necessary symbols. However, he was not aiming to simply reprint the words in the Bible. He wanted his version to look exactly like the handwritten Latin manuscript that scribes had copied and people were familiar with. Therefore, he manufactured at least 290 different typefaces for his Bible. Each page had almost three thousand characters, and two pages had to be set with type at any given time to keep the process going. In the end he needed thousands of bits of cast type just to keep the press running. There was also the matter of artwork. For the first editions, the drawings had to be carved and painted by hand. Of course, like the typefaces, they could be reused, but the initial investment was considerable. In addition, there was the cost of paper, ink, and labor.

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