Inventor of the Linotype

First Reprinting of the 1898 Original Work, plus New Material

A New Edition, With Many Rare Photos and New Facts Added,
Based on Recent Discoveries

Editor & Researcher: Carl Schlesinger

Publisher/Date: DE: New Castle, Oak Knoll Books 1992 (1st thus) Oak Knoll Series on the History of the Book

Format/Condition: NEW softcover is in fine condition. 144 pages. Illustrated. Measures 7×10 inches.

Description: Ottmar Mergenthaler, the world-famous inventor of the Linotype machine, was dying of tuberculosis in 1898. Too weak to hold a pen, the inventor, whose breakthrough had made possible cheaper and larger newspapers and books, still burned with a desire to tell his life’s story. Death would soon take this man who had made it possible for everybody to read more of everything. Painstakingly, Mergenthaler reconstructed his incredible career which had been marked by brilliant achievements and bitter disappointments. When the book was finished it was privately printed and given away to friends. Mergenthaler, a German immigrant, has been called a second Gutenberg because his invention of a machine that could easily and quickly set movable type revolutionized the art of printing.

Mergenthaler’s riveting biography is reprinted here exactly as he approved it ninety years ago. An 1889 article describing the first Linotype installation and the severe conditions under which the operators worked has been added. The earliest production record and weekly earnings of the typesetters are also shown in detail. New research by Carl Schlesinger about the first matrices used in the 1886 Blower Linotype has been included. For a hundred years, scholars presumed these mats were made from steel alphabet punches which had been cut by hand. Schlesinger offers proof that the matrices were really made with inserted electrotype molds. These had been copied from existing hand type to conceal the appearance of Linotype printing.