Gutenberg - Was He the Inventor of Printing? (Paperback)

THE best and most critical account of the History of Printing with movable type. Every document connected with the History of the Invention of Printing has been verified by the energetic and intelligent author. The mystery still remains - who was the "inventor" of Printing? That Gutenberg was an early printer Mr. Hessels fully admits.
Only 200 copies were originally printed for sale.
Mr. J. H. Hessels, the translator of Van der Linde's "Coster Legend," commenced a series of articles about two years ago in the "London Printing Times," under the title of "Gutenberg: Was He the Inventor of Printing?" being a review of a more recent work by the same author entitled "Gutenberg." The articles came to a sudden termination, the writer finding it necessary to consult various documents abroad in order to arrive at certain facts. The long silence which intervened has at, last been broken by the appearance of a handsome volume, now before us, in which Mr. Hessels has endeavoured to clear up the mystery so long surrounding the identity of the first printer - and in order to this he paid two visits to Paris and spent seven weeks in Germany exploring the libraries and archives of Strassburg, Mentz, and other prominent cities.
While it is impossible to resuscitate the corpse of the mythical Holland proto-typographer Coster, the result of Mr. Hessels' researches do not justify him in giving Gutenberg the credit of inventing the art, but only establishing the fact of his being a printer - and he regrets that after all his labours be must leave the quest on which he started yet unsolved, summarizing the result of his investigation in the following statement: "As early as (Nov. 16) 1454 two "printers" were at work at Mentz; the name of one of them may have been Johann Gutenberg; (perhaps subsidized by Johann Fust), but it is not stated anywhere; the name of the other is, in all probability, Peter (Schoeffer) de Gernssheym. That the latter did not consider himself to have been the "first," or even the "chief," printer (of Mentz), seems sufficiently clear from what we may call his own statement, in the imprint of the Justinianus of 24 May, 1468, in which he speaks of two Johannes. One of these Johannes must have been Johann Fust; who was the other? Everybody says Gutenberg, and I am in no position to contradict it."
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"A very complete account is given of several books from the press of the Brothers of Common Life, not heretofore described; and a photograph of a page of an Eltville book, the type of which has never been before noticed.
"Mr. Hessels' volume is one of great value to whoever may hereafter follow in his wake, and a real acquisition to the history of printing. The work is elegantly produced by Bernard Quaritch, consisting of xxvii, 201 pages, octavo, printed on hand-made paper, Roxburghe binding-only 200 copies printed for sale." -"The Quadrat," Pittsburgh, U.S.A., June, 1882.
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"Everyone interested in the early history of printing must read Mr. Hessels' book itself. It is both destructive and constructive: much of the ground upon which the claim for Gutenberg was raised, is cleared away, but still nothing is discovered that actually destroys that claim. In his work of destruction Mr. Hessels has constructed a solid foundation of bibliographical fact for others to follow up by further researches." -"The Bibliographer," August, 1882.