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The Book-Makers

By Adam Smyth

Product Image: The Book-Makers

The Book-Makers

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Description
A celebration of the printed book, told through the lives of 18 people who took it in radical new directions. * AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 * A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE SUMMER 2024 * 'This really is the loveliest of books' I 'I cannot recommend it highly enough' SPECTATOR This is an extraordinary story of skill, craft, mess, cunning, triumph, improvisation, and error. Of printers and binders, publishers and artists, paper-makers and library founders. Some we know. We meet jobbing printer (and United States Founding Father) Benjamin Franklin, and watch Thomas Cobden-Sanderson conjure books that flicker between the 20th and 15th centuries. Others we've forgotten. We don't recall Sarah Eaves, wife of John Baskerville, and her crucial contribution to the history of type. Nor Charles Edward Mudie, populariser of the circulating library - and the most influential figure in publishing before Jeff Bezos. Nor William Wildgoose, who meticulously bound Shakespeare's First Folio, then disappeared. The Book-Makers puts people back into the story of the book. It takes us inside the print-shop as the deadline looms and the adrenaline flows - from the Fleet Street of 1492 to present-day New York. It's a tale of contingencies and quirks, of successes and failures, of routes forward and paths not taken. This is a history of book-making that leaves ink on your fingers, and shows why the printed book will continue to flourish. 'Amazing. This book is a soul-expanding celebration of the human spirit' MARTIN LATHAM, author of The Bookseller's Tale 'A brilliant time machine of a book' JOSEPH HONE, author of The Book Forger
Product details
Edition:
1
Number of Pages:
400
Release Date:
2024-04-18
Publication Date:
2024-04-18
Publisher:
Random House UK Ltd
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
1847926290
ISBN13:
9781847926296
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
[email protected]
Weight:
640 g
Height:
160 cm
Width:
239 cm
Thickness:
41 cm
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