Around 1400, in the city of Mainz, a man was born whose heretical invention was to change history. Some sixty years later he died robbed of his business, his printing presses, and, so he thought, his immortality.In his dazzling first novel, Morrison gives us Gutenbergs testament his justification, dictated to one of the young scribes his invention will soon put out of work. Thus Morrison conjures up the haunting figure of Gutenberg himself: a man who gambled everything money, honour, friendship and a womans love on the greatest invention of the last millennium.From the Trade Paperback edition.