Alix Christie, Author of Gutenberg’s Apprentice, Reporter, and Letterpress Printer
Alix Christie wrote the book on Gutenberg. Her novel, Gutenberg’s Apprentice, puts us squarely in the milieu in which Gutenberg formed his studio, told through the eyes of his apprentice Peter Schöffer, also a historical figure. Alix’s non-fiction work includes reporting across decades as a domestic and foreign correspondent for a host of publications, including the Washington Post and the Guardian. She’s also a letterpress printer, who received her training in her youth from her grandfather, Lester Lloyd.
We talk about Gutenberg, the history and “invention” of printing, the Grabhorn Institute (the non-profit preserving Mackenzie & Harris Type and the Arion Press), learning letterpress as a youth, and much more.
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Notes from This Episode
- Alix’s grandfather, Lester Lloyd
- Yolla Bolly Press
- Feinschmeckerei: a gourmand or epicure (or a fussy printer)
- “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture”
- The long-time beating heart of M&H Type, Lewis Mitchell
- Rockwell Kent’s Moby Dick (1930) (trade edition by Random House)
- Arion Press’s Moby Dick (1979), printed by letterpress, with Barry Moser’s illustrations (trade edition, 1983, by the University of California, Berkeley)
- Glenn’s episode of the Sophomore Lit podcast on Moby Dick (a mere two hours)
- Brian Ferrett and the rest of the staff at The Arion Press
- Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words (2002) by John Man
- The challenging analysis of Gutenberg’s type that put Alix on her path: Blaise Agüera y Arcas, “Temporary Matrices and Elemental Punches in Gutenberg's DK type” (Incunabula and Their Readers: Printing, Selling and Using Books in the Fifteenth Century, 2003)
- Peter Schoeffer of Gernsheim and Mainz with a list of his surviving books and broadsides (1950) by Helmutt Lehmann-Haupt
- Scintillating ink on Gutenberg’s books
- Bi Sheng, early Chinese printer
- Early Korean printing
- “Gutenberg’s Bible: Back to the Evidence,” a course taught online at the London Rare Books School by Elizabeth Savage and Eric White, July 5–9, 2021
- Scott Boms, Facebook Analog Research Lab
- San Francisco Center for the Book
- Letterform Archive