First edition thus. 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. 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. Illustrated. With pocket in the back containing a facsimile reprint of the first Linotype printing in the New-York Tribune. Cut in front cover of jacket which slightly affected front cover of book.