Every book, magazine and newspaper today is a lasting tribute to the man whose invention of the linotype machine ushered in a new era in printing.

At the age of ten Ottmar Mergenthaler's mechanical genius astounded his father, whose ambition for his son was to be a member of his honored teaching profession. Ottmar wanted to become an engineer, but a schoolteacher's salary could scarcely cover the cost of university training, so he was apprenticed to a watchmaker and at fourteen he became a highly skilled mechanic. He would have served out his four year's apprenticeship except for the political unrest in Germany in 1871, right after the Franco-Prussian War. He knew that in another year he would be conscripted into the army, and since he had little sympathy with the government, he asked to be permitted to go to America.

A cousin had a shop in Washington, D.C. where he manufactured precision instruments, and at seventeen Mergenthaler became his assistant. Inventors brought him their blueprints from which he made working models. One machine designed to set type by hand intrigued him. It was a failure, but the idea of the machine and the problems involved so captured his imagination, he decided to make one of his own.

Encouraged by men of wealth who also dreamed of a new method of typesetting, Mergenthaler sacrificed his whole life to make it the perfect machine it is today. He ran into almost insurmountable obstacles, and profit-hungry businessmen gained control of his invention and began to manufacture it before it had attained his ideal perfection. It took years of litigation and a terrific toll of his health before he was able to bring his life's work to a conclusion.

Ottmar Mergenthaler was in his forties when he died, but the impact of his genius is felt everywhere in the world where books, magazines and newspapers are printed.

From the dust jacket