Madam, - I refer to Denis O'Shaughnessy's letter (September 5th) correcting Anne Haverty's assertion that William Caxton was the "inventor of printing".
I feel obliged to correct Mr. O'Shaughnessy in turn. While Gutenberg is generally considered the European who most popularised Renaissance printing and the mass production of books through use of movable type and the "modern" printing press, he had contemporaries who might equally have taken the credit, notably Koster in the Netherlands and Castaldi in Italy.
Furthermore, Gutenberg was not "the undisputed inventor of moveable type". Clay and wood movable type was known in China as early as the 9th century and Chwe Yun-Ui, an 11th-century Korean printer, is known to have used a metal, movable type printing press. The oldest surviving book printed using movable metal type is in fact a Buddhist text printed in Korea in 1377.
Finally, recent research (Fabbiani, Bruno: Università di Torino, 2004) examining Gutenberg's 42-line Bible, has suggested that Gutenberg may not have used movable type at all but stamped metal plates. However, this view is controversial.
- Is mise,
MARTIN KINSELLA, Luxembourg.