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A printer's devil was a young apprentice in a printing establishment who performed a number of tasks, such as mixing tubs of ink and fetching type. Notable writers including Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman, Ambrose Bierce, Bret Harte, and Mark Twain served as printer's devils in their youth.
The term "printer's devil" has been ascribed to the apprentices' hands and skin getting stained black with ink when removing sheets of paper from the tympan. [1] In 1683, English printer Joseph Moxon wrote that "devil" was a humorous term for boys who were covered in ink: "whence the Workmen do Jocosely call them Devils; and sometimes Spirits, and sometimes Flies." [2] [3] Once cast metal type was used, worn, or broken, it was thrown into a "hellbox", after which it was the printer's devil's job to either put it back in the job case, or take it to the furnace to be melted down and recast. [4]
Many explanations have been given for the religious or supernatural connotations of the term. [5] From the Middle Ages onward, particularly in Catholic countries, technological inventions such as the printing press were often regarded with suspicion, and associated with Satan and the "Dark Arts". [6] [7] Some have suggested that the term was coined as an epithet by scribes who feared that the printing press would make the hand-copying of manuscripts obsolete. [8] Several theories of the term's origins are included below.
One popular theory is linked to the fanciful belief among printers that a special demon, Titivillus (also referred to as "the original printer's devil" [9] ), haunted every print shop, performing mischief such as inverting type, misspelling words, and removing entire lines of completed type.[ citation needed ] Titivillus was said to execute his pranks by influencing the young apprentices – or "printer's devils" – as they set up type, or by causing errors to occur during the actual casting of metal type. [10] High-profile printing errors "blamed" on Titivillus included the omission of the word not in the 1631 Authorised Version of the Bible, which resulted in Exodus 20:14 appearing as "Thou shalt commit adultery." [10] Often depicted as a creature with claw-like feet and horns on his head, the origins of the Titivillus legend date back to the Middle Ages, when he was said to collect "fragments of words" that were dropped or misspoken by the clergy or laiety in a sack to deliver to Satan daily, and later, to record poorly recited prayers and gossip overheard in church with a pen on parchment, for use on Judgement Day. [10] [11] Over the centuries, Titivillus was also blamed for causing monks to make mistakes while copying manuscripts by hand; meddling with block and plate printing; and eventually, playing pranks with movable type. [10]
Regarding the origins of the term "devil" to refer to "the errand boy or youngest apprentice in a printing office", Pasko's American Dictionary of Printing and Bookmaking (1894) states: "It is said that it is derived from the belief that John Fust was In league with the devil, and the urchin covered with ink certainly made a very good representation of his Satanic majesty." [2] Johann Fust (c.1400–1466), also known as Faust, loaned money to Johannes Gutenberg to perfect his printing process using movable type, and sued Gutenberg for repayment, with interest, in 1455. [12] Fust, together with Gutenberg's son-in-law Peter Schoeffer, then set up their own printing business and published the Mainz Psalter , a Bible which introduced colour printing, in 1457. [12] Over the centuries, biographical accounts of Fust, the printer, have often become confused or intertwined with the legend of Johann Georg Faust (c.1480–1540), the alchemist and necromancer who became the subject of numerous "Faust books" published in Germany starting in 1587, which in turn inspired Christopher Marlowe's work, Doctor Faustus (c.1591–1593). [13] The legendary Faustus is said to have sold his soul to the demon Mephistopheles, in exchange for a book or encyclopedia of magical spells. [13] In 1570, even before publication of the first Faustbuch, English church historian John Foxe credited "a Germaine...named Joan. Faustus, a goldesmith" for the invention of the printing press, in the second edition of Actes and Monuments, although he had previously attributed its invention to "Jhon Guttenbergh". [13] Literary scholar Sarah Wall-Rendell argues that the association of the Doctor Faustus legend with books and printing technology reflected ongoing ambivalence among Reformation writers about the impact that books would have on an increasingly literate populace. [13]
Yet another possible origin is ascribed to Aldus Manutius, a well-known Venetian printer of the Renaissance and founder of the Aldine Press, who was denounced by detractors for practicing the black arts (early printing was long associated with devilry).[ citation needed ] The assistant to Manutius was a young boy of African descent who was accused of being the embodiment of Satan and dubbed the printer's devil.[ citation needed ]
English tradition links the origin of printer's devil to the assistant of the first English printer and book publisher, William Caxton.[ citation needed ] Caxton's assistant was named "Deville", which evolved to "devil" over time, as that name was used to describe other printers' apprentices.[ citation needed ]
While the term "printer's devil" in India may stem from the European legend of Titivillus, another theory is that it might stem from the Malayalam term for "printing error" (achadi pisaku), which is only one change of a Malayalam letter away from "printing devil" (achadi pisachu). [14]
A number of notable men served as printer's devils in their youth, including Ambrose Bierce, William Dean Howells, James Printer, Benjamin Franklin, Raymond C. Hoiles, Samuel Fuller, Thomas Jefferson, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Joel Chandler Harris, Warren Harding, Harry Burleigh, Lawrence Tibbett, John Kellogg, Lyndon Johnson, Hoodoo Brown, James Hogg, Geoff Lloyd, Harry Pace, Joseph Lyons, Albert Parsons, Adolph Ochs, [15] and Lázaro Cárdenas. Cole Younger worked as a printer's devil on a prison newspaper while he was incarcerated. [16]
In North America during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, young boys were indentured to printers by their parents, or in the case of orphans, by the municipal or church authorities. [17] More than apprentices in other trades, printer's devils were boys who had expressed an interest in printing. [17] By 1894, American Dictionary of Printing and Bookmaking noted that with the decline of the apprenticeship system in the United States, the term "printer's devil" was going out of use. [2]
The printer's devil is also known in other languages such as Bengali, where it is called Chhapakhanar Bhoot. [14]
Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was a German inventor and craftsman who invented the movable-type printing press. Though movable type was already in use in East Asia, Gutenberg's invention of the printing press enabled a much faster rate of printing. The printing press later spread across the world, and led to an information revolution and the unprecedented mass-spread of literature throughout Europe. It had a profound impact on the development of the Renaissance, Reformation, and humanist movements.
Laurens Janszoon Coster, or Laurens Jansz Koster, is the purported inventor of a printing press from Haarlem. He allegedly invented printing simultaneously with Johannes Gutenberg and was regarded by some in the Netherlands well into the 20th century as having invented printing first.
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The earliest known form of printing evolved from ink rubbings made on paper or cloth from texts on stone tablets, used during the sixth century. Printing by pressing an inked image onto paper appeared later that century. Later developments in printing technology include the movable type invented by Bi Sheng around 1040 AD and the printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. The technology of printing played a key role in the development of the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses.
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust.
Mephistopheles, also known as Mephisto, is a demon featured in German folklore. He originally appeared in literature as the demon in the Faust legend and has since become a stock character appearing in other works of arts and popular culture.
Johann Fust or Faust was an early German printer.
The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, commonly referred to simply as Doctor Faustus, is an Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe, based on German stories about the title character Faust. It was probably written in 1592 or 1593, shortly before Marlowe's death. Two different versions of the play were published in the Jacobean era several years later.
Johann Georg Faust, also known in English as John Faustus, was a German itinerant alchemist, astrologer, and magician of the German Renaissance.
Doctor Faustus is a German novel written by Thomas Mann, begun in 1943 and published in 1947 as Doktor Faustus: Das Leben des deutschen Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn, erzählt von einem Freunde.
A deal with the Devil is a cultural motif exemplified by the legend of Faust and the figure of Mephistopheles, as well as being elemental to many Christian traditions. According to traditional Christian belief about witchcraft, the pact is between a person and the Devil or another demon, trading a soul for diabolical favours, which vary by the tale, but tend to include youth, knowledge, wealth, fame and power.
A wayzgoose was at one time an entertainment given by a master printer to his workmen each year on or about St Bartholomew's Day. It marked the traditional end of summer and the start of the season of working by candlelight. Later, the word came to refer to an annual outing and dinner for the staff of a printing works or the printers on a newspaper.
The Devil, appears frequently as a character in literature and various other media. In Abrahamic religions, the figure of the Devil, Satan personifies evil.
Endymion Spring is a children's fantasy novel by English Canadian author Matthew Skelton. It was first published in 2006.
The global spread of the printing press began with the invention of the printing press with movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany c. 1439. Western printing technology was adopted in all world regions by the end of the 19th century, displacing the manuscript and block printing.
Faust has inspired artistic and cultural works for over four centuries. The following lists cover various media to include items of historic interest, enduring works of high art, and recent representations in popular culture. The entries represent works that a reader has a reasonable chance of encountering rather than a complete catalog.
The history of printing starts as early as 3000 BCE, when the proto-Elamite and Sumerian civilizations used cylinder seals to certify documents written in clay tablets. Other early forms include block seals, hammered coinage, pottery imprints, and cloth printing. Initially a method of printing patterns on cloth such as silk, woodblock printing for texts on paper originated in China by the 7th century during the Tang dynasty, leading to the spread of book production and woodblock printing in other parts of Asia such as Korea and Japan. The Chinese Buddhist Diamond Sutra, printed by woodblock on 11 May 868, is the earliest known printed book with a precise publishing date. Movable type was invented by Chinese artisan Bi Sheng in the 11th century during the Song dynasty, but it received limited use compared to woodblock printing. However, the use of copper movable types was documented in a Song-era book from 1193, and the earliest printed paper money using movable metal type to print the identifying codes were made in 1161. The technology also spread outside China, with the oldest extant printed book using metal movable type being the Jikji, printed in Korea in 1377 during the Goryeo era.
Schweipolt Fiol was a German-born 15th century pioneer of Cyrillic printing. Fiol spent a considerable part of his life in Poland, particularly Kraków, the capital of the Polish Kingdom at the time. The city was famous for its university. The burgeoning of the arts and sciences contributed to the early emergence of book printing here: as early as 1473–1477 there was a print shop in Kraków, which published numerous theological works. The very first book printed in Cyrillic script, Oktoikh (Octoechos), was published by Fiol in 1491 in Kraków.
Johann Spies was a German printer who published an anonymous book of tales about a legendary Doctor Faust who made a pact with the Devil. The story became the basis for several notable literary works, including Marlowe's Tragedy of Doctor Faustus and Goethe's Faust.
The Mainz Psalter was the second major book printed with movable type in the West; the first was the Gutenberg Bible. It is a psalter commissioned by the Mainz archbishop in 1457. The Psalter introduced several innovations: it was the first book to feature a printed date of publication, a printed colophon, two sizes of type, printed decorative initials, and the first to be printed in three colours. The colophon also contains the first example of a printer's mark. It was the first important publication issued by Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer following their split from Johannes Gutenberg.
The idea of making a deal with the devil has appeared many times in works of popular culture. These pacts with the Devil can be found in many genres, including: books, music, comics, theater, movies, TV shows and games. When it comes to making a contract with the Devil, they all share the same prevailing desire, a mortal wants some worldly good for their own selfish gain, but in exchange, they must give up their soul for eternity.