The Lost Gutenberg
By Margaret Davis
Atlantic, 304pp, £16.99/$27
What has been nicknamed “the commode”, “the whale” and “#45”? Those of you who answered Donald Trump (the 45th president of the United States, who, like all presidents, enjoys referring to himself by number) should be ashamed of yourselves. The correct answer is, of course, the Gutenberg Bible. Or rather, a very
special copy of said Bible.
What kind of people refer to a Bible as a commode? Bibliophiles, historian Margaret Leslie Davis reveals in her extraordinarily entertaining new book, subtitled The Astounding Story of One Book’s Five-Hundred-Year Odyssey. It’s not that they’re blasphemers, or irreligious (in fact, the biggest star of this book is a devout Catholic), but rather they believe they’re living in an espionage novel, where everything needs a code name, no matter how inappropriate.
