Michael Visontay: The Hunt for Gutenberg Bible Leaves

One hundred years ago, a New York bookseller, Gabriel Wells, committed a sacrilege: he broke up a Gutenberg Bible, the Holy Grail of rare books, and sold it off in individual pages, which he called “Noble Fragments". A few years ago, Michael Visontay stumbled upon a chance discovery that revealed the bookseller was distantly related to his family in Australia and that his gambit changed their destiny. Visontay became obsessed by the Gutenberg’s invisible imprint on his life and decided to trace the journeys of the leaves that were dispersed around the world, opening the door onto a remarkable gallery of tycoons, collectors, and institutions. In a career spanning forty years, Australian journalist Michael Visontay has worked as a writer and senior editor at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian, and taught journalism at university. He is the author of six nonfiction books, most recently, Noble Fragments: The Maverick Who Broke Up the World's Greatest Book. Currently, he works as Commissioning Editor of The Jewish Independent.