“Are there any corrections from yesterday’s proofs?” Eleanor stood in the doorway to the publisher’s office looking at the woman with softly graying hair and sharp business acumen, who had a dozen handwritten submissions stacked on her desk, with a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf behind her that spanned the length of the room. It was crammed full of every edition of every book the publishing house had printed in its two dozen years.
“No changes. Your work is exceptional, as always.” Sophie gestured for Eleanor to enter while her eyes remained trained on the pages in front of her.
Eleanor smiled. “Perfect.” She hadn’t expected errors, but on the rare occasion they would slip through—usually when she’d been in a rush and not arranged her typecase properly the day before. She took a seat across from her longtime mentor. “What’s next?”
Sophie had set up Cumberland Press two decades earlier and employed only women to print and bind texts ranging fromwildly political treatises to fascinating nonfiction to smutty novels that were hidden behind drugstore counters and read in the safety of one’s bedroom. The book Eleanor had finished typesetting today was a rather heavy accounting of the Ottoman Civil War, and while it was fascinating, she felt like something lighter.
The Pocket Manual of Ladylike Behavior.Sophie shook her head without pausing as she peppered the page with red ink. “I know, I know. It sounds dull, but it’s exactly what the toffs want and we could use their money. Hallowell’s last book did not land the way we had hoped it would. But here, I think you’ll enjoy this one.” She finally turned her attention from her work and picked up a handwritten manuscript.
Eleanor took the pages, unbound save for a piece of twine that crossed over the back and tied in Sophie’s typical sharp bow over the title page. “‘Beyond Good and Evil.’ German. Are you making an offer on this one?”
Sophie pursed her lips. “I am. I think the author might be the most talented I’ve encountered in years. If we could sign him, it could shift our position significantly. I’d like to know what you think.”
Eleanor had more than a dozen books waiting to be read, piled onto the long table in her living room. They wouldn’t be shelved until she’d finished them and made comments about their strengths and weaknesses in the small notebook she kept for just that purpose. Regardless, Sophie’s manuscript would skip the queue and be read that night so she could give feedback in the morning.
“Is there anything else that needs to be set before I go? Can I get a head start on tomorrow?”
“You can take the rest of the afternoon off,” Sophie replied.“Weren’t you saying the zoo had new arrivals? Weren’t there echidnas you wanted to see?”
Shedidwant to see the echidnas. “Did you know they lay eggs? It is incredible because they’re mammals and mammals traditionally give birth to live young. Except in Australia, apparently, because they have the echidna and the platypus, and both are monotremes.”
The corners of Sophie’s lips edged upward, as they almost always did when Eleanor shared one of the many curiosities she had crammed into her brain. “I look forward to hearing all about it out on the way to meet the mysterious Chester tonight.”
Chester.His manuscript had been delivered in the middle of the night, left on the doorstep along with a bottle of gin. Eleanor leaned forward. “Have we discovered anything new about this author?”
Sophie shook her head. “Nothing. He, or she I suppose, sent the meeting location an hour ago. It is a tiny restaurant on Hobbes Street, which is neither exclusive nor dingy. It gives nothing away.”
“Has signing an author ever involved such intrigue?” Eleanor’s life seemed full of subterfuge of late. First the Tattler, then the Captain, now the mysterious Chester. For a person so insistent on the accuracy of one’s facts, all of this ambiguity was surprisingly exciting.
Sophie sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Just once, and the author was a nightmare to work with. Chester’s novel has the potential to be a bestseller when it releases. We need it; we really do, but I cannot handle another diva, Eleanor. I simply cannot. I need a second opinion as to this person’s nature.”
Eleanor grinned. “Well, I will be there. I’m rather eager to see the wheels turn on this side of the business.”
Sophie sighed and picked up the red pen. “Thank you. Now go enjoy your afternoon.”
Eleanor nodded. “I shall.” It was a glorious day, and she was going to spend it wandering through one of her favorite places, feeling the sun warm her skin and learning a plethora of new things. When she returned home that evening, she would have plenty to include in her letter to the Tattler, and in the note she would slip inside for the Captain. Perhaps with a firsthand account of Australia’s most bizarre animals, she could convince him to set aside whatever responsibilities seemed to keep him caged, just for an afternoon.
She reached down to slip the manuscript Sophie had given her into her satchel. A thin booklet lay on the floor. “Here. You’ve dropped this,” she said, picking it up. As she turned it over, her heart wobbled. The front cover was dominated by a sketch of a machine, as tall as a person and wider by two. It had dozens of chutes in front of what looked to be a collection of letters. “What is it?” she asked, surprised at the sharp edge of her voice. Eleanor had been in many, many printing houses and had seen nothing like it.
“Don’t worry about that.” Sophie’s ears turned pink as she took the pamphlet and shoved it under the pages she was editing. “I told him I wasn’t interested.”
“You told who?”
“The Duke of Strafford. Or his business manager, as it were. He seemed perplexed at my lack of interest, so I have no doubt he’ll be back. I’m sure he’ll have more trouble selling it than he anticipates.”
“But whatisit?”
Sophie swallowed. “He’s calling it a Linotype.”
“A Linotype… It’s a machine that sets type?” It wassuddenly a little more difficult to breathe. She played with the word in her mind. A linotype. A linotype. Aline-o-type. “A line of type? It sets a line of type at a time?” She lurched across the desk, manners be damned, and grabbed the corner of the pamphlet that peeked out from below Sophie’s work.
Sophie tried to snatch it back without success. “Eleanor, you are excellent at what you do. You are the best.”
“I know that,” she snapped. She was the best compositor in London. She was the fastest and the most accurate. She charged exorbitant amounts and still printers begged for her time. For other compositors, it was a job. For her, it was a living. She was not threatened by a machine.
The cover sketch made little sense. It was an imposing mess of levers, chutes, and keys. The inside pages contained more detail. Each key released a single “matrix” of the corresponding character, which slid down an inclined chute to its place in a line. Once the line was complete, it was covered in a molten alloy of tin, antimony, and lead, forming a solid line of type. An elevator then reset the matrices.
“Stupid,” Eleanor said. “Who in their right mind would work so close to molten metal? All it would take is one slip, one fault in the machine, and you’re looking at severe burns, infection, maybe death.”
