1940: The World Goes By - HG Wells on the 500th Anniversary of Printing

About 500 years after the first printed volumes appeared, the remarkable innovation of the printing press is celebrated by HG Wells in this talk for BBC Radio. Wells looks back through the history of book-making, describing how written literature was historically a privilege of the few, which prevented ordinary people from gaining knowledge. Now, the printing press has led to the proliferation of newsletters, newspapers and books, cheaply available for everyone. Wells insists printing has led to real democracy and that the widespread ability to read and write means we are all 'lords and masters of our fate'.

The anniversary marked in this programme is that of the invention of the mechanical printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440, or thereabouts. By adapting existing technologies and combining them into one mechanism, Gutenberg made possible the rapid reproduction of printed text in large quantities. His name was adopted by Project Gutenberg, which was founded by Michael S Hart in 1971 with the intention of providing a digital archive of books in the public domain. Containing over 30,000 volumes in accessible, plain-text formats, it is the world's oldest digital library.

BBC Archive: Originally broadcast 24 January 1940.