Noble Fragments

One hundred years ago, Gabriel Wells, a New York bookseller, committed a crime against history. He broke up the world's greatest book, the Gutenberg Bible, and sold it off in individual pages. This is the story of an Australian man's hunt for those fragments and his family's debt to an act of literary vandalism.

In 1921, Wells's audacity scandalised the rare-book world. The Gutenberg was the first substantial book in Europe to have been printed on a printing press. It represented the democratisation of knowledge and was the Holy Grail of rare books.

Was the break-up a sacrilege or a canny deal? New Yorkers were divided. For every frown of disapproval, there was a lick of the lips. It was the Roaring Twenties, the Gatsby era of fabulous wealth. Tycoons were in a feeding frenzy to acquire items that would demonstrate their refinement. Wells marketed the pages as Noble Fragments, they sold like hot cakes, and he died a rich man.

Half a century later, Sydney journalist Michael Visontay stumbled upon a mysterious legal document that linked Wells to his own family. He became obsessed by the Gutenberg's invisible imprint on his life and set out to track down the pages of the broken bible.

Part detective story and part memoir, Noble Fragments is an expedition into the arcane world of book collectors and their eccentric passions, and a journey of discovery about how Wells's gamble set off a chain of events that changed a family's destiny.

'A brilliant writer discovers a gripping personal story. Serendipity at its best.' – Jane Caro

'A riveting hunt for the mysterious leaves of a book perched in the branches of a family tree. Proof that epic sagas are rooted in life's most intimate details. I was hooked from the start.' – Marc Fennell

'Michael Visontay has written a truly original book – a family memoir that also excavates the cutthroat business world of the rare book trade in New York in the early 20th century... Parts of it read like a thriller, while the humanity beating through other sections brought me to tears.' – Bridie Jabour, The Guardian