Copies in Seconds: How a Lone Inventor and an Unknown Company Created the Biggest Communication Breakthrough Since Gutenberg--Chester Carlson and the Birth of the Xerox Machine [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

David Owen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As New Yorker staff writer Owen explains in this fast-paced account of one inventor's hopes and dreams, the technology of copying is a relatively modern phenomenon. He recounts the history of copying documents from the scribal work of monks to the invention of the printing press and lithography, to the process that eventually resulted in today's Xerox machine. Owen narrates the life story of the man behind the Xerox machine, Chester Carlson (1906–1968), and his lonely efforts to find a way to reproduce documents. An inventive soul from a young age, Carlson as a teenager sketched out concepts for a trick safety pin, a new type of lipstick and a disposable handkerchief made of soft paper. After he graduated from college, he went to work for Bell Laboratories and continued his inventive ways. When he finally landed on an electrostatic process that would act like both a printing press and a camera, he began to shop the concept around and the Xerox machine was born in the mid-'50s. Owen's sympathetic portrait of Carlson's life and the difficulties and rewards inherent in the inventive process provide a window into the birth of one of our most ubiquitous office machines.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker

This history of the Xerox copier starts with its inventor, a Caltech graduate named Chester Carlson, who in 1938 made the first xerographic reproduction—a piece of waxed paper that read "10-22-38 Astoria." Xerography was difficult to perfect, requiring a coordinated ballet of paper-handling and electric charge, and it was more than twenty years before the first commercial copier, Model 914, went into production. An ungainly machine, it imparted electric shocks and used rabbit fur as a key part, but it solved a centuries-old problem—making document reproduction possible without a roomful of monks or a collection of foul-smelling chemicals. One-touch copying (and its evil twin, the paper jam) was born. Owen has a knack for explaining technical innovations in layman's terms, and he vividly conveys the magnitude of Xerox's coup: in 1961, when a television ad showed a young girl making copies, a competitor demanded proof that she was not a midget.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (August 3, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743251172
• ISBN-13: 978-0743251174
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,080,861 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David Owen is a staff writer for The New Yorker and a contributing editor of Golf Digest, and he is the author of a dozen books. He lives in northwest Connecticut with his wife, the writer Ann Hodgman. Learn more at www.davidowen.net.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fine journalistic history, September 27, 2004

By 

Anson Cassel Mills (Lake Santeetlah, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Copies in Seconds: How a Lone Inventor and an Unknown Company Created the Biggest Communication Breakthrough Since Gutenberg--Chester Carlson and the Birth of the Xerox Machine (Hardcover)

Copies in Seconds is fine account of the invention of the photocopier and, to a more limited extent, the story of how that invention changed the world. Owen well communicates the seemingly impossible odds against which Chester Carlson struggled, especially a youth spent in grinding poverty. Owen has an eye for detail that makes his characters live and an ear for words that rarely misses the mark. He provides both a good introduction to copying before xerography and a stimulating essay on his sources. The illustrations are well chosen, and full captions serve as an outline of his story.

Nevertheless, Owen's journalistic background sometimes works against him, as for instance, when he introduces an interview-demonstration straight into the text. What would be perfectly appropriate for a New Yorker essay sounds strained here. It would have been better to have replaced it with some David Macaulay-style graphics to aid the reader in understanding the technical aspects of early Xerox copiers. Also, I should hope that other books of this quality do not omit citations as Owen's does.

These are quibbles. Copies in Seconds is an excellent book, the sort that may tempt you to sneak away from your responsibilities to finish.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, an enjoyable "Must Read" Business Book, August 14, 2004

By 

N. James - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Copies in Seconds: How a Lone Inventor and an Unknown Company Created the Biggest Communication Breakthrough Since Gutenberg--Chester Carlson and the Birth of the Xerox Machine (Hardcover)

David Owen captures the soul of Xerox as a start-up. A very enjoyable, fluid and fluent read about something as commonplace (now) as the office copier and the laser printer. Great history of a truly unique American company and its All-American product with important lessons for any company of any size. There's enough fact in this book for you to build your own copier, yet it's done in such a literate and subtle way, you will think you knew how it worked all along.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Soul of an old machine, October 21, 2004

By 

Donald B. Siano (Westfield, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Copies in Seconds: How a Lone Inventor and an Unknown Company Created the Biggest Communication Breakthrough Since Gutenberg--Chester Carlson and the Birth of the Xerox Machine (Hardcover)

I am old enough to remember trying to do library research before Xerox. Taking notes longhand, especially with my nearly illegible handwriting, was a chore that I really hated. When xeroxing came along, my life was made a little bit better--I could walk out of the library with something I could at least read and file, even if I didn't always get around to it. I still have several file cabinets of the stuff that I can't bear to throw away.

Mr. Owen has provided a very nice account of how the xerox machine was invented and developed into the indispensable tool we all know today, and a biography of the fascinating man who had the vision to see it through. Some parts of the story are pretty well known by those interested at all in the history of technology, but Owen provides lots of unique material that I've not seen elsewhere. This is not one of those business books that tries to derive "lessons" from xerox's missteps in its later years, but rather focusses on the genesis of the invention, up to the early years after the release of the model 914.

I was most intrigued by the struggle Carlson went through to get any industrial organization to help in the development of the machine--IBM and others really dropped the ball on this one! In the early years, the opinion of the "technical experts" was nearly one of universal dismissal. Later, when development was well underway, the marketing consultants also failed to predict even to an order of magnitude how many copies would be produced at the average business site. The lesson is, if you have something really unique, forget about polls and market research.

There were lots of interesting anecdotes for the author to have some fun with, and he does it very well. I especially appreciated when he injected himself into the story, interviewing some the principals, and even making a xerox by hand. This livens up the story considerably. The bibliography, while not exhaustive, is quite extensive and will be quite handy for anyone mining for another Ph. D. There are 18 pages of glossy photos and plenty of line drawings to help the reader along too.

This is an inspiring tale of how one man can still make a difference, and any reader will come away from it feeling a little better about the prospects for the future of mankind, and a little less cynical about the nature of man, the engineer.