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Laurens Janszoon Coster (1370 - 1440), or Laurens Jansz Koster, is the name of a purported inventor of a printing press from Haarlem. He discovered printing simultaneously with Johannes Gutenberg and is regarded in the Netherlands as having invented printing first. According to Hadrianus Junius, sometime in the 1420s, Coster was in the Haarlemmerhout carving letters from bark for the amusement of his grandchildren, and observed that the letters left impressions on the sand. He proceeded to invent a new type of ink that didn't run, and he began a printing company based on his invention with a primitive typesetting arrangement using moveable type. Since the Haarlemmerhout was burned during a siege by the Kennemers in 1426 during the Hook and Cod wars, this must have been early in the 1420s. Using wooden letters at first, he later used lead and tin movable type. His company prospered and grew. He is said to have printed several books including Speculum Humanae Salvationis with several assistants including the letter cutter Johann Fust, and it was this letter cutter Fust (often spelled Faust) who, when Laurens was nearing death, broke his promise of secrecy and stole his presses and type and took them to Mainz where he started his own printing company. Coster probably perished in the plague that visited Haarlem in 1439-1440; his widow is mentioned in the latter year. There are no known works printed by Laurens. Illustration from Vies Des Savants Illustrates, Savants Du Moyen-Age by Louis Figuier, 1883.
