Salamander by Thomas Wharton

Thomas Wharton was born in northern Alberta. His acclaimed first novel, Icefields (1995), won the regional Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book (Caribbean and Canada), the Writers Guild of Alberta Best First Book Award, and the Banff Mountain Book Festival Grand Prize. Salamander (2001) was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. His work has been anthologized in Canada and the US. Wharton lives in Edmonton with his wife, Sharon, and their three children. He is at work on his next novel.From the Hardcover edition.

Summoned to Slovakia by an eccentric count who wants to create the "infinite book, " 18th-century London printer Nicholas Flood falls in love with the count's only daughter. Their child, Pica, travels around the world with Flood as he searches for the elusive materials needed for the count's "infinite book."