The "Pianotype" : The First Composing Machine That Was Actually Used (1840)

In 1840 James Hadden Young and Adrien Delcambre, both of whom were residents of Lille, France, received British patent no. 8428 for "An Improved Mode of Setting up Printing Types." 

Young and Delcambre's machine, as produced by Henry Bessemer, was the first typesetting machine used in a printing office.  Their machine was not a great improvement over William Church's invention of 1822.  The design of the Young & Delcambre machine led to its being called the "Pianotype."

"Type was held in long, narrow boxes from which it was releaed by a keyboard so that it slid down an inclined channel to a point where it was assembled into a line. The problem of making the type arrive in the right order, although solved by Church, had to be solved over again by Bessemer. He curved the channels to make them of equal length. . . " (Printing and the Mind of Man. Catalogue of the Exhibitions at the British Museum and at Earls Court, London 16-27 July 1963 [1963] No. 463.)

The first book set on the Young & Delcambre machine was Binns, Anatomy of Sleep (1842).