A transmission engineer, Count Hans Christopher Seherr-Thoss had the inclination to write Universal Joints and Driveshafts in 1980, when he realized the need for an effective textbook on machine elements. But only in 1988 did he actually form the writing team and find the publisher Springer, which released the English-language first edition in 1992. Count Seherr-Thoss, whose long writing career began more than 50 years earlier in newspapers, has authored works on technical subjects since 1948 and published his first Springer book, on gears, in 1965. He resides near Munich, Germany, and maintains an archive, founded in 1936 in Breslau, which specializes in technological, economical and related biographical works.