History of the Book
Brian Regal, PhD
Department of History
Kean University
Union, New Jersey USA
HIST 4251
What is History?
A way of knowing about the past. The past are all the events, people, and places, of the human experience that came before now.
History is not the past, history is the analysis of the past.
What is a book?
- a collection of texts
What is a text?
- a written document which is read
What is a medium?
- the material form of a book
- paper pages
- electronic etc.
Bibliography
- a collection and ordering of books and other textural
materials associated with a single topic
What is the history of the book?
- the study of the history of how books are made, written,
distributed: how they impact upon society and how society
impacts upon the production of books
Sociology of the text
- the ‘meaning’ of a text is not inherent in the text
- the scattershot techniques of early printers
caused texts to change from the authors original:
mixed-up or lost pages, misspellings etc change the
meaning for the reader
Darnton, “What is the History of
Books?” 1982:
"it looks less like a field [and more
like] a tropical rain forest. The
explorer can hardly make his way
across it. At every step he
becomes entangled in a luxuriant
undergrowth of journal articles
and disoriented by the
crisscrossing of disciplines and ...
competing methodologies."
Early petroglyphs: Newspaper Rock, Utah, 2000 ya
(Is this a book?)
Early Forms of Writing:
Sumerian Cuneiform Tablets 3500 BC
Cuneiform writing
Cuneiform writing
Early Forms of Writing:
Egyptian Papyrus
Egyptian hieroglyphics : invented ca. 3100BC
Cylinder rolls:
Cylinder rolls:
Early Chinese writing:
Early Sanskrit writing:
Papyrus: made in Egypt from palm fronds, cut into large sheets
Regia = largest size sheet
Livia = next largest
Hieractia = had smoothest surface and so favored by scribes for record keeping (this led to work-a-day Egyptian being written in ‘Hieratic’).
Calamus = a thin reed used as a dip pen
Hieratic text on Papyrus
Meso-America
Meso-America
Maya Codice 600-800CE
Meso-America
Maya ‘Dresden Codex’ 11-12c CE (Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.
The oldest known book written in the Americas. Held in Dresden, Germany. It folds up like an old fashioned road map.
1st century AD (CE) switch to Parchment (untanned leather), usually from a goat kid
By 4th Century AD parchment has replaced Papyrus
Making medieval parchment
The scraper is called a ‘Lunarium’
(Little Moon)
The frame is a ‘Herse’
The first books (in a Modern sense?):
Scrolls were in use throughout the classical age
Storing scrolls together proved difficult
Tags on end of the scroll for identification
- Greek, Sillybos – syllabus
- Roman, Titulus – title
Scrolls stored in a earthenware jug called a Bibiliotheke – library
Later when Romans begin binding pages of papyrus or parchment they called it a Codex
Making Medieval books
Mixing paint
Making Medieval books – the scriptorium
Making Medieval Iron Gall Ink
Initially artists used ‘lamp black.’ This is made by burning metal and scraping off the soot.
Iron Gall: take galls from tree, grind to powder add gum Arabic and iron sulfate.
Making Medieval Iron Gall Ink
Making Medieval books – the scriptorium
Scribes in the scriptorium
The large sheets of parchment
Were sown together as a ‘quire’
Four sheet sewn together
Gives you eight (8)
Pages or ‘leaves’
Manuscript creation in Ethiopia
Manuscript creation in Ethiopia
Arabs save books
The Arab Translation Movement: 8-10th centuries.
The translation movement began during the Abbasid Period (mid 500s – mid 600s) as a way to spread Islam to non-Arabic speaking people. It was then realized that the same idea could bring foreign knowledge to the Arab world.
House of Wisdom: Bayt al-Hikman
This institution in controversial because it is not clear if it was a school, a private library, or an idea about the importance of knowledge. There was a library but it is unclear if it was called the House of Wisdom.
This library was destroyed during the siege of Baghdad in 1258.
Produced many important scholars including
Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) “The object of history is to know about social organization.”
750s CE Islam learns paper making from China.
An Arabic illuminated manuscript
An Arab library
An Arab university
Book of Kells Ireland, 800AD
Book of Kells Ireland, 800AD
Paper making – half stuff
Paper making vat man and assistant
Early Block printing (Xylographic printing) Japan & China 7th century
Early Block printing (Xylographic printing) India & Indonesia
Early Block printing (Xylographic printing)
Early Block printing (Xylographic printing)
Johannes Gutenberg (1399(?)-1468)
Early printing presses
Print shop workers:
Compositors (type setters)
Inkers (put in on press)
Pressman (works press)
Binders (sew pages together &
attach covers)
Early printing presses
Gutenberg’s Bible (1456)
Gutenberg’s Bible (1456)
Gutenberg’s Bible (1456)
Printed or done by hand?
Incunables (from the cradle) The earliest printed books (1450-1480 or sometimes 1500)
Notice the chains to keep them secure.
Incunables (from the cradle) The earliest printed books (1450-1480 or sometimes 1500)
Incunables (from the cradle) The earliest printed books (1450-1480 or sometimes 1500)
Incunables (from the cradle) The earliest printed books (1450-1480 or sometimes 1500)
Spread of Western Printing:
Germany – Gutenberg’s Bible
Nuremberg Chronicle (1490)
Italy – Augustine’s City of God (1470)
Euclid’s Elements of Geometry (1482)
France – Books of Hours
Holland – Science and Alchemy
England – William Caxton (trained in Germany)
History of Troy (1475) done in Belgium
Game and Playe of Chesse (1474)
Incunables (from the cradle) The earliest printed books (1450-1480 or sometimes 1500)
Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)
Nuremberg Chronicle (1493)
Protestant Reformation and print
Martin Luther (1483-1546) & Philip Melanchthon
The Papal Ass of Rome and the Monk Calf of Freyberg (1523)
also called The Meaning of Two Horrific Figures
Oversized books: Castle library, Prague, The Czech Republic
Oversized books: Codex Gigas
Oversized books: Codex Gigas
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Born, Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
‘First Folio’ 1623
What or who is an author?
What is the nature of authorship?
Was this guy even the one who wrote
this material?
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
His sources:
Holinshed’s Chronicles (1577): a multi-authored work describing England, Scotland, Ireland and their histories from their first inhabitation to the mid-16th century put together by printer Raphael Holinshed. It was used as a source work by Shakespeare and also his contemporary Christopher Marlowe and others.
Shakespeare used it as the inspiration for:
Macbeth
King Lear
Richard III
And Henry V
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
His sources: Henry V
Holinshed’s Chronicles (1577): St. Crispin's Day speech
“I woulde not wishe a man more here than I have, wee are in deede in comparison to the enemies but a fewe: But if God of his clemency doe favor us, and our juste cause…”
“If we are mark’d to die, we are enow�To do our country loss; and if to live,�The fewer men, the greater share of honour.�God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more…
From this day to the ending of the world,�But we in it shall be remember’d;�We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…”
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
His sources: Romeo and Juliet
Arthur Brooke, The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562)
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
His sources: Julius Caesar
Plutarch, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans (2nd C AD)
Sometimes called The Parallel Lives and sometimes simply as Plutarch’s Lives.
Translated into English by Thomas North in 1579.
The Inklings (1930s-1950s)
Pubs of Oxford – The Eagle & Child
Pubs of Oxford – The Eagle & Child (the Rabbit Room)
Pubs of Oxford – The White Horse (alias The Prancing Pony in LOTR)
Pubs of Oxford – The White Horse (alias The Prancing Pony in LOTR)
Pubs of Oxford – The Turf originally opened mid-1200s
Pubs of Oxford – The Turf (secret entrance at St. Helen’s Passage)
Pubs of Oxford – The Turf (interior)
Pubs of Oxford – The Turf (interior)
Pubs of Oxford – The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe doorway
Pubs of Oxford – The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe doorway
Important Inklings publications
JRR Tolkien: (1892-1973)
The Hobbit (1937)
The Lord of the Rings (1954-55)
CS Lewis: (1898-1963)
Chronicles of Narnia (1950-56)
Charles Williams: (1886-1945)
Descent into Hell (1937)
All Hallows Eve (1945)
Others:
Owen Barfield (1898-1997)
Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry (1957)
Hugo Dyson (1896-1975) whose legendary reaction to LOTR began the end of The Inklings
Paratext:
Those materials surrounding-or acting as a framework-for a text. These include the cover of a text, table of contents, prefaces and introductions written by other than the prime author, reviews on the back cover, commentaries, etc.
All these elements impact upon how the reader reads and interprets the main text.
French author Gerard Genette calls this a ‘threshold’ rather than a border.
Paratext: book covers, Conan, Robert E. Howard (artwork by Frank Frazetta)
Paratext: book covers, Conan, Robert E. Howard (artwork by Frank Frazetta)
Paratext: table of contents
Paratext: book reviews
Paratext: The Hobbit (1st edition book)
Paratext: The Hobbit (movie)
Ugarit Syria: oldest known library (1200BC)
Alexandria: 200sBC
China: 213BC Han Dynasty used classification system, books are important
Middle Ages: Monastery libraries
New Library of Alexandria
New Library of Alexandria
Renaissance Europe: The Virtuosi
Civic Virtue = having a private library and collection ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ showed you were a proper citizen
Renaissance Europe:
Civic Virtue = having a private library and collection ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’
Renaissance Europe: the library of the Scandinavian scholar Olé Worm
Civic Virtue = having a private library and collection ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’
Renaissance Europe: books chained in the library (note the chains for security)
Renaissance Europe: books chained in the library
Renaissance Europe: books chained in the library
Bodleian Library, Oxford
Bodleian Library, Oxford
Bodleian Library, Oxford
Bodleian Library, Oxford
Ben Franklin’s Library Company of Philadelphia – founded 1731 by the ‘Junto’
Andrew Carnegie: grew up poor. public libraries should be public, not by membership. He built many public libraries around the country including the Kearny Public Library.
New York Public Library
John Jacob Astor = we need a public library
Astor left $400,000 (today $11 million) to make a reference library
1870 Lenox Library merges with Astor
1886 Samuel J. Tilden leaves his fortune as well to build the NYPL
New building put up over
the old NY city reservoir
on 5th Ave
NYPL opens 1911.
New York Public Library: reading room
Library of Congress: built from Thomas Jefferson’s personal library.
Jefferson felt education crucial to national freedom and success.
Censorship:
What is it?
- Suppression of speech in word, deed, or print, usually along ‘moral’ grounds
What is it meant to accomplish?
Harry Potter
- Numerous bans, but not only in the South – banned in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York