History of books

ian clay tablet, currently housed in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, inscribed with the text of the poem Inanna and Ebih by the priestess Enheduanna, the first author whose name is known|alt= Clay tablets were used in Mesopotamia in the . The calamus, an instrument with a triangular point, was used to inscribe characters in moist clay. Fire was then used to dry the tablets out. At Nineveh, over 20,000 tablets have been found, dating from the ; this was the archive and library of the kings of Assyria, who had workshops of copyists and conservationists at their disposal. This presupposes a degree of organization of books, consideration given to conservation, classification, etc. Such tablets continued to be used until the 19th century in various parts of the world, including Germany, Chile, Philippines, and the Sahara Desert. The library of the Assyrian kings in Nineveh, containing over 20,000 tablets from the 7th century BCE, demonstrates a high level of organization and preservation. Sumerian cuneiform Writing originated as a form of record-keeping in Sumer during the with the invention of cuneiform. Many clay tablets have been discovered that show cuneiform writing used to record legal contracts, create lists of assets, and eventually document Sumerian literature and myths. Archaeologists have identified scribal schools from as early as the , where students were taught the art of writing. Developed in what is now Iraq, the "cuneiform" script was later named after the Latin word cuneus, meaning wedge-shaped. Some of the surviving cuneiform tablets were written by student scribes. == South Asia ==

, c. 1400 Early manuscripts In ancient times, stone slabs had been used for writing. The oldest surviving books come from the 10th century CE, the earliest belonging to the Buddhist manuscript tradition. Prior to the adoption of paper, these were written on palm leaves, a naturally abundant resource in the southern part of the subcontinent. The pages were usually three feet wide and two inches tall. The process of preparing the palm leaves consisted of drying, polishing, and treating with starch to form a surface suitable for writing. The pages were bound together by a single piece of string on the shorter edge, and held with the longer edge of the manuscript running alongside the user's chest. Paper was introduced to the Indian Subcontinent from Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula in the 11th century CE by merchants trading with Gujarat. The first papermaking mills were established in the 15th century CE by artisans arriving from Samarkand. However, palm leaves continued to be used as a substrate for manuscripts in parts of eastern and southern India and Sri Lanka. Paper was commonly used in the Jain manuscript tradition from the 15th century onwards. The elongated proportions of the palm-leaf manuscripts were dropped for thinner forms made possible by the use of paper, however, the pages still used a horizontal orientation. Images took up around one-third of the page, the rest being filled with text. == East Asia ==

from Tang dynasty China, i.e. 868 CE, the oldest known dated printed book in the world (British Library) , commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor in 18th-century China China Before the introduction of books, writing on bone, shells, wood and silk was prevalent in China long before the 2nd century BCE, until paper was invented in China around the 1st century CE. China's first recognizable books called jiance or jiandu, were made of rolls of thin split and dried bamboo bound together with hemp, silk, or leather. The discovery of the process using the bark of the mulberry to create paper is attributed to Cai Lun, but it may be older. Texts were reproduced by woodblock printing; the diffusion of Buddhist texts was a main impetus to large-scale production. The format of the book evolved with intermediate stages of scrolls folded concertina-style, scrolls bound at one edge ("butterfly books"), and so on. Although there is no exact date known, between 618 and 907 CE —the period of the Tang Dynasty— the first printing of books started in China. The oldest extant printed book is a work of the Diamond Sutra and dates back to 868 CE, during the Tang Dynasty. Woodblock printing was a common process for the reproduction of already handwritten texts during the earliest stages of book printing. This process was incredibly time-consuming. Because of the meticulous and time-consuming process that woodblock printing was, Bi Sheng, a key contributor to the history of printing, invented the process of Movable type printing (1041–1048 CE). Bi Sheng developed a printing process in which written text could be copied with the use of formed character types, the earliest types being made of ceramic or clay material. Japan A lot of extremely detailed text was produced in early 17th century Japan. For instance, Hitomi Hitsudai spent sixty years taking field notes on 499 types of edible flowers and animals for his book Honchō shokkan (The Culinary Mirror of the Realm). This detailed style of writing was common in the early years when the majority of literate people were of higher classes. Soon afterwards, literacy increased, as hundreds (some say thousands) of schools taught children the vocabulary of geography, history, and individual crafts and callings. The highly detailed style still persisted as it was consistent in many gazetteers, emerging as a social lexicon. In some instances, family almanacs and encyclopedias were put together regionally. The increasing literacy across Japan as well as the proliferation of authors made writing a semi-autonomous system. However, there were still instances of censorship in the late 17th century. Despite the vast depiction of landscape, governmental powers ensured areas that entailed sensitive subjects, such as military households, foreign affairs, Christianity, and other heterodox beliefs, and disturbing current events were kept out of public works. This self-censorship did have drawbacks, as social commentary stayed in the higher social caste where this information was more readily available. Following his exile into the Safavid Empire, in 1540 Babur's successor Humayun brought back artisans of illustrated Persian manuscripts to the Mughal court. He established a painting workshop adjacent to the royal library and atelier in Fatehpur Sikri in the late 15th century CE, allowing the production of the book and illustrated manuscript to occur more efficiently. Large scale poster-sized manuscript paintings were used as recitation aids to famous stories and narratives, such as the Hamzanama. During the 17th century CE, the influence of the illustrated book declined. Single sheet artworks became more popular since they were more cost-effective to produce and purchase, and were later assembled into albums with decorative elements added after. == Wax tablets ==

. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 CE. Romans used wax-coated wooden tablets or pugillares upon which they could write and erase by using a stylus. One end of the stylus was pointed, and the other was spherical. Usually, these tablets were used for everyday purposes (accounting, notes) and for teaching writing to children, according to the methods discussed by Quintilian in his Institutio Oratoria X Chapter 3. Several of these tablets could be assembled in a form similar to a codex. Also, the etymology of the word codex (block of wood) suggests that it may have developed from wooden wax tablets. == Papyrus ==

'' of Hunefer, c. 1275 BCE, ink and pigments on papyrus, in the British Museum (London) After extracting the marrow from the stems of papyrus reed, a series of steps (humidification, pressing, drying, gluing, and cutting) produced media of varying quality, with the best being reserved for sacred writing. In Ancient Egypt, papyrus was used as a medium for writing surfaces, possibly as early as the First Dynasty, although the first evidence comes from the account books of King Neferirkare Kakai of the Fifth Dynasty (about 2400 BCE). A calamus, the stem of a reed sharpened to a point, or bird feathers, were used for writing. The script of Egyptian scribes was called hieratic, or sacerdotal writing; it was not hieroglyphic, but a simplified form better suited to manuscript writing (hieroglyphs usually being engraved or painted). Egyptians exported papyrus to other Mediterranean civilizations including Greece and Rome where it remained in use until parchment was developed. Papyrus books were in the form of scrolls composed of several sheets pasted together, with some reaching a total length of 10 meters or more. Some books, such as the history of the reign of Ramses III, were over 40 meters long. Books rolled out horizontally; the text occupied one side and was divided into columns. The title was indicated by a label attached to the cylinder containing the scroll. Many papyrus texts have been recovered from tombs, where prayers and sacred texts were deposited (such as the Book of the Dead, from the early 2nd millennium BCE) were deposited. Papyrus was a common substrate to be used for notarial documents, tax registries, and legal contracts. Scrolls were typically held vertically to be read, and text was written in long columns. Literary texts, however, were traditionally transcribed into the codex form. After the latter half of the 10th century, leftover papyrus in Egypt was often used by bookbinders for making book covers, since paper had replaced papyrus as the dominant substrate for books. == Pre-Columbian American codices ==

In Mesoamerica, information was recorded on long strips of paper, agave fibers, or animal hides, which were then folded and protected by wooden covers. These were thought to have existed since the time of the Classical Period between the 3rd and 8th centuries, CE. Many of these codices were thought to contain astrological information, religious calendars, knowledge about the gods, genealogies of the rulers, cartographic information, and tribute collection. Many of these codices were stored in temples but were ultimately destroyed by the Spanish colonizers. Currently, the only completely deciphered pre-Columbian writing system is the Maya script. The Maya, along with several other cultures in Mesoamerica, constructed concertina-style books written on Amate paper. Nearly all Mayan texts were destroyed by the Spanish during colonization on cultural and religious grounds. One of the few surviving examples is the Dresden Codex. Although only the Maya have been shown to have a writing system capable of conveying any concept that can be conveyed via speech (at about the same level as the modern Japanese writing system), other Mesoamerican cultures had more rudimentary ideographic writing systems which were contained in similar concertina-style books, one such example being the Aztec codices. Florentine Codex There are more than 2,000 illustrations drawn by native artists that represent this era. Bernardino de Sahagun tells the story of the Aztec people's lives and their natural history. The Florentine Codex speaks about the culture religious cosmology and ritual practices, society, economics, and natural history of the Aztec people. The manuscript is arranged in both Nahuatl and in Spanish. The English translation of the complete Nahuatl text of all twelve volumes of the Florentine Codex took ten years. Arthur J.O. Anderson and Charles Dibble had a decade of long work but made it an important contribution to Mesoamerican ethnohistory. Years later, in 1979, the Mexican government published a full-color volume of the Florentine Codex. Now, since 2012, it is available digitally and fully accessible to those interested in Mexican and Aztec History. The Florentine Codex is a 16th-century ethnographic research study brought about by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagun. The codex itself was actually named La Historia Universal de las Cosas de Nueva España. Bernardino de Sahagun worked on this project from 1545 up until his death in 1590. The Florentine Codex consists of twelve books. It is 2500 pages long but divided into twelve books by categories such as; The Gods, Ceremonies, Omens, and other cultural aspects of Aztec people. == Parchment and paper ==

Parchment Parchment progressively replaced papyrus. Legend attributes its invention to Eumenes II, the king of Pergamon, from which comes the name , which became parchment. Its production began around the 3rd century BCE. Made using the skins of animals (sheep, cattle, donkey, antelope, etc.), parchment proved to be easier to conserve over time; it was more solid and allowed one to erase text. It was a very expensive medium because of the rarity of the material and the time required to produce a document. Vellum, in particular, is a fine quality parchment, made from calf hide. Exeter Book Riddle 26 describes the process of making parchment through the eyes of an animal. The riddle reads: Greece and Rome The scroll of papyrus is called in Latin, a word which signifies "circular movement", "roll", "spiral", "whirlpool", "revolution" (similar to the modern English sense of "swirl") and finally "a roll of writing paper, a rolled manuscript, or a book". In the 7th century Isidore of Seville explains the relation between codex, book, and scroll in his (VI.13) as this: Description The scroll is rolled around two vertical wooden axes. This design allows only sequential usage; one is obliged to read the text in the order in which it is written, and it is impossible to place a marker in order to directly access a precise point in the text. It is comparable to modern video cassettes. Moreover, the reader must use both hands to hold on to the vertical wooden rolls and therefore cannot read and write at the same time. The only volumen in common usage today is the Jewish Torah. Book culture The authors of antiquity had no rights concerning their published works; there were neither authors' nor publishing rights. Anyone could have a text recopied, and even alter its contents. Scribes earned money and authors earned mostly glory unless a patron provided cash; a book made its author famous. This followed the traditional concept of the culture: an author stuck to several models, which he imitated and attempted to improve. The status of the author was not regarded as absolutely personal. This diffusion primarily concerned circles of literary individuals. Atticus was the editor of his friend Cicero. However, the book business progressively extended itself through the Roman Empire; for example, there were bookstores in Lyon. The spread of the book was aided by the spread of Latin throughout the Western Roman Empire. Libraries were private or created at the behest of an individual. Julius Caesar, for example, wanted to establish one in Rome, proving that libraries were signs of political prestige. In the year 377, there were 28 libraries in Rome, and it is known that there were many smaller libraries in other cities. Despite the great distribution of books, scientists do not have a complete picture as to the literary scene in antiquity as thousands of books have been lost through time. Paper Papermaking has traditionally been traced to China about 105 CE, when Cai Lun, an official attached to the Imperial court during the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), created a sheet of paper using mulberry and other bast fibres along with fishnets, old rags, and hemp waste. While paper used for wrapping and padding was used in China since the 2nd century BC, paper used as a writing medium only became widespread by the 3rd century. During the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) paper was folded and sewn into square bags to preserve the flavor of tea. An important development was the mechanization of paper manufacture by medieval papermakers. The introduction of water-powered paper mills, the first certain evidence of which dates to the 11th century in Córdoba, Spain, allowed for a massive expansion of production and replaced the laborious handcraft characteristic of both Chinese and Muslim papermaking. Papermaking centers began to multiply in the late 13th century in Italy, reducing the price of paper to one-sixth of parchment and then falling further. == Middle Ages ==

'', a German book from the Middle Ages By the end of antiquity, between the 2nd and 4th centuries, the scroll was replaced by the codex. The book was no longer a continuous roll, but a collection of sheets attached at the back. It became possible to access a precise point in the text quickly. The codex is equally easy to rest on a table, which permits the reader to take notes while they are reading. The codex form improved with the separation of words, capital letters, and punctuation, which permitted silent reading. Tables of contents and indices facilitated direct access to information. This is still the standard book form, over 1500 years after its appearance. However, it is more likely that its development is attributable to the early Christians who began using it. Paper would progressively replace parchment. Cheaper to produce, it allowed a greater diffusion of books. Books in monasteries A number of Christian books were destroyed at the order of Diocletian in 304. During the turbulent periods of the invasions, it was the monasteries that conserved religious texts and certain works of classical antiquity for the West. There were also important copying centers in Byzantium. The role of monasteries in the conservation of books is somewhat ambiguous: • The purpose of book conservation was not exclusively to preserve ancient culture; it was especially relevant to understanding religious texts with the aid of ancient knowledge. Some works were never recopied, having been judged too dangerous for the monks. Moreover, in need of blank media, the monks sometimes scraped off manuscripts, thereby destroying ancient works. The transmission of knowledge was centered primarily on sacred texts. • Reading was an important activity in the lives of monks, which can be divided into prayer, intellectual work, and manual labor (in the Benedictine order, for example). It was therefore necessary to make copies of certain works. Accordingly, many monasteries had a scriptorium, where monks copied and decorated manuscripts that had been preserved. Copying and conserving writing his compilation of the Miracles of Our Lady, one of his many popular works. Despite this ambiguity, monasteries in the West and the Eastern Empire permitted the conservation of a certain number of secular texts, and several libraries were created: for example, Cassiodorus ('Vivarum' in Calabria, around 550), and Constantine I in Constantinople. Even so, survival of books often depended on political battles and ideologies, which sometimes entailed massive destruction of books or difficulties in production (for example, the distribution of books during the Iconoclasm between 730 and 842). A long list of very old and surviving libraries that now form part of the Vatican Archives can be found in the Catholic Encyclopedia. To help preserve books and protect them from thieves, librarians would create chained libraries, with books attached to cabinets or desks with metal chains. This eliminated the unauthorized removal of books. One of the earliest chained libraries was in England during the 1500s. Popular culture also has examples of chained libraries, such as in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling. The Scriptorium The scriptorium was the workroom of monk copyists; here, books were copied, decorated, rebound, and conserved. The armarius directed the work and played the role of the librarian. The role of the copyist was multifaceted: for example, thanks to their work, texts circulated from one monastery to another. Copies also allowed monks to learn texts and to perfect their religious education. The relationship with the book thus defined itself according to an intellectual relationship with God. But if these copies were sometimes made for the monks themselves, there were also copies made on-demand. The task of copying itself had several phases: the preparation of the manuscript in the form of notebooks once the work was complete, the presentation of pages, the copying itself, revision, correction of errors, decoration, and binding. The book, therefore, required a variety of competencies, which often made a manuscript a collective effort. Transformation from the literary edition in the 12th century 's Madonna of the Book (1480) reflects the presence of books in the houses of richer people in his time.The revival of cities in Europe would change the conditions of book production and extend its influence, and the monastic period of the book would come to an end. This revival accompanied the intellectual renaissance of the period. The manuscript culture outside of the monastery developed in these university-cities in Europe at this time. It is around the first universities that new structures of production developed: reference manuscripts were used by students and professors for teaching theology and liberal arts. The development of commerce and of the bourgeoisie brought with it a demand for specialized and general texts (law, history, novels, etc.). It is in this period that writing in the common vernacular developed (courtly poetry, novels, etc.). Commercial scriptoria became common, and the profession of bookseller came into being, sometimes dealing internationally. There is also the creation of royal libraries as in the case of Saint Louis and Charles V. Books were also collected in private libraries, which became more common in the 14th and 15th centuries. The use of paper diffused through Europe in the 14th century. This material, less expensive than parchment, came from China via the Arabs in Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries. It was used in particular for ordinary copies, while parchment was used for luxury editions. == The printing press ==

, Paris. The invention of the moveable type on the printing press by Johann Fust, Peter Schoffer, and Johannes Gutenberg around 1440 marks the entry of the book into the industrial age. The Western book was no longer a single object, written or reproduced by request. The publication of a book became an enterprise, requiring capital for its realization and a market for its distribution. The cost of each individual book (in a large edition) was lowered enormously, which in turn increased the distribution of books. The book in codex form and printed on paper, as we know it today, dates from the 15th century. Books printed before January 1, 1501, are called incunables. The spreading of book printing all over Europe occurred relatively quickly, but most books were still printed in Latin. The spreading of the concept of printing books in the vernacular was a somewhat slower process. Introduction to printing Movable type in the Arabic script was initially created by European printing presses. In the 1530s, the first Quran had been printed in Venice by Paganino Paganini. The embrace of the printing press by the general public in the Arab and Persian worlds occurred in the 18th century, despite having been introduced in Europe three centuries earlier. The first Arabic printing press was established in Constantinople in 1720 under the reign of Sultan Ahmed III. The first Persian book to be printed by lithography was a copy of the Quran, using a printing press imported from Russia to the city of Tabriz. == Modern era ==

Late modern period The Late Modern Period saw a lot of development in the types of books being circulated. Chapbooks – short works on cheap paper – were targeted towards lower-class readers and featured a diverse range of subjects. Everything from myth and fairy tales to practical and medical advice and prayers contributed to a steady demand that helped spread literacy among the lower classes. Literacy was in general on the rise, with a near-universal literacy rate in Western Europe, Australia, and the United States of America by 1890, with the inequality between men and women's literacy starting to equalize by 1900. The printing press became increasingly mechanized. Early designs for metal and steam-powered printing presses were introduced in the early 19th century by inventors like Friederich Koenig and Charles Stanhope. However, they became widely adopted by the 1830s, particularly by newspapers such as the London Times. Around the same time, a revolution was triggered in paper production by Henry Fourdrinier and Thomas Gilpin, whose new paper-making machines output very wide continuous rolls of paper. The only bottleneck to book production was the time-consuming process of composition. This was eventually solved by Ottmar Mergenthaler and Tolbert Lanston who produced the Linotype and Monotype machines respectively. With these barriers removed book production exploded. Great strides began in the realm of publishing as authors began to enjoy early forms of copyright protection. The Statute of Anne was passed in 1710, establishing basic rights for the author's intellectual property. This was superseded by the Copyright Act 1814 which transferred sole rights to print work for twenty-eight years after publication. This was extended in 1842 to the author's lifetime plus seven years, or forty two years after first publication. During the Enlightenment more books began to pour off European presses, creating an early form of information overload for many readers. Nowhere was this more the case than in Enlightenment Scotland, where students were exposed to a wide variety of books during their education. The demands of the British and Foreign Bible Society (founded 1804), the American Bible Society (founded 1816), and other non-denominational publishers for enormously large inexpensive runs of texts led to numerous innovations. The introduction of steam printing presses a little before 1820, closely followed by new steam paper mills, constituted the two most major innovations. Together, they caused book prices to drop and the number of books to increase considerably. Numerous bibliographic features, like the positioning and formulation of titles and subtitles, were also affected by this new production method. New types of documents appeared later in the 19th century: photography, sound recording and film. Contemporary period Typewriters, and eventually computer-based word processors and printers, let people print and put together their own documents. Desktop publishing is common in the 21st century. Among a series of developments that occurred in the 1990s, the spread of digital multimedia, which encodes texts, images, animations, and sounds in a unique and simple form was notable for the book publishing industry. Hypertext further improved access to information. Finally, the internet lowered production and distribution costs. E-books It is difficult to predict the future of the book in an era of fast-paced technological change. Anxieties about the "death of books" have been expressed throughout the history of the medium, perceived as threatened by competing media such as radio, television, and the Internet. However, these views are generally exaggerated, and "dominated by fetishism, fears about the end of humanism and ideas of techno-fundamentalist progress". The print book medium has proven to be very resilient and adaptable. In the 2020s, print books still considerably outsell e-books in most countries and remain a multi-billion dollar industry. A good deal of reference material, designed for direct access instead of sequential reading, as for example encyclopedias, exists less and less in the form of books and increasingly on the web. Leisure reading materials are increasingly published in e-reader formats. Although electronic books, or e-books, had limited success in the early years, and readers were resistant at the outset, the demand for books in this format has grown dramatically, primarily because of the popularity of e-reader devices and as the number of available titles in this format has increased. Since the Amazon Kindle was released in 2007, the e-book has become a digital phenomenon and many theorize that it will take over hardback and paper books in the future. E-books are much more accessible and easier to buy and it is also cheaper to purchase an E-Book rather than its physical counterpart due to paper expenses being deducted. Another important factor in the increasing popularity of the e-reader is its continuous diversification. Many e-readers now support basic operating systems, which facilitate email and other simple functions. The iPad is the most obvious example of this trend, but even mobile phones can host e-reading software. == Reading for the blind ==

. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. Braille is a system of reading and writing through the use of the finger tips. Braille was developed as a system of efficient communication for blind and partially blind alike. The system consists of sixty-three characters and is read left to right. These characters are made with small raised dots in two columns similar to a modern domino piece to represent each letter. Readers can identify characters with two fingers. Reading speed averages one hundred and twenty-five words per minute and can reach two hundred words per minute. In 1854 France made Braille the "official communication system for blind individuals". In 1935, a British-based foundation, Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB), was the first to deliver talking books to the blind on vinyl records. The next progression of spoken books came in the 1980s with the widespread use of compact discs. Compact discs reached more people and made it possible to listen to books in the car. In 1995 the term audiobook became the industry standard. Finally, the internet enabled audiobooks to become more accessible and portable. Audiobooks could now be played in their entirety instead of being split onto multiple disks. == Academic study ==

The history of the book became an acknowledged academic discipline in the latter half of the 20th century. It was fostered by William Ivins Jr.'s Prints and Visual Communication (1953) and Henri-Jean Martin and Lucien Febvre's ''L'apparition du livre (The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450–1800'') in 1958 as well as Marshall McLuhan's Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962). Another notable pioneer in the history of the book is Robert Darnton. == Gallery ==

File:European Output of Manuscripts 500–1500.png|European output of manuscripts 500–1500 File:European Output of Printed Books ca. 1450–1800.svg|European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 File:European Output of Books 500–1800.png|European output of books 500–1800 == See also ==