The audience for early movable books were adults, not children. The first known movable in a book was created by Benedictine monk
Matthew Paris in his
Chronica Majora, which covers a period beginning in 1240. Paris attached volvelles onto some of the pages which were used by the monks to help calculate holy days. It is speculated that the Catalan mystic and poet
Ramon Llull, of Majorca, also used volvelles to illustrate his theories in the early 14th century, but no physical example of a paper volvelle created by him has ever been documented. Throughout the centuries volvelles have been used for such diverse purposes as teaching
anatomy, making
astronomical predictions, creating secret code, and
telling fortunes. By 1564 another movable
astrological book titled
Cosmographia Petri Apiani had been published. In the following years, the medical profession made use of this format, illustrating anatomical books with layers and flaps showing the human body. The English landscape designer
Capability Brown made use of flaps to illustrate "before and after" views of his designs. 's book
Treatise on Perspective (1775). While it can be documented that books with movable parts had been used for centuries, they were almost always used in scholarly works. In 1775
Thomas Malton, the elder published
A Compleat Treatise on Perspective in Theory and Practice, on the Principles of Dr. Brook Taylor.
A Compleat Treatise on Perspective is the earliest known commercially produced pop-up book since it contains three-dimensional paper mechanisms. The pop-ups are activated by pulling string and form geometric shapes used to aid the reader in understanding the concept of perspective. It was not until the very late 18th century that these techniques were applied to books designed for entertainment, particularly for children. Some of the first three-dimensional and tab activated books were produced by Ernest Nister and
Lothar Meggendorfer. These books were popular in Germany and Britain during the 19th century. A significant development in the field of pop-up books came in 1929 with the publication of the ''Daily Express Children's Annual
Number 1, "with pictures that spring up in model form". This was produced by Louis Giraud and Theodore Brown. Four more Daily Express Annuals'' followed, and Giraud set up his own publishing house, Strand Publications, which produced the groundbreaking series of Bookano books. The Bookano books are considered the first, true pop-up books for children because the pop-ups can be viewed from a full 360 degrees, not just the front side facing the viewer. There were seventeen Bookanos before the series came to an end with the death of Giraud in 1949. One of the notable early examples of movable books in the United States is
The Moving Picture Books, published in the early 20th century. These books featured mechanical illustrations that could move or change scenes with the pull of a tab. Initially published by Sully and Kleinteich, and later by The New York Book Company and the Pictorial Color Book Company, they became popular for their interactive storytelling and vibrant illustrations. Another unusual type of pop-up during this time was the tissue paper honeycomb style introduced by United States publisher
Bernard Wilmsen, often known by the publishing name B. Wilmsen, in his Tunnel Books. In the United States, in the 1930s, Harold Lentz followed Giraud's lead with the production of the Blue Ribbon books in New York. In the United States, in the 1930s,
Blue Ribbon Books in New York was the first publisher to use the term
pop-up to describe their movable illustrations, and they became well known for their collaboration with
Disney, producing popular pop-up editions such as
The "Pop-Up" Mickey Mouse and
The "Pop-Up" Donald Duck. The next advance in the field was made by
Vojtěch Kubašta working in Prague in the 1960s. His lead was followed by
Waldo Hunt in the US with his founding of Graphics International. produced hundreds of pop-up books for children between the 1960s and 1990s. Although intended for US audiences, these books were assembled in areas with lower labor costs, initially Japan and later Singapore and Latin American countries such as Colombia and Mexico. Hunt's first pop-up book was ''Bennett Cerf's Pop-Up Riddle Book'', published by
Random House as a promotion for
Maxwell House Coffee and showcasing the work of humorist
Bennett Cerf, who was then president of Random House. ==Notable works==