Chapter 1

What is a Printed Book ?

At the end of this chapter you should be able to:

Describe how the book originated, where and when.

Explain what a printed boos is.

Name the physical components of a printed book.

List the front matter components of a book.

List the back matter components of a book.

Describe the structure of the body content of a book.

Table of Content

Brief History of the Printed Book

Books in Ancient Times (1200 BC – 500CE).

Books in the Middle Ages(500 – 1500 CE).

Books in the Renaissance (1500 – 1800 CE) .

Books in the Modern Era (1800 – Today)

Bibliography

Printed Book Anatomy

1.1 Brief History of Printed Books

The history of the book is related to the origin of writing and the inventions of clay tablets, papyrus, rolls, codices, the vellum, paper and the mechanical printing process. The following sections will go briefly on how the book evolved from ancient times (~ 5000 BC) up to today.

1.1.1 Books in Ancient Times (1200 BE – 500 CE)

Clay Tablets

Writing arose in the setting of temple administration in south cities of Mesopotamia, Sumer (today Iraq), see figure 2.1.1, in late 4th millenium BC. Accountants wrote thier records in 1 cm thick 12×8 cm clay tablets. The signs of the writing was created using a pointed stylus, pressed to form linear strokes or wedges (in latin cunneus), and from this the name of the cuneiform written language. Figure 2.1.2 shows a tablet, named The Babylonian Plimpton 322 tablet, which contains numbers in cuneiform script, believed to have been written in Senkereh (Basra) around 1800 BC.

Papyrus

Papyrus was used as a medium of writing surface in Egypt (2900 BC), in Classical Greece (800 BC – 600 AC) and the Roman Empire (31 BC – 476 AC). Papyrus could be folded, but was easy to break, so papyrus rolls were used. Papyrus was made from the marrow of the papyrus cyperus L plant, which grew around the wswamp of the Nile Delta. The stalks of the plant was cut into pieces ~ 30 cm. The pitch was the sliced into strips, and laid side by side, a second layer was then laid at an angle of 90 degrees. The two layers were pressed to get them glued. Figure 2.1.3 show Ancient Egypt were papyrus was created in the 4th century BC. Figure 2.1.4 shows part of Egyptian The Book of Dead, 1275 BC, on papyrus. Figure 2.1.5 shows a roll (volumen in latin) of papyrus containing the Book of Esther, from Seville, Spain. Papyrus scrolls are rolls of papyrus, normally with writing only in the inner side, where the fibers run horizontally, the so called recto side. The scroll is rolled aroud two vertical wooden axes. The information in the roll has to be read in a sequential manner.

Parchment (sheep or goatskin) / Vellum (calfskin)

Some inhabitants of Mesopotamia in the 8th century BC preferred animal skin (parchment) to clay tablets as a writing surface. Near the first century BC parchment increased in popularity due to the ban of papyrus export dictated by Ptolemy. The process of parchment was refined in the city of Pergamum in the second century BC, giving as a result a much better quality surface to write.

Paper

1.1.2 Books in the Middle Ages(500 – 1500 CE)

Codex

Between the 2d and 4th centuries, the continuous roll was replaced by the codex, a collection of sheets of parchment (vellum) attached to the back (binding) using different methods. Codex allowed readers to access information on a random manner. In Ancient times and Middle Ages the information was handwritten. The invention of the movable printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440 accelerated the production of printed pages.

The making of a book in the medieval time was a process with the following steps:

1.1.3 Books in the Renaissance (1500 – 1800 CE)

Gutenberg’s printing press with movable types invention accelerated the production and popularity of books. By then, the ownership of books was not the privilege of the clergy and secular government and commerce officials. Nicolas Jensen helped developing the techniques to manufacture type or characters of a given language, the font. For latin language the rotunda and the roman styles were developed, mainly by N Jensen. For liturgy, the “gothic” fracture style was dominant. The production of paper had also come major improvements, The pages produced by the printing press using selected type of font were bind together to form codices.

1795 Firmin Didot created duplicate printing plates.

1796 Alois Senefeder of Munich invented lithography.

In 1839 the first self-inking treadle press was built by American Stephen Ruggles.

1.1.4 Books in Modern Era (1800 – Today)

GutenIn 1806 Anthony Berte of London invented a mechanical device for typecasting, using a pump to force molten metal into the matrix. In 1846 appear the press with paper fed from rolls, designed by Rowland Hill.

Typewriters

Computers

Ebooks

Bibliography

Eliot, S. and Rose, J. (eds.) (2007). A Companion to the History of the Book, 2nd edition. Wiley. Hoboken, NJ.