History of the book - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The history of books follows a suite of technological

Technology

Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

innovation

Innovation

Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...

s for book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

s. These improved the quality of text conservation, the access to information

Information

Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...

, portability, and the cost of production. This history has been linked to political and economical contingencies, the history of ideas

History of ideas

The history of ideas is a field of research in history that deals with the expression, preservation, and change of human ideas over time. The history of ideas is a sister-discipline to, or a particular approach within, intellectual history...

, and the history of religion.

Origins and antiquity

Writing

Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...

is a system of linguistic

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

symbol

Symbol

A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...

s which permit one to transmit and conserve information

Information

. Writing appears to have developed between the 7th millennium BC

7th millennium BC

During the 7th millennium BC, agriculture spreads from Anatolia to the Balkans.World population was essentially stable at around 5 million people, living mostly scattered across the globe in small hunting-gathering tribes...

and the 4th millennium BC

4th millennium BC

The 4th millennium BC saw major changes in human culture. It marked the beginning of the Bronze Age and of writing.The city states of Sumer and the kingdom of Egypt were established and grew to prominence. Agriculture spread widely across Eurasia...

, first in the form of early mnemonic

Mnemonic

A mnemonic , or mnemonic device, is any learning technique that aids memory. To improve long term memory, mnemonic systems are used to make memorization easier. Commonly encountered mnemonics are often verbal, such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember something,...

symbols which became a system of ideogram

Ideogram

An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.Examples of...

s or pictographs through simplification. The oldest known forms of writing were thus primarily logographic

Logogram

A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories.Logograms are often commonly known also as "ideograms"...

in nature. Later syllabic

Syllabic

Syllabic may refer to:*Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, a family of abugidas used to write a number of Aboriginal Canadian languages.*Syllabary, writing system using symbols for syllables...

and alphabetic (or segmental) writing emerged.

Silk

Silk

Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...

, in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, was also a base for writing. Writing was done with brushes. Many other materials were used as bases: bone, bronze, pottery, shell, etc. In India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, for example, dried palm tree leaves were used; in Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...

another type of plant, Amate. Any material which will hold and transmit text is a candidate for use in bookmaking.

The book is also linked to the desire of humans to create lasting records. Stones could be the most ancient form of writing, but wood

Wood

Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...

would be the first medium to take the guise of a book. The words biblos and liber first meant "fibre inside of a tree". In Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, the character

Chinese character

Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...

that means book is an image of a tablet of bamboo

Bamboo

Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....

. Wooden tablets (Rongorongo

Rongorongo

Rongorongo is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Easter Island that appears to be writing or proto-writing. It cannot be read despite numerous attempts at decipherment. Although some calendrical and what might prove to be genealogical information has been identified, not even...

) were also made on Easter Island

Easter Island

Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...

Clay tablets

Clay tablets were used in Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

in the third millennium BC. The calamus

Calamus

Calamus may mean:*Calamus , a figure in Greek mythologyBotany and zoology*Sweet Flag , a tall wetland plant*Calamus , a genus of rattan palms*Calamus , a genus of fish in the family Sparidae...

, an instrument in the form of a triangle, was used to make characters in moist clay. The tablets were fired to dry them out. At Nineveh

Nineveh

Nineveh was an ancient Assyrian city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and capital of the Neo Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq....

, 22,000 tablets were found, dating from the 7th century BC; this was the archive and library of the kings of Assyria

Assyria

Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...

, who had workshops of copyists and conservationists at their disposal. This presupposes a degree of organization with respect to books, consideration given to conservation, classification, etc. Tablets were used right up until the 19th C, in various parts of the world, including Germany, Chile, and the Saharan Desert.

Papyrus

After extracting the marrow from the stems, a series of steps (humidification, pressing, drying, gluing, and cutting), produced media of variable quality, the best being used for sacred writing. In Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

, papyrus was used for writing maybe as early as from First Dynasty, but first evidence is from the account books of King Neferirkare Kakai

Neferirkare Kakai

Neferirkare Kakai was the third Pharaoh of Egypt during the Fifth dynasty. His praenomen, Neferirkare, means "Beautiful is the Soul of Ra". His Horus name was Userkhau, his Golden Horus name Sekhemunebu and his Nebti name Khaiemnebty.- Family :...

of the Fifth Dynasty (about 2400 BC). A calamus

Calamus

Calamus may mean:*Calamus , a figure in Greek mythologyBotany and zoology*Sweet Flag , a tall wetland plant*Calamus , a genus of rattan palms*Calamus , a genus of fish in the family Sparidae...

, the stem of a reed sharpened to a point, or bird feathers were used for writing. The script of Egyptian scribes

Scribes

Scribes is a minimalist and extensible text editor for GNOME that combines simplicity with power. Scribes focuses on ways workflow and productivity can be intelligently automated and radically improved...

was called hieratic

Hieratic

Hieratic refers to a cursive writing system that was used in the provenance of the pharaohs in Egypt and Nubia that developed alongside the hieroglyphic system, to which it is intimately related...

, or sacredotal writing; it is not hieroglyphic

Egyptian hieroglyphs

Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...

, but a simplified form more adapted to manuscript writing (hieroglyphs usually being engraved or painted).

Papyrus

Papyrus

Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....

books were in the form of a scroll

Scroll

A scroll is a roll of parchment, papyrus, or paper, which has been drawn or written upon.Scroll may also refer to:*Scroll , the decoratively curved end of the pegbox of string instruments such as violins...

of several sheets pasted together, for a total length of up to 10 meters or even 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 book. Many papyrus texts come from tombs, where prayers and sacred texts were deposited (such as the Book of the Dead

Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead is the modern name of an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BC. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw is translated as "Book of Coming Forth by Day". Another translation would be "Book of...

, from the early 2nd millennium BC

2nd millennium BC

The 2nd millennium BC marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age.Its first half is dominated by the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and Babylonia. The alphabet develops. Indo-Iranian migration onto the Iranian plateau and onto the Indian subcontinent propagates the use of the chariot...

).

These examples demonstrate that the development of the book, in its material makeup and external appearance, depended on a content dictated by political (the histories of pharaohs) and religious (belief in an afterlife) values. The particular influence afforded to writing and word perhaps motivated research into ways of conserving texts.

East Asia

Writing on bone

Oracle bone

Oracle bones are pieces of bone normally from ox scapula or turtle plastron which were used for divination chiefly during the late Shang Dynasty. The bones were first inscribed with divination in oracle bone script by using a bronze pin, and then heated until crack lines appeared in which the...

, shells, wood and silk existed in China

China

long before the 2nd century BC. Paper

Paper

Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

was invented in China around the 1st century AD. The discovery of the process using the bark of the blackberry bush is attributed to Ts'ai Louen, but it may be older. Texts were reproduced by woodblock printing

Woodblock printing

Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper....

; 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

Concertina

A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It has a bellows and buttons typically on both ends of it. When pressed, the buttons travel in the same direction as the bellows, unlike accordion buttons which travel perpendicularly to it...

-style, scrolls bound at one edge ("butterfly books") and so on.

The first printing of books started in China and was during the Tang Dynasty

Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire...

(618–907), but exactly when is not known. The oldest extant printed book is a Tang Dynasty work of the Diamond Sutra

Diamond Sutra

The Diamond Sūtra , is a short and well-known Mahāyāna sūtra from the Prajñāpāramitā, or "Perfection of Wisdom" genre, and emphasizes the practice of non-abiding and non-attachment...

and dates back to 868. During the Ming Dynasty

Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...

(1368–1644), when the Italian Catholic missionary Matteo Ricci

Matteo Ricci

Matteo Ricci, SJ was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission, as it existed in the 17th-18th centuries. His current title is Servant of God....

visited China, he wrote that there were "exceedingly large numbers of books in circulation" and noted that they were sold at very low prices.

Pre-columbian codices of the Americas

The only currently deciphered complete writing system in the Americas is the Maya script

Maya script

The Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs or Maya hieroglyphs, is the writing system of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered...

. The Maya, along with several

Mesoamerican writing systems

Mesoamerica, like India, Mesopotamia, China, and Egypt, is one of the few places in the world where writing has developed independently. Mesoamerican scripts deciphered to date are logosyllabic, combining the use of logograms with a syllabary, and they are often called hieroglyphic scripts...

other cultures in Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

, constructed concertina-style books written on Amatl

Amatl

Amate is a form of paper that has been manufactured in Mexico since the pre Hispanic times. Amate paper was extensively produced and used for both communication, records and ritual during the Aztec Empire; however, after the Spanish conquest, its production was mostly banned and replaced by...

paper. Nearly all Mayan texts were destroyed

Diego de Landa

Diego de Landa Calderón was a Spanish Bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Yucatán. He left future generations with a mixed legacy in his writings, which contain much valuable information on pre-Columbian Maya civilization, and his actions which destroyed much of that civilization's...

by the Spanish during colonization on cultural and religious grounds. One of the few surviving examples is the Dresden Codex

Dresden Codex

The Dresden Codex, also known as the Codex Dresdensis, is a pre-Columbian Maya book of the eleventh or twelfth century of the Yucatecan Maya in Chichén Itzá. The Maya codex is believed to be a copy of an original text of some three or four hundred years earlier...

.

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

Japanese writing system

The modern Japanese writing system uses three main scripts:*Kanji, adopted Chinese characters*Kana, a pair of syllabaries , consisting of:...

), other Mesoamerican cultures had more rudimentary ideographical writing systems

Ideogram

which were contained in similar concertina-style books, one such example being the Aztec codices

Aztec codices

Aztec codices are books written by pre-Columbian and colonial-era Aztecs. These codices provide some of the best primary sources for Aztec culture....

Wax tablets

Romans used wax-coated wooden tablets (pugillares) upon which they could write and erase by using a stylus

Stylus

A stylus is a writing utensil, or a small tool for some other form of marking or shaping, for example in pottery. The word is also used for a computer accessory . It usually refers to a narrow elongated staff, similar to a modern ballpoint pen. Many styli are heavily curved to be held more easily...

. 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

Quintilian

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing...

in his Institutio Oratoria X Chapter 3. Several of these tablets could be assembled in a form similar to a codex

Codex

A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with multiple quires or gatherings typically bound together and given a cover.Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement...

. Also the etymology of the word codex (block of wood) suggest that it may have developed from wooden wax tablets.

Parchment

Parchment is a thin material made from calfskin, sheepskin or goatskin, often split. Its most common use was as a material for writing on, for documents, notes, or the pages of a book, codex or manuscript. It is distinct from leather in that parchment is limed but not tanned; therefore, it is very...

progressively replaced papyrus

Papyrus

Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....

. Legend attributes its invention to Eumenes II

Eumenes II

Eumenes II of Pergamon was king of Pergamon and a member of the Attalid dynasty. The son of king Attalus I and queen Apollonis, he followed in his father's footsteps and collaborated with the Romans to oppose first Macedonian, then Seleucid expansion towards the Aegean, leading to the defeat of...

, the king of Pergamon

Pergamon

Pergamon , or Pergamum, was an ancient Greek city in modern-day Turkey, in Mysia, today located from the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus , that became the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon during the Hellenistic period, under the Attalid dynasty, 281–133 BC...

, from which comes the name "pergamineum," which became "parchment." Its production began around the 3rd century BC. Made using the skins of animals (sheep, cattle, donkey, antelope, etc.), parchment proved 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 material and the time required to produce a document. Vellum

Vellum

Vellum is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. It is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin and the type of animal used...

is the finest quality of parchment.

Greece and Rome

The scroll of papyrus

Papyrus

Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....

is called "volumen" in Latin, a word which signifies "circular movement," "roll," "spiral," "whirlpool," "revolution" (similar, perhaps, to the modern English interpretation of "swirl") and finally "a roll of writing paper, a rolled manuscript, or a book."

In the 7th century Isidore of Seville

Isidore of Seville

Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...

explains the relation between codex, book and scroll in his Etymologiae (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

Torah

Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...

Book culture

The authors of Antiquity

Ancient history

Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...

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 conception 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.

From a political and religious point of view, books were censored very early: the works of Protagoras

Protagoras

Protagoras was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and is numbered as one of the sophists by Plato. In his dialogue Protagoras, Plato credits him with having invented the role of the professional sophist or teacher of virtue...

were burned because he was a proponent of agnosticism

Agnosticism

Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....

and argued that one could not know whether or not the gods existed. Generally, cultural conflicts led to important periods of book destruction: in 303, the emperor Diocletian

Diocletian

Diocletian |latinized]] upon his accession to Diocletian . c. 22 December 244 – 3 December 311), was a Roman Emperor from 284 to 305....

ordered the burning of Christian texts. Some Christians later burned libraries, and especially heretical or non-canonical Christian texts. These practices are found throughout human history but have ended in many nations today. A few nations today still greatly censor and even burn books.

But there also exists a less visible but nonetheless effective form of censorship when books are reserved for the elite; the book was not originally a medium for expressive liberty. It may serve to confirm the values of a political system, as during the reign of the emperor Augustus

Augustus

Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

, who skillfully surrounded himself with great authors. This is a good ancient example of the control of the media by a political power. More importantly, private censorship of books has occurred and continues today. What books one chooses to privately read, to destroy, to throw away, to not sell, and what to pass along to their children involves choosing some books over others. Private individuals can and do censor themselves and others, with little or no support and approval from the governing bodies of their time.

Proliferation and conservation of books in Greece

Little information concerning books in Ancient Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

survives. Several vases (6th century BC and 5th century BC) bear images of volumina. There was undoubtedly no extensive trade in books, but there existed several sites devoted to the sale of books.

The spread of books, and attention to their cataloging and conservation, as well as literary criticism developed during the Hellenistic period with the creation of large libraries in response to the desire for knowledge exemplified by Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

. These libraries were undoubtedly also built as demonstrations of political prestige:

The Library of Alexandria
Library of Alexandria
The Royal Library of Alexandria, or Ancient Library of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt, was the largest and most significant great library of the ancient world. It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a major center of scholarship from its construction in the...

, a library created by Ptolemy Soter and set up by Demetrius Phalereus
Demetrius Phalereus
Demetrius of Phalerum was an Athenian orator originally from Phalerum, a student of Theophrastus and one of the first Peripatetics...

(Demetrius of Phaleron). It contained 500,900 volumes (in the Museion section) and 40,000 at the Serapis temple (Serapeion). All books in the luggage of visitors to Egypt were inspected, and could be held for copying. The Museion was partially destroyed in 47 BC
47 BC
Year 47 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Calenius and Vatinius...

.
The Library at Pergamon
Pergamon
Pergamon , or Pergamum, was an ancient Greek city in modern-day Turkey, in Mysia, today located from the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus , that became the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon during the Hellenistic period, under the Attalid dynasty, 281–133 BC...

, founded by Attalus I
Attalus I
Attalus I , surnamed Soter ruled Pergamon, an Ionian Greek polis , first as dynast, later as king, from 241 BC to 197 BC. He was the second cousin and the adoptive son of Eumenes I, whom he succeeded, and was the first of the Attalid dynasty to assume the title of king in 238 BC...

; it contained 200,000 volumes which were moved to the Serapeion by Mark Antony
Mark Antony
Marcus Antonius , known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general. As a military commander and administrator, he was an important supporter and loyal friend of his mother's cousin Julius Caesar...

and Cleopatra, after the destruction of the Museion. The Serapeion was partially destroyed in 391, and the last books disappeared in 641 CE following the Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

conquest.
The Library at Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, the Ptolemaion, which gained importance following the destruction of the Library at Alexandria ; the Library of Pantainos, around 100 CE; the library of Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...

, in 132 CE.
The Library at Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...

, a library that rivaled the Library of Alexandria
Library of Alexandria
The Royal Library of Alexandria, or Ancient Library of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt, was the largest and most significant great library of the ancient world. It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a major center of scholarship from its construction in the...

.
The Library at Antioch
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the...

, a public library of which Euphorion of Chalcis
Euphorion of Chalcis
Euphorion, Greek poet and grammarian, born at Chalcis in Euboea about 275 BC.Euphorion spent much of his life in Athens, where he amassed great wealth. After studying philosophy with Lacydes and Prytanis, he became the student and eromenos of the poet Archeboulus. About 221 he was invited by...

was the director near the end of the 3rd century.

The libraries had copyist workshops, and the general organisation of books allowed for the following:

Conservation of an example of each text
Translation (the Septuagint Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

, for example)
Literary criticisms in order to establish reference texts for the copy (example : The Iliad and The Odyssey)
A catalog of books
The copy itself, which allowed books to be disseminated

Book production in Rome

Book production developed in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

in the 1st century BC with Latin literature that had been influenced by the Greek.

This diffusion primarily concerned circles of literary individuals. Atticus

Atticus

Atticus, a Latin name meaning "Man of Attica", may refer to any of:People*Titus Pomponius Atticus , ancient Roman littérateur / philosopher*Atticus , a Platonist philosopher and author of lost Plato commentary...

was the editor of his friend Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

. However, the book business progressively extended itself through the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

; for example, there were bookstores in Lyon

Lyon

Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....

. The spread of the book was aided by the extension of the Empire, which implied the imposition of the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

tongue on a great number of people (in Spain, Africa, etc.).

Libraries

Library

In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...

were private or created at the behest of an individual. Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

, 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 AD 105, when Cai Lun

Cai Lun

Cai Lun , courtesy name Jingzhong , was a Chinese eunuch. He is traditionally regarded as the inventor of paper and the papermaking process, in forms recognizable in modern times as paper...

, an official attached to the Imperial court during the Han Dynasty

Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...

(202 BC-AD 220), created a sheet of paper using mulberry

Mulberry

Morus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae. The 10–16 species of deciduous trees it contains are commonly known as Mulberries....

and other bast fibre

Bast fibre

Bast fibre or skin fibre is plant fibre collected from the phloem or bast surrounding the stem of certain, mainly dicotyledonous, plants. They support the conductive cells of the phloem and provide strength to the stem...

s along with fishnets, old rags, and hemp

Hemp

Hemp is mostly used as a name for low tetrahydrocannabinol strains of the plant Cannabis sativa, of fiber and/or oilseed varieties. In modern times, hemp has been used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food and fuel with modest...

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. By the 6th century in China, sheets of paper were beginning to be used for toilet paper

Toilet paper

Toilet paper is a soft paper product used to maintain personal hygiene after human defecation or urination. However, it can also be used for other purposes such as blowing one's nose when one has a cold or absorbing common spills around the house, although paper towels are more used for the latter...

as well. During the Tang Dynasty

Tang Dynasty

(AD 618–907) paper was folded and sewn into square bags

Tea bag

A tea bag is a small, porous sealed bag containing tea leaves and used for brewing tea. Tea bags are commonly made of paper, silk or plastic. The bag contains the tea leaves while the tea is brewed, making it easier to dispose of the leaves, and performs the same function as a tea infuser...

to preserve the flavor of tea. The Song Dynasty

Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...

(AD 960–1279) that followed was the first government to issue paper currency

Banknote

A banknote is a kind of negotiable instrument, a promissory note made by a bank payable to the bearer on demand, used as money, and in many jurisdictions is legal tender. In addition to coins, banknotes make up the cash or bearer forms of all modern fiat money...

Middle Ages

By the end of antiquity, between the 2nd century and 4th century, the codex

Codex

had replaced the scroll

Scroll

. 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 directly. The codex is equally easy to rest on a table, which permits the reader to take notes while he or she is 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 form was so effective that it is still the standard book form, over 1500 years after its appearance.

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

Diocletian

Diocletian |latinized]] upon his accession to Diocletian . c. 22 December 244 – 3 December 311), was a Roman Emperor from 284 to 305....

in 304 AD. During the turbulent periods of the invasions, it was the monasteries that conserved religious texts and certain works of Antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

for the West. But there would also be important copying centers in Byzantium

Byzantium

Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...

.

The role of monasteries in the conservation of books is not without some ambiguity:

Reading was an important activity in the lives of monks, which can be divided into prayer, intellectual work, and manual labor (in the Benedictine
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...

order, for example). It was therefore necessary to make copies of certain works. Accordingly, there existed scriptoria (the plural of scriptorium) in many monasteries, where monks copied and decorated manuscripts that had been preserved.

However, the conservation of books was not exclusively in order 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. Morever, in need of blank media, the monks scraped off manuscripts, thereby destroying ancient works. The transmission of knowledge was centered primarily on sacred texts.

Copying and conserving books

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

Cassiodorus

Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator , commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Roman statesman and writer, serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Senator was part of his surname, not his rank.- Life :Cassiodorus was born at Scylletium, near Catanzaro in...

('Vivarum' in Calabro

Calabro

Calabro is the name of:People* Dino Calabro , criminal* Frank Calabro , politician* Juan Carlos Calabró , actor* Kevin Calabro , sports announcer* Louis Calabro , composer* Marian Calabro, author...

, around 550), or Constantine I in Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

. There were several libraries, but the 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

Iconoclasm

Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually with religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes...

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

Catholic Encyclopedia

The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...

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 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

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

. 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

Bookbinding

Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block.-Origins of the book:...

. 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

The revival of cities in America

America

America usually refers to either:* The Americas, a landmass comprising North America and South America* The United States, a country in North AmericaAmerica may also refer to:- Other locations :* América, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina...

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

Manuscript culture

Manuscript culture uses manuscripts to store and disseminate information; in the West, it generally preceded the age of printing. In early manuscript culture monks copied manuscripts by hand, mostly religious texts. Medieval manuscript culture deals with the transition of the manuscript from the...

outside of the monastery developed in these university-cities in Europe in 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

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

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 book seller came into being, sometimes dealing internationally.

There is also the creation of royal libraries as in the case of Saint Louis

Louis IX of France

Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...

and Charles V

Charles V of France

Charles V , called the Wise, was King of France from 1364 to his death in 1380 and a member of the House of Valois...

. Books were also collected in private libraries, which became more common in the 14th century and 15th centuries.

The use of paper diffused through Europe in the 14th century. This material, less expensive than parchment

Parchment

, came from China via the Arabs in Spain in the 11th and 12th century. It was used in particular for ordinary copies, while parchment

Parchment

was used for luxury editions.

Printing press

The invention of the printing press

Printing press

A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...

by 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.

List of notable modern innovations

c. 1455: The Gutenberg Bible
Gutenberg Bible
The Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed with a movable type printing press, and marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of the printed book. Widely praised for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities, the book has an iconic status...

was the first book printed with movable metal type by Johannes Gutenberg.
1472: Sinodal de Aguilafuente was the first book printed in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

(at Segovia
Segovia
Segovia is a city in Spain, the capital of Segovia Province in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is situated north of Madrid, 30 minutes by high speed train. The municipality counts some 55,500 inhabitants.-Etymology:...

) and in Spanish language
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

.
1474: Obres e trobes en llaor de la Verge Santa Maria was the first book printed in Catalan language
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...

, at Valencia
Valencia
-In Spain:* Valencia , Spain, capital of the Valencia Autonomous Community* Valencian Community, an autonomous community of Spain**Valencian people, an ethnic group or nationality whose homeland is the Valencian Community...

.
c. 1475: Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye
Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye
Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye or Recueil des Histoires de Troye, is a French courtly romance written by Raoul Lefevre, chaplain to Philip III, Duke of Burgundy. Translated by William Caxton, and printed by him probably with Colard Mansion in 1473 or 1474 at Bruges. The work is now known...

was the first book printed in the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
1476: Grammatica Graeca, sive compendium octo orationis partium, probably the first book entirely in Greek by Constantine Lascaris
Constantine Lascaris
Constantine Lascaris was a Greek scholar and grammarian, one of the promoters of the revival of Greek learning in the Italian peninsula, born at Constantinople....
1477: The first printed edition of the Geographia, probably in 1477 in Bologna, was also the first printed book with engraved illustrations.
1485: De Re Aedificatoria, the first printed book on architecture
1488: Missale Aboense
Missale Aboense
Missale Aboense was the first book printed for Finland. As its name suggests, it was a prayer book used for mass. It follows the tradition of the Dominican liturgy, which around the year 1330 was adopted as the official liturgy of the see of Turku...

was the first book printed for Finland.
1494: Oktoih
Oktoih
Oktoih , in English the Book of Psalms or Psalter, is an incunabula printed in Cetinje, Montenegro in 1494. Oktoih is a book of liturgical hymns for singing in eight parts. It was printed in the Printing House of Crnojevići by Đurađ IV Crnojević, an educated ruler of Montenegro from 1490-1496...

was the first printed Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

Cyrillic book.
1495: The first printed book in Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
1495: The first printed book in Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
1499: Catholicon, Breton-French-Latin dictionary, first printed trilingual dictionary, first Breton
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...

book, first French dictionary
1501: Harmonice Musices Odhecaton
Harmonice Musices Odhecaton
The Harmonice Musices Odhecaton was an anthology of secular songs published by Ottaviano Petrucci in 1501 in Venice...

, printed by Ottaviano Petrucci
Ottaviano Petrucci
Ottaviano Petrucci was an Italian printer. His Harmonice Musices Odhecaton, a collection of chansons printed in 1501, is commonly misidentified as the first book of sheet music printed from movable type. Actually that distinction belongs to the Roman printer Ulrich Han's Missale Romanum of 1476...

, is the first book of sheet music
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...

printed from movable type.
1502: "Aldus Manutius
Aldus Manutius
Aldus Pius Manutius , the Latinised name of Aldo Manuzio —sometimes called Aldus Manutius, the Elder to distinguish him from his grandson, Aldus Manutius, the Younger—was an Italian humanist who became a printer and publisher when he founded the Aldine Press at Venice.His publishing legacy includes...

" printed the first portable Octavos, also inventing and using italic type.
1511: Hieromonk Makarije
Hieromonk Makarije
Hieromonk Makarije is the founder of Serbian and Romanian printing, having printed the first book in Serbian language and the first book in the territory of Walachia ....

printed the first books in Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

(in Slavonic)
1512: Hakob Meghapart
Hakob Meghapart
Hakob MeghapartHakob MeghapartHakob MeghapartHakob MeghapartHakob MeghapartHakob MeghapartHakob MeghapartHakob MeghapartHakob Meghapart' onMouseout='HidePop("65364")' href="/topics/Armenian_language">Armenian
Armenian language
The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...

- Urbatagirk
Urbatagirk
Urbatagirk was the first book printed in Armenian. The book was printed in Venice in 1512 by Hakob Meghapart. Urbatagirk had 124 paper pages, also 24 are colored, the pages are printed in red and black....

.
1513: Hortulus Animae, polonice
Hortulus Animae, polonice
Hortulus Animae was the Latin title of a prayer book also available in German. It was very popular in the early sixteenth century, printed in many versions, also abroad in Lyons and Kraków....

believed to be the first book printed in the Polish language
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

.
1516: A reprint of the Lisbon edition of the Sefer Aburdraham is printed in Morocco, the first book printed in Africa.
1517: Psalter, first book printed in the Old Belarusian language
Old Belarusian language
Old Belarusian was a historic East Slavic language, written and spoken at least in the 14th–17th century, and reported spoken as late as the very beginning of the 19th century, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later in the East Slavic territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, probably...

by Francysk Skaryna on 6 August 1517
1539: La escala espiritual de San Juan Clímaco, first book printed in North America - Mexico
1541: Bovo-Bukh
Bovo-Bukh
The Bovo-Bukh , written in 1507–1508 by Elia Levita, was the most popular chivalric romance in the Yiddish language. It was first printed in 1541, being the first non-religious book to be printed in Yiddish. For five centuries, it endured at least 40 editions...

was the first non-religious book to be printed in Yiddish
1545: Linguae Vasconum Primitiae was the first book printed in Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
1547: Martynas Mažvydas
Martynas Mažvydas
Martynas Mažvydas Martynas Mažvydas Martynas Mažvydas (1510 near Žemaičių Naumiestis (now in Šilutė district municipality) - May 21, 1563 in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) was the author and the editor of the first printed book in the Lithuanian language....

compiled and published the first printed Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...

book The Simple Words of Catechism
1550: Abecedarium
Abecedarium (Trubar)
Abecedarium —along with Catechismus —is the first printed book in Slovene. It is an eight-page booklet for helping people learn the alphabet. The protestant reformer Primož Trubar had it printed in 1550, with reprints in 1555 and 1566. An improved version of it was also printed by Sebastjan Krelj...

was the first printed book in the Slovene language, printed by Primož Trubar
Primož Trubar
Primož Trubar or Primož Truber was a Slovene Protestant reformer, the founder and the first superintendent of the Protestant Church of the Slovene Lands, a consolidator of the Slovene language and the author of the first Slovene-language printed book...

.
1561: The first printed books in the Romanian language
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

, Tetraevanghelul and Întrebare creştinească (also known as Catehismul) are printed by Coresi
Coresi
Coresi was a Romanian printer of the sixteenth century. He was the editor of the first printed books in the Romanian language.-Biography:...

in Braşov
Brasov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....

.
1564: the first book in Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

was printed in Edinburgh, a translation of John Knox's 'Liturgy' by John Carswell, Bishop of the Hebrides.
1564: the first dated Russian book, Apostol
Acts and Epistles of the Apostles
Acts and Epistles of the Apostles , completed in 1564, is the first Russian printed publication that has an exact date. It was published by Ivan Fyodorov ....

, printed by Ivan Fyodorov
Ivan Fyodorov (printer)
Ivan Fyodorov or Fedorovič , was one of the fathers of Eastern Slavonic printing...
1568: the first book in Irish to be printed in Ireland was a Protestant catechism, containing a guide to spelling and sounds in Irish.
1577: Lekah Tov, a commentary on the Book of Esther, was the first book printed in the land of Israel
1581: Ostrog Bible
Ostrog Bible
The Ostrog Bible was one of the earliest East Slavic translations of the Bible and the first complete printed edition of the Bible in Old Church Slavonic, published in Ostroh, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth , by the printer Ivan Fyodorov in 1581 with the assistance of the Ruthenian Prince...

, first complete printed edition of the Bible in Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic
Old Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
1584: first book printed in South America - Lima, Peru
1593: Doctrina Christiana was the first book printed in the Philippines
1629: Nikoloz Cholokashvili
Nikoloz Cholokashvili
Nikoloz Cholokashvili , known in Europe as Niceforo Irbachi, , was a Georgian Orthodox priest, politician and diplomat....

helped to publish a Georgian dictionary, the first printed book in Georgian
Georgian language
Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...
1640: The Bay Psalm Book
Bay Psalm Book
The Bay Psalm Book was the first book, that is still in existence, printed in British North America.The book is a Psalter, first printed in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Psalms in it are metrical translations into English...

, the first book printed in British North America
1651: Abagar
Abagar
Abagar is a breviary by the Bulgarian Roman Catholic Bishop of Nikopol Filip Stanislavov printed in Rome in 1651. It is regarded as the first printed Bulgarian book...

- Filip Stanislavov, first printed book in modern Bulgarian
Bulgarian language
Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...
1678-1703: Hortus Malabaricus
Hortus Malabaricus
Hortus Malabaricus is a comprehensive treatise that deals with the medicinal properties of the flora in the Indian state of Kerala. Originally written in Latin, it was compiled over a period of nearly 30 years and published from Amsterdam during 1678-1693. The book was conceived by Hendrik van...

included the first instance of Malayalam types being used for printing
1798: The first printed book in Ossetic
Ossetic language
Ossetian , also sometimes called Ossete, is an East Iranian language spoken in Ossetia, a region on the slopes of the Caucasus Mountains....
1802: New South Wales General Standing Orders was the first book printed in Australia, comprising Government and General Orders issued between 1791 and 1802
1909: Nisthananda Bajracharya authored and printed the first printed book in Nepal Bhasa
Nepal Bhasa
Nepal Bhasa is one of the major languages of Nepal, and is also spoken in India, particularly in Sikkim where it is one of the 11 official languages. Nepal Bhasa is the mother tongue of about 3% of the people in Nepal . It is spoken mainly by the Newars, who chiefly inhabit the towns of the...

called Ek Binshati Pragyaparmita.
Aurora Australis
Aurora Australis (book)
Aurora Australis was the "first book ever written, printed, illustrated and bound in the Antarctic".- Bibliographic details :Aurora Australis was written during the British Imperial Antarctic Expedition or the Nimrod Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton...

, the first book published in Antarctica.

See also Editio princeps
Editio princeps
In classical scholarship, editio princeps is a term of art. It means, roughly, the first printed edition of a work that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand....

, Spread of the printing press

Contemporary era

The demands of the British and Foreign Bible Society

British and Foreign Bible Society

The British and Foreign Bible Society, often known in England and Wales as simply as Bible Society, is a non-denominational Christian Bible society with charity status whose purpose is to make the Bible available throughout the world....

(founded 1804), the American Bible Society

American Bible Society

The American Bible Society is an interconfessional, non-denominational, nonprofit organization, founded in 1816 in New York City, which publishes, distributes and translates the Bible and provides study aids and other tools to help people engage with the Bible.It is probably best known for its...

(founded 1816), and other non-denominational publishers for enormously large and impossibly 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

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

, sound recording and film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

.

Typewriter

Typewriter

A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...

s and eventually computer based word processors and printers let people print and put together their own documents.

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

Hypertext

Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...

further improved access to information. Finally, the internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

lowered production and distribution costs.

E-Resources

It is difficult to predict the future of the book. A good deal of reference material, designed for direct access instead of sequential reading, as for example encyclopedia

Encyclopedia

An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....

s, exists less and less in for 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. 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

IPad

The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...

is the most obvious example of this trend, but even mobile phones can host e-reading software.

E-book readers such as the Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble's Nook

Barnes & Noble nook

The Nook 1st Edition is a brand of electronic-book readers developed by American book retailer Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The original device was announced in the United States in October 2009, and was released the next month...

, and the Amazon Kindle

Amazon Kindle

The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...

have increased in popularity each time a new upgraded version is released.
The Kindle in particular has captured public attention not only for the quality of the reading experience but also because users can access books (as well as periodicals and newspapers) wirelessly online (a feature now available in all other e-reader devices). Apple has also entered this arena with applications for the iPhone and iPad which enable e-book reading.

Academic programs

University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Degree (MA) in The History of the Book
University of Toronto. MA, PhD Program in Book History / Print Culture.
University of London, Institute of English Studies Postgraduate MA in the History of the Book.
Drew University, Department of Modern History and Literature MA, PhD in one of three streams including Book History.
University of Münster, Germany MA Program Book Studies
Mainz Gutenberg University Mainzer Institut fur Buchwissenschaft

Books

Contents: v. 1 ed. Richard Gameson (publication forthcoming 2008), v. 2 eds. Nigel Morgan and Rod Thomson (publication forthcoming 2007), v. 3 1400-1557 eds. Lotte Hellinga and J.B. Trapp, v. 4 1557-1695 eds. John Barnard and D.F. McKenzie, with the assistance of Maureen Bell.
v. 1-4 ; eds. Roger Chartier and Henri-Jean Martin

Henri-Jean Martin

Henri-Jean Martin was a leading authority on the history of the book in Europe, and an expert on the history of writing and printing...

.
v. 1-4 ; eds. André Vernet, Claude Jolly, Dominique Varry, Martine Poulain.
tr. by David Gerard ; ed. by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith and David Wootton ; Note : reprint, other reprints by this publisher 1990 & 1984, originally published (London : N.L.B., 1976) ; Translation of L'apparition du livre.
Contents: v. 1 eds. Patricia Fleming and Fiona Black (2004), v. 2 eds. Patricia Fleming, Yvan Lamonde, and Fiona Black (2005), v. 3 eds. Carole Gerson and Jacques Michon (2007).
Series : History of the book, no. 4.
Series : Itinéraires du savoir.

Thiollet, Jean-Pierre
Jean-Pierre Thiollet
Jean-Pierre Thiollet is a French writer and journalist. He usually lives in Paris and is the author of numerous books.Since 2007, he has been a member of the World Grand Family of Lebanon ....

(2005), Je m'appelle Byblos, H & D, Paris. ISBN 2 914 266 04 9

Periodicals

Note: previously Bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand.
Note "A quarterly journal from the low countries devoted to manuscripts and printed books."

External links

Centre for the History of the Book
Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing
History of the Book at the American Antiquarian Society
Rare Book School at the University of Virginia
Toronto Centre for the Book
Dan Traister's Page
Internet resources in Palaeography and Manuscript Studies from Senate House Library, University of London
Development of the Printed Page at the University of South Carolina Library's Digital Collections Page
Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland
Consortium of European Research Libraries
12 - 17th century manuscripts, including Vulgates, Books of Hours, Wills, Legal Contracts and Medicinal Texts, Center for Digital Initiatives, University of Vermont Libraries

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