History of books
The history of books begins with the invention of writing, as well as other inventions such as paper and printing; this history continues all the way to the modern-day business of book printing. The earliest knowledge society has on the history of books actually predates what we came to call "books" in today's society, and instead begins with what are called either tablets, scrolls, or sheets of papyrus. The current format of modern novels, with separate sheets fastened together to form a pamphlet rather than a scroll, is called a codex. After this invention, hand-bound, expensive, and elaborate manuscripts began to appear in codex form. This gave way to press-printed volumes and eventually led to the mass-market printed volumes that are prevalent today. Contemporary books may even start to have less of a physical presence with the invention of the e-book. The book has also become more accessible to the disabled with the invention of Braille as well as audiobooks.
The earliest forms of writing began with etching into stone slabs, evolving over time to include palm leaves and papyrus in ancient times. Parchment and paper later emerged as important substitutes for bookmaking, as they increased durability and accessibility. Ancient books were made from a variety of materials depending on the region's available resources and social practices. For instance, in the Neolithic Middle East, the cuneiform tablet was part of a larger clay-based toolkit used for bureaucracy and control. In contrast, while animal skin was never used to write books in eastern and southern Asia, it became a mainstay for prestige manuscripts in the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. Similarly, papyrus and even paper were used in different regions at various times, reflecting local resource availability and cultural needs. Across regions like China, the Middle East, Europe, and South Asia, diverse methods of book production evolved. The Middle Ages saw the rise of illuminated manuscripts, intricately blending text and imagery, particularly during the Mughal era in South Asia under the patronage of rulers like Akbar and Shah Jahan. Prior to the invention of the printing press, made famous by the Gutenberg Bible, each text was a unique, handcrafted, valuable article, personalized through the design features incorporated by the scribe, owner, bookbinder, and illustrator.
The invention of the printing press in the 15th century marked a pivotal moment, revolutionizing book production. Innovations like movable type and steam-powered presses accelerated manufacturing processes and contributed to increased literacy rates. Copyright protection also emerged, securing authors' rights and shaping the publishing landscape. The Late Modern Period introduced chapbooks, catering to a wider range of readers, and mechanization of the printing process further enhanced efficiency.
The 19th century witnessed the invention of the typewriter, which became indispensable in the following decades for professional, business and student writing. In the 20th century the advent of computers and desktop publishing transformed document creation and printing. Digital advancements in the 21st century led to the rise of e-books, propelled by the popularity of e-readers and accessibility features. While discussions about the potential decline of physical books have surfaced, print media has proven remarkably resilient, continuing to thrive as a multi-billion dollar industry. Additionally, efforts to make literature more inclusive emerged, with the development of Braille for the visually impaired and the creation of spoken books, providing alternative ways for individuals to access and enjoy literature.
The study of book history became an acknowledged academic discipline in the 1980s. Contributions to the field have come from textual scholarship, codicology, bibliography, philology, palaeography, art history, social history and cultural history. It aims to demonstrate that the book as an object, not just the text contained within it, is a conduit of interaction between readers and words. Analysis of each component part of the book can reveal its purpose, where and how it was kept, who read it, ideological and religious beliefs of the period, and whether readers interacted with the text within. Even a lack of such evidence can leave valuable clues about the nature of a particular book.
Clay tablets
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. Scribes often wrote cuneiform on clay tablets, though occasionally they used precious materials such as gold. Cuneiform was written in various different languages, such as Sumerian, Akkadian, and Greek, for more than three thousand years, ending only when the Sassanian Empire conquered Babylon and forced the scribes to stop writing. Some of the surviving cuneiform tablets were written by student scribes.South Asia
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
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, 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. The Diamond Sutra was printed by method of woodblock printing, a strenuous method in which the text to be printed would be carved into a woodblock's surface, essentially to be used to stamp the words onto the writing surface medium. 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. 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. The method of movable type printing would later be independently invented and improved by Johannes Gutenberg.
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. 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 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.While the highly detailed writing form persisted, a simpler reading style also developed around the 1670s that was written for a popular readership. It used a simpler vernacular language, and was written almost directly for first-time book buyers. These original tales of fiction were popular among common samurai as well as common townspeople. Works went beyond fiction and also depicted certain crafts and manuals specialized for that topic. These more popularized books were written in a newly emerging form of script. Authors had to deal with the idea of the "reading public" for the first time. These authors took into account the different social strata of their audience and had to learn "the common forms of reference that made the words and images of a text intelligible" to the layman.
Authors had reached a new market with their more simplistic writing. After passing this hurdle, they began writing about more than specified crafts and social lexicons. For the first time, writers had the chance to make once private knowledge public, and moved into more regional information guides. Detail-oriented writing still persisted as writing became understood as something that needed to show "quantitative evidence in order to measure continuity against change". 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. Despite these censors, public readings increased across Japan and created new markets that could be shared between the higher elites as well as middlebrow people, albeit with differing subject matter.