Printing and writing materials : their evolution

Front matter

A, M. Smith

K

n

Preface

JN the preparation of this handbook, the purpose has been to furnish in succinct form the leading facts relating to the history of printing, writing materials, and of bookbinding, and the processes by which they are made ready for general use. At present this information is usually found by laborious search through the pages of encyclopedias and other large volumes. While it is hoped that enough of general interest has been included to render the book pleasant reading, the aim has been also to supply a manual that will be useful for purposes of instruction.

The descriptions of the methods of type-founding, typesetting, newspaper printing, paper-making, bookbinding, and of the reproductive processes have been obtained from the offices and iv

PREFACE shops of companies of the highest standing, so that the information in each case coincides with what is actually practised in the workroom.

The historical sketch of Bookbinding has been compiled from the works of such authorities on the subject as Joseph Cundall, W. Salt Brassington, S.T. Prideaux, Henri Bouchot, and Brander Matthews.

The author desires to express her gratitude and indebtedness to the following persons and firms for important information respecting the various processes described : Mr. Theodore L. De Vinne, R. Hoe & Company, Mr. Philip T. Dodge, President of the Mergenthaler Linotype Company, the 0. B. Cottrell & Sons Company, of New York ; the editors of The New York World and The New York Journal ; Mr. Henry Hoe, Sole Agent of Joseph Gillott & Sons, and Mr. John Winnacott, of New York; Mr. Talbert Lanston, of the Lanston Monotype Machine Company, Washington, D. C.; Mr. A. B. Daniels, of the L. L. Brown Paper Company,

PREFACE v

Adams, Massachusetts; Mr. H. A. Moses, of the Mittineague Paper Company, Mittineague, Massachusetts ; Miss Mary H. Upton, of London, England ; Mr. Charles H. Clarke, Mr. Frank S. Holby, Mr. Edward Hill (foreman), of the Avil Printing Company; Mr. J. Howard Avil, of the Phototype Engraving Company; Mr. J. Shoemaker, of the J. B. Lippincott Company; Mr. Charles R. Graham, of the Historical Publishing Company; Mr. A. E. Whiting, of the Whiting Paper Company; Mr. P.S. Collins, Manager of Circulation Bureau of the Curtis Publishing Company ; Mr. W. Ross Wilson, -Manager American Type-Founders Company; Mr. L.S. Bigelow, General Manager Keystone Type Foundry ; Messrs. Irwin N. Megargee & Company; Messrs. Theodore Leonhardt & Son; the Moore & White Company; and the editors of The Evening Bulletin and the Sunday Press, of Philadelphia. Acknowledgments are also made to Mr. Brander Matthews, the Macmillan Company, G. P. Putnam's Sons, vi

PREFACE

R. Hoe & Company, the Mergenthaler Linotype

Company, the American Type-Founders Company, the Avil Printing Company, and the Moore & White Company for plates furnished or kind permission to reproduce cuts for the illustration of the book.

The author also makes grateful acknowledgment to President James Mac Alister, Professor Ernest

B. Kroeger, Miss Harriet L. Mason, Miss Alice M. Brennan, and Miss Sarah W. Cattell, of the Drexel Institute, for valuable aid and suggestions given during the progress of the work.

A. M. S.

Contents

Page

Introduction 3

Chapter

CHAPTER I Babylonia and Assyria

ANCIENT RELIEF PROCESSES

A LTHOUGH in Europe printing from movable types dates from the middle of the fifteenth century, the transfer of form by impression is one of the oldest of the arts. In Babylonia and Assyria, letters, pictures, and arbitrary signs were stamped on soft clay which was afterwards baked. In the ruins of the buildings of these ancient peoples, there has been found scarcely a stone or a kiln-burnt brick without an inscription or a stamp. The inscriptions on the stone were probably made with a chisel, but those on the bricks were made either from wooden stamps cut in relief or by the separate impressions of

Clay tablets, cones, and cylinders.

some pointed instrument. The bricks show various shapes: square or oblong tablets, cones, and cylinders, the latter often of considerable size. Some of the tablets are not more than one inch long; others found in the ruins of the palace of Nineveh measure 9 by 6J inches. The cuneiform (wedge-shaped or arrow-headed) characters on (6)

BABYLONIAN TABLET WITH CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTION.

Size of the Original (2 x 3% inches) in the Museum of Drexel Institute.

Department of English,

Massachusetts Agricultural College^

AMHERST, MASSmost of the tablets are sharp and well-defined, but in some cases they are so minute as to be almost illegible without the aid of a magnifying glass. Whole libraries were formed of such bricks. These clay books, as they may be called, were arranged according to their subjects, numbered, catalogued, and placed in charge of librarians. The libraries were public property, and were intended for the instruction of the people. Each of the principal cities of Babylonia and Assyria possessed a library of this kind, of which the great national library of Assur bani pal (Greek, Sardanapalus), at Nineveh, was the most famous. Large numbers of the tablets found in Assur bani pal’s palace have been placed in the British Museum. Fragments of the catalogue have also been found, and show that the library contained : legal, mathematical, and geographical treatises ; historical and mythological documents; poetical compositions; works on astronomy and astrology ; religious records; lists of stones, birds, and beasts; royal proclamations, and petitions to the king.

Contracts of marriage, sales and leases of property, and other business transactions were recorded on clay tablets. Sanction was indicated by an indentation made in the clay with

Libraries.

Contract tablets.

Egypt.

Greece

Rome.

the finger-nail, preceded or followed by the mention of a name. From the contract tablets, which have been found in great numbers, much has been learned of the social life of Babylonia and Assyria.

In Egypt characters were impressed on bricks, but not to the same extent as in Assyria. Several old wooden stamps have been discovered in the tombs at Thebes, Meroe, and other places. The characters on their faces are cut in intaglio, or below the surface, so that impressions taken from them would be in relief, and The anc^en"^ Greeks and Homans were acquainted with the art of metal-engraving. The Greeks engraved maps on metal plates by cutting lines below the surface. Impressions on vellum or papyrus could have been taken from these plates, but instead of thus quickly and easily multiplying copies, a new engraving seems to have been made for each map. Thin stencil-plates of wood were recommended by Quintilian as an aid for boys in learning to write. Cicero perceived that, with proper care, the letters of the alphabet might be so arranged as to form an infinite number of sentences; but we have no evidence that he thought of combining them for the purpose of printing.

The old Romans employed wooden and metal stamps with letters cut in relief. The potters marked their manufactures with the name of the contents of the vessel or of that of the owner. They seem also to have used movable types. Some

ROMAN STAMPS

[From Jackson]

of the inscriptions on their clay lamps were made by impressing consecutively the type of each letter. Brass stamps, with letters engraved in relief, have been frequently found in Italy and also in

Wooden and metal stamps.

France. They are all small in size and contain the names of persons only. Several of these ancient stamps are preserved in the British Museum; two are of curious shape, as shown in the illustration on the preceding page, and have the letters cut into the metal. In using such stamps, the Romans seem to have practised, to some extent, the art of printing with ink. A stamp in the British Museum Collection is in the form of a plate, about two inches long and nearly an inch wide. On the face, engraved in relief, are two lines of capital letters, cut the reverse way, as would now be necessary for printing. An impression taken from the stamp would read :

CICAECILI HERMIAE. SN.

stamps for which was probably the signature of one Cecilius

signatures. .

Hermias. Nothing is known of this man. He may have used the stamp to save himself the trouble of writing or to hide his inability to write.

The use of stamps for affixing signatures continued until the beginning of the Renaissance, or the revival of learning which succeeded the dark age. We read that the Emperor Justinian made use of a perforated golden plate to assist him in signing his name. Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, did the same. It appears also that “the Emperor Charlemagne and the kings who were his immediate successors formed the strokes of their monograms by following with the pen all the openings cut into the plate or tablet laid upon the act to which they wished to subscribe.”

A method of making impressions, employed for centuries throughout Europe, was that of branding. Cattle and also human beings were marked in this manner. The Romans marked runaway slaves ( fugitivi ) and thieves ( fures ) with the letter F. Under the famous Statute of Vagabonds, enacted during the reign of Edward VI. of England (1547-1553), runaway servants and idle loiterers in the highways able to work were branded on the breast with the letter V, and fugitive slaves were marked on the cheek and forehead with the letter S. Branding was also a mild form of punishment for the gypsies, and in 1698 was made the penalty for theft and petty larceny. Cold branding was afterwards substituted as a nominal infliction of the penalty. This barbarous mode of punishment was discon-

Branding.

Lack of suitable materials for printing.

tinued in England in the reign of George III,; and was finally abolished in 1829. In France, as late as 1832, galley slaves were marked with the letters T F ( travaux forces). In Germany branding has never been recognized by the common law.

Except in the few cases mentioned, these ancient peoples seem not to have taken impressions from stamps nor to have multiplied impressions from the same stamp. Had they wished, however, to repeat the same inscription many times upon papyrus or parchment, there were mechanical difficulties in the way which would have rendered their work indifferent and unsatisfactory, and which explains, in some measure, why the world had to wait so long for the invention of typography. These nations were destitute of some of the commonest printing materials which to-day are considered indispensable. What we term paper did not exist, except in China, before the eighth century, and was not manufactured in Europe before the twelfth. The papyrus used as a writing surface could not be folded like ordinary rag paper, and would probably have torn apart under the action of a press. It could not be rolled upon itself, in the same way as a sheet of paper, but had to be wound around a wooden roller. Parchment, being greasy, resists ink, is hard to handle, and even at the present day is regarded as an undesirable printing material. The ancients lacked also a suitable ink. Trifling as it may seem, this would have been one of the chief obstacles in the way of success, even had there been an invention of types. Their ink was a thin wash made of soot thickened with gum, with an acid sometimes added to make it bite or sink below the surface of the papyrus. These watery inks would have collected in blotches upon a smooth metal plate, and if stamped upon paper or parchment the impressions would have been of irregular blackness and illegible in many places. The chief ingredients of printing-ink are lampblack and oil. The early printers of the fifteenth century took a lesson from an innovation which immediately preceded the invention of typography; this was the mixing of color with oil,1 a step which wrought a revolution in the art of painting. The printers, finding that they could

1 The introduction of this method has been generally attributed to Jan van Eyck of Holland, who lived during the early part of the fifteenth century; but it is believed that his brother Hubert has an equal claim to the honor of the discovery.

not use the ink of the copyists, mixed their black with oil, and succeeded in giving to the world books which after more than four centuries are still beautifully legible.

Besides the lack of suitable materials, the old Romans had no great mechanical skill. Architecture wTas about the only art requiring the cooperation of many persons, in which they achieved success. Simple labor-saving devices, so common at the present day, were unknown to them.

The civilization of ancient Rome had no great need of the art. There were many scribes and copyists. These professional scribes were educated slaves, whose food and clothing cost but little, and who produced books faster than they could be sold. They were read not only in the libraries, but in the porticoes of houses, at private dinners, and at the baths. Horace complained that his books were too common, and that they were found in the hands of vulgar snobs for whom they had not been written. Volumes produced by slave labor were, of course, cheap. Martial's first book of epigrams, in plain binding, was sold for six sesterces, or about twenty-four cents of American money.

ANCIENT RELIEF PROCESSES

The Chinese have practised block-printing for many centuries. Printing with ink from wooden blocks has been traced as far back as the sixth century, and some writers claim that China had a knowledge of the art even before the Christian era. The invention of movable types of clay was made by a blacksmith, Pi Shing, in the eleventh century. This method of printing was done by rubbing, but it did not supersede block-printing. The British Museum possesses a work printed in 1337, which is exhibited as the earliest instance of a Korean book printed from movable types.

Various attempts have been made to substitute types for engraved blocks, but this is difficult because of the great number of the Chinese characters. These characters do not stand for letters or sounds, but represent complete words or ideas; besides the two hundred and fourteen radicals, the characters formed by combinations have been variously estimated from forty thousand to over two hundred thousand in number; not more than fourteen or fifteen thousand, however, are in regular use. A Chinese missionary house employs about six thousand characters; for an ordinary newspaper only about four thousand are necessary ; while magazines which treat of a greater range of sub-

China.

Japan j jects require ten thousand. The printing-offices arrange the characters by the radicals.

Movable types, both of wood and of metal, have long been employed in China. Movable types of metal were first cut in 1815, for the purpose of printing Morrison’s Dictionary. Printing from metal types is practised in China mainly for the purpose of circulating the Bible and for newspapers.

It is indisputable that block-printing was first practised in China, but there is nothing to prove that Europe originally derived its knowledge of this art from the East.

In Japan the earliest example of block-printing dates from the middle of the eighth century. The Jesuits were the first to print from metal types in that country, in the seventeenth century. Because of the avidity with which the Japanese have taken hold of Western learning, printing is extensively carried on in Japan, both blocks and types of metal being employed.

Chapter II

TN Europe until the second half of the fourteenth century, books of every kind, letters, and all private and public documents were written by hand. Figures and pictures were produced with either the pen or the brush.

Before the invention of typography in the middle of the fifteenth century, playing-cards, pictures of saints, and block-books were printed from engraved wooden blocks.1 2

When this method of printing began to be developed in Europe, it was in connection with playing-cards. The work was extended in the production of image prints (sometimes accom- image prints

Rncl block*

panied with a text), texts of scripture without books, pictures, and whole books, — each picture, text, or fleaf being printed from one engraved block. The latter, called block-books, sometimes consisted only

1 Block-printing on cloth and vellum seems to have been practised as early as the twelfth century, and on paper as early as the second half of the fourteenth century.

2 (17)

t

Image prints.

The St.

Christopher.

of pictures, sometimes they were half picture and half text, and occasionally they contained only text.

From their perishable nature, but few of the early image prints have come down to us. With a few exceptions, these prints were colored. They were pictures of sacred personages, and were undoubtedly copied from illuminated religious books then to be found in all the large monasteries. They were intended for religious instruction and comfort, and were bought by the poor and hung on the walls of their huts and cabins. These prints were produced as early as the fourteenth, perhaps as early as the thirteenth century. The earliest print still existing with a definite and unquestioned date is the St. Christopher of 1423. It is a rude wood-engraving, about 8 by 11 inches, and represents the Saint carrying the infant Saviour across a river. This print was discovered by Heinecken, in 1769, pasted inside the binding of an old manuscript volume of 1417, in the library of one of the most ancient convents of Germany, the Chartreuse at Buxheim in Swabia. The manuscript was placed in what was known as the Spencer Library, which afterwards passed into the possession of Mrs.

THE BUXHEIM SAINT CHRISTOPHER, 1423.

Rylands, of Manchester, England.1 In the book which, contained the St. Christopher was also found another image print, the Annunciation, by some thought to be of the same age and workmanship as the former. It is about the same size and is printed on the same kind of paper. Many image prints, of course, were produced before the St. Christopher, but this bears the earliest date of any now in* existence. The Mary Engraving, or the Brussels Print, was formerly thought to be of the year 1418; but the date had evidently been tampered with, and the authorities now consider it to be 1468. This print was discovered by an innkeeper, in 1848, pasted on the inside of an old chest, and was placed in the Royal Library at Brussels.

Other old prints are the St. Bridget, supposed to be of nearly the same age as the St. Christopher; the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, with fourteen lines of text and bearing the date 1437, found in 1799 in the monastery of St. Blaise in the Black Forest, and preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna; the St. Nicolas de Tolentino, with the date 1440 written in by hand; a print representing

1 This has been made a public library of research and reference in the city of Manchester, under the name of The John Rylands Library. It was formally opened on October 6, 1899, and takes its place as one of the great libraries of the world.

The Annunciation.

The Brussels Print.

Block-books.

Block-books without text.

the bearing of the cross, St. Dorothea and St. Alexis, with the date 1443 also written in by hand. No other wood-cuts are known with dates prior to the second half of the fifteenth century. A number of engravings exist, which, judging from the style of the workmanship, may have been produced somewhat earlier, probably in the latter part of the fourteenth or early in the fifteenth century.

The block-books were printed wholly from carved blocks of wood. A whole page, sometimes two whole pages were printed from a single block. The block-books are of two kinds: books of pictures without text, but containing words descriptive of the picture at the foot of the page, in the corners, or in scrolls near the figures; and books of pictures containing explanations of the pictures in a full page of text, usually printed on the page opposite the picture.

Of the first class, pictures without pages of text, the best known are the Biblia Pauper urn {Bible of the Poor), the Apocalypse of St. John, the Canticum C anticorum {The Canticles), and the Story of the Blessed Virgin. To the second class belong Der Endkrist {The Antichrist), the Ars Memorandi {How to Remember the Evan -

LXVi.

bat T3u*5i»?;iuanmu:

fyefrtmfufaracr — -

FIRST PAGE OF THE BIBLIA PAUPERUM.

(THE ANNUNCIATION.)

gelists), the Ars Moriendi ( How to Die Becomingly), the Mirabilia Romce (the Wonders of Rome), and the Dance of Death. The only block-book without pictures, of which we have knowledge, is the Donatus, or Boy’s Latin Grammar. One of the best known of the block-books is the Speculum Humance Salvationis {Mirror of Salvation) . This is of special interest in the history of typography, as it occupies a position midway between the block-book proper and the ordinary printed book. In the true block-book, both pictures and text were engraved on blocks of wood. In the four known editions of the Speculum the text is printed from movable types, except in one edition which contains twenty xylographic pages.

It is not known just how many different block-books are now in existence, but there are perhaps nearly one hundred. Sotheby, in 1853, described but twenty-one; the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1888 enumerates but thirty. It is probable that many have been lost and forgotten. Although but few distinct works were published, the editions were numerous. From the number and variety of the editions, there must have been a large demand for these books. They were made both

Block-books with text.

The Speculum before and after the invention of typography. They were issued after the invention of movable types because of the cheapness with which they could be produced. Many of those which have come down to us are unimportant, others are of so late a date as to be of little interest in the history of printing. An Italian adaptation of the Biblia Pauperum was printed at Venice as late as 1512, and a few block-books of less merit were printed after this. The latest block-book of any size was produced also at Venice. It is known as the Figure del Testamento V ecchio (Pictures from the Old Testament), printed about 1510, by Giovanni Andrea Vavassore. The separate issues are not editions in our sense of the term: they were not printed from one set of blocks after another, as the sets were successively worn out. The cutter who carved the blocks sold not the books but the blocks themselves, to private purchasers, who were men of wealth or heads of religious establishments. The editions, consequently do not always follow one another; a short interval may have sometimes elapsed between two issues; but when a work was popular, the blocks were often produced side by side by different cutters.

The block-books were printed on one side of the paper only, in brown ink. Impressions were taken off by rubbing; occasionally two sheets were pasted together to form one leaf. The paper was harsh and uneven. Books printed on both sides of the paper and in black ink are considered to have been produced after the invention of typography.

The image prints were usually colored after they were printed. In many the colors were painted in, but the later prints show that they were stenciled. The block-books, also, were often painted, or colored by means of stencil-plates.

Most of the block-books are of a religious character, but the religion they teach is, of course, dogmatic and doctrinal. They were probably written by ecclesiastics of high position for the instruction of ignorant monies and curates unable to read. They gradually, however, found their way into the hands of the laymen, who admired the pictures if they could not read the Latin. Although written by ecclesiastics, we have no evidence that these books were printed in monasteries. The block-printers of a later day were laymen, and it is probable that the earlier books were also printed by laymen.

Bibiia Pan- Tiie most ^amous of the block-books was the BiSeofthe Bibiia Pauperum, or Bible of the Poor. This name seems to have been given to it to distinguish it from the complete Bible in manuscript which, of course, could be owned only by the rich. The Bible proper of that day was in the form of two or more thick folios and was written on fine vellum. Although called the Bible of the Poor , this book was written for the clergy; the poor of the laity, however, were doubtless able to appreciate the pictures. It was the block-book most often reproduced, and was printed in both Latin and German. The edition supposed to be the first is in Latin, and contains neither date, place, nor name of printer. By some it is claimed to have been printed in Germany, by others in Holland. The Bibiia Pauperum consists of forty wood-engravings, printed on only one side of the leaf. The prints face each other, two pages of pictures being followed by two blank pages. The Life and Passion of Christ are represented, with parallel subjects taken from the Old Testament.

The origin of the Ars Moriendi is not known, or how to Die but it was a popular work long after the introduc-

Becomingly. #

tion of the printing press. Its object is to set forth the temptations that beset both the good and the

ribira omtaio fipifiranmr

PAGE OF A DONATUS.

[From Bouchot.]

The original block is preserved in the National Library at Paris.

bad in the hour of dissolution. Angels and demons surround the bed of the dying person, and strive to win for themselves the departing soul. A kind of dialogue is kept up between the angels and Satan, which is set forth in the scrolls. In the illustration which represents the death of the rich man, one devil tells him to provide for his friends, another calls out “Pay attention to your treasures.” In the next cut, an angel exhorts him not to heed the advice of the devils, but to leave his property to the church. In the last picture, the spirit of the dying man, represented by a manikin, is exhaled with his last breath, and is received by the angels. The book was apparently written to prepare man for another world, but its real purpose was the aggrandizement of the church. The work was popular for more than a century.

The Donatus is the only block-book without pictures of which we have any knowledge. Its author was iElius Donatus, a Roman grammarian of the fourth century and one of the instructors of St. Jerome. The block-book was the grammar abridged, and is the only school-book known to have been printed from blocks. When printed in the largest letters, it contained but thirty-four pages;

•*0

C3

€A t-'x. o

0) ^ o.

CO

The Donatus, or Boy’s Latin Grammar.

when put in small letters it had only nine pages. As the Donatus was constantly used in every preparatory school, there was always a large demand for it. For so small a book, the engraving of the blocks would cost little more than type composition, consequently, xylographic editions were still produced at the end of the fifteenth century.

Originally, the Donatus was written for students who spoke Latin, and who, when the book was first published in the fourth century, could easily read it. The work continued to be used as late as the fifteenth century, because Latin was the only language taught in the schools. The use in the fifteenth century of a text-book written in the fourth, shows the little progress made in educational methods. From the forbidding appearance of the book, one infers that no effort was made to render the path of knowledge inviting.

Two original blocks of the Donatus were bought in Germany by Foucault, Minister of Louis XIV., about two hundred years ago, and are preserved in the National Library at Paris. There is part of a Donatus in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, with a colophon stating it to be the work of Conrad Dinckmut, who practised printing at Ulm from 1482 to 1496. Fragments are also preserved in several of the great European libraries.

CHAPTER III rnHE progress of the development of the art of impressing characters from engraved designs has thus far been traced from the clay bricks of Babylonia, Assyria, and Egypt to the block-printing of China and Europe. All the steps necessary to give the world the art of typography had been taken except one, and the people of Europe, especially in the North, were ready to receive the art. Paper had been manufactured for more than two hundred years and it was now in common use, although regarded by the cultured classes as a plebeian writing material. The printers had found a suitable ink for their work, and in Germany and the Netherlands, where typography was first practised, there had been for some time a steady progress in education, and consequently a developed mental activity which was put to practical use.

The final step needed was the casting of movable metal types. Printing could never have been (27)

The type-mould.

John Gutenberg.

practised on an extensive scale, if the idea of casting types had not been conceived. The key to the invention was the type-mould. The honor is due to the man who invented the first type-mould, for types which are cast are the only ones that can be used to advantage. There is no evidence to prove that engraved wooden types were ever used except in an experimental way. A fierce controversy has waged as to who first gave the world a knowledge of typography, but the weight of evidence is strongly in favor of John Gutenberg, a printer of Mainz.