Books created for reading and learning

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We won't be reading lightweight, handy books today if paper and the printing press had not been invented. Paper was used in China as a writing medium in the third century, but books only entered the industrial age around 1440 when German goldsmith-printer Johannes Gutenberg introduced his printing press. Huge quantities of literature in different languages later flooded the marketplace, ushering in a new era of publishing and reading.

   Writing was first developed between the 7th millennium BC and the 4th millennium BC. It consisted of mnemonic symbols before syllabic and alphabetic writing emerged.

    In China, writing was done with brushes on silk and other materials such as bone, bronze, pottery and shell. Bamboo tablets were once used as books in China. 

   Indians turned to dried palm tree leaves as a writing medium, and amatl – a form of paper made by boiling the inner bark of several species of trees – appeared in Mesoamerica. The Maya wrote books on this material.

   In the third millennium BC, scribers and writers used clay tablets. Calamus, a smelly plant with sword-shaped leaves, was turned into a triangular instrument for making characters in moist clay.

   Ancient Egypt was also resourceful; it used papyrus for writing in 2400 BC. The “pen” was made of calamus, the stem of a sharpened reed or bird feathers. Papyrus books in a roll of several sheets measuring as long as 40 metres were introduced, but most of the books were of political and religious value.

   Romans in ancient times employed a stylus to write on wax-coated wooden tablets which were mainly meant for accounting, writing notes and teaching writing to children. Books then were censored and “subversive” ones were burned.

   Book production began in Rome in the 1st century BC with Latin literature. Book store sprang up in major cities, and in 377 there were 28 libraries in Rome.

   Paper money issued

   Around the third century BC, parchment replaced papyrus. Parchment, which was made from skins of animals like sheep, donkey and antelope, was more solid and easier to conserve.  

   In the first century, China invented paper made from the bark of blackberry bush. Texts in the form of scrolls were produced by woodblock printing. By the 6th century, sheets of paper were used as toilet paper. During the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), paper was folded and sewn into square tea bags. The Song Dynasty (AD960-1279) was the first government to issue paper money.

   Between the 2nd century and the 4th century, the codex with pages bound together and a cover given had replaced the scroll. For 1,500 years it was to be the standard book form.

   In the West and the Eastern Empire, monasteries set up workrooms complete with libraries for monk copyists. Books were copied, decorated, rebound and conserved.

   In university cities in Europe, professors used reference manuscripts to teach theology and liberal arts. Specialized and general texts for law, history and novels were in demand following the development of commerce and the bourgeoisie.

   Between the 11th century and 12th century, Arabs in Spain exported paper from China to Europe. By the 14th century, the use of paper became popular throughout Europe.

   Illustrated children’s books

    It was the emergence of the printing press that changed the face of publishing. The cost of large-volume books dropped tremendously. In 1455, the Gutenberg Bible was the first book printed with the movable metal type. Twenty years later, Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye was the first English language book printed.

   From 1499 to 1561, books were printed in Basque, French, Polish, Romanian and Yiddish. The following two centuries saw an inundation of children’s story books, which were often illustrated, fairy tales and educational literature. Children were entertained by best-selling publications such as The Tales of Robin Hood, Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.

   More books were on the market after two notable innovations in the early 19th century: steam printing presses and steam paper mills. Writers fascinated children with The Little Mermaid, The Snow Queen, The Emperor’s New Clothes, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland and paperback books of the same genre. Publishers and authors from Denmark, Switzerland and Italy cashed in with titles such as Treasure Island, The Adventures of Pinocchio and The Jungle Book.

   Readers in the 20th century were spoiled for choice. For adventure stories or fairy tales, they snapped up titles like Winner the Pooh, Little House on the Prairie and Harry Potter. The Internet introduced e-books and desktop publishing became widespread.

    Without books, the world's literary rates would have plunged!