Book

I

Introduction

Book, a volume of many sheets of paper bound together, containing text, illustrations, music, photographs, or other kinds of information. The pages are sewn or glued together on one side and bound between hard or soft paper covers. Because they are relatively durable and portable, books have been used for centuries to preserve and distribute information.

A book is small enough to be carried around, but it is larger than a pamphlet, which generally consists of just a few pieces of paper. Books may form part of a series, but they differ from periodicals and newspapers because they are not published on a strict daily, weekly, or monthly schedule. Unlike a private diary, which may be in book form, a book is intended for public circulation.

The term book is applied by extension to the scrolls used in the ancient world, even though they do not fit the modern definition of a book. In an editorial sense the word book can also refer to some ancient literary works, such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, or to major divisions of a literary work, such as the books of the Bible.

In the mid- and late 20th century, technological advances expanded the definition of the book to include audiobooks and electronic books, or e-books. Audiobooks are recordings made on cassette, compact disc, or downloadable computer programs. Electronic books are portable computerized devices that allow readers to download text and then read it, mark it up, and bookmark it. The term e-book is also used to refer to the concept of a paperless book, whether it is read on a specially designed e-book device, a personal digital assistant (PDA), or a desktop or laptop computer.

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II

Handwritten Books

The forerunners of books were clay tablets, impressed with a writing instrument called a stylus, used by the Sumerians (see Sumer), Babylonians (see Babylonia), and other peoples of ancient Mesopotamia. Much more closely related to the modern book were the book rolls, or scrolls, of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. These scrolls consisted of sheets of papyrus, a paper-like material made from the pounded pith of reeds growing in the Nile Delta, formed into a continuous strip and rolled around a stick. The strip, with the text written with a reed pen in narrow, closely spaced columns on one side, was unrolled as it was read. Papyrus rolls varied in length; the longest surviving roll is the Egyptian Harris papyrus in the British Museum in London, 40.5 m (133 ft) long. Later, during the Hellenistic Age (4th century to 1st century bc), long book rolls were subdivided into a number of shorter rolls, about 10 m (about 35 ft) long, stored together in a single container.

Scrolls were often covered with wrappings and tagged with the title and the author's name. Professional scribes reproduced works either by copying a text or by setting it down from dictation. Athens, Alexandria, and Rome were great centers of book production and exported books throughout the ancient world. Hand labor was slow and expensive, however, and books were owned chiefly by temples, rulers, and a few rich individuals. At the time, and for centuries thereafter, most people learned by listening to lessons or stories and memorizing them if necessary.

Although papyrus was easily made, inexpensive, and an excellent writing surface, it was brittle; in damp climates it disintegrated in less than 100 years. Thus, a great part of the literature and records of the ancient world has been irretrievably lost. Parchment and vellum (specially prepared animal skins) did not have those drawbacks. The Persians, Hebrews, and other peoples of the ancient Middle East, where papyrus did not grow, had for centuries used scrolls made of tanned leather or untanned parchment. The production of parchment was improved by King Eumenes II of Pergamum in the 2nd century bc; thereafter its use greatly increased, and, by the 4th century ad, it had almost entirely supplanted papyrus as a medium for writing.

A

The Early Codex

The 4th century also marked the culmination of a gradual process, begun about the 1st century, in which the inconvenient scroll was replaced by the rectangular codex (Latin for “book”), the direct ancestor of the modern book. The codex, as first used by the Greeks and Romans for business accounts or school work, was a small, ringed notebook consisting of two or more wooden tablets covered with wax, which could be marked with a stylus, smoothed over, and reused many times. Additional leaves, made of parchment, were sometimes inserted between the tablets.

In time, the codex came to consist of many sheets of papyrus or, later, parchment, gathered in small bundles folded in the middle. These gatherings were laid one upon the other, stitched together through the folds, and attached to wooden boards by thongs. The columns of writing in codices were wider than those on scrolls and covered both sides of a parchment page. The codex made it easier for readers to find their place or to refer ahead or back. It was particularly useful for worshipers in religious services.

The word codex is part of the title of many ancient handwritten books, especially celebrated manuscripts of the Bible. The Codex Sinaiticus, for example, is a 4th-century Greek manuscript from Palestine that is now stored in the British Museum.

B

Medieval European Books

In the early Middle Ages (5th century to 15th century) in Europe, books were written chiefly by churchmen for other churchmen and for rulers. Most were portions of the Bible, commentary, or liturgical books, although some were copies of classical texts. The books were laboriously written out with a quill pen by scribes working in the scriptoria (Latin for “writing rooms”) of monasteries.

At first scribes used a variety of local styles in capital letters only, a custom carried over from classical scrolls. As a result of the revival of learning initiated by Frankish emperor Charlemagne in the 8th century, scribes shifted to capital and lowercase letters, penned in a clear, round Carolingian script that harked back to classical models and eventually inspired the typographers of the Renaissance (14th century to 17th century). After the 12th century, however, bookscript deteriorated into the black letter style, which consisted of narrow, heavily drawn, angular letters crowded close together in thin columns that were difficult to read.

Many medieval books were brilliantly illuminated in gold and colors to indicate the start of a new section of text, to illustrate the text, or to decorate the borders. They ranged from the allover, intricately stylized ornament of the Book of Kells (mid-8th century, Trinity College, Dublin), a copy of the Gospels made in Scotland and Ireland, to the delicate, detailed scenes of everyday life in the Trés riches heures du Duc de Berry (1413-1416, Musée Condé, Chantilly, France), a prayer book made by the Limbourg brothers in the Low Countries.

Medieval books had wooden covers, often strengthened with metal bosses and fastened with clasps. Many covers were bound in leather, sometimes richly adorned with gold and silver work, enamels, and gems. Such beautifully produced books were works of art, which, by the late Middle Ages, were usually created by professional scribes, artists, and jewelers. Books were few and costly; they were commissioned by the very small percentage of the population that could afford them and that knew how to read (see Illuminated Manuscripts).