Hilbert College

 Annotated Bibliography:

The History of Printing

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Berry, W. Turner and H. Edmund Poole. Annals of Printing. London: Blandford Press, 1966.

The two skills essential to the development of human society have been the ability to communicate and to record. We are not capable to tracing the path of their development in its entirety. While printing had not been developed at this point, the Greeks did much with the printing of books in classical times. The discovery of papyrus was essential to writing at that time. The form of books radically changed over time. Both our book and our alphabet originated in Rome. The development of printing has been conditioned by the same factors of consumer demand as any other commodity.

Berthold, Arthur Benedict. American Colonial Printing as Determined by Contemporary Cultural Forces 1639-1763. New York:Lennox Hill, 1970.

Three factors determined the spread of printing:population, education, and freedom of the press. It discusses introduction of printing in each of the original thirteen states. Contains a summary of colonial printing by period, place, and subject amd details the twelve subject classes used in this study.

Clair, Colin. A History of European Printing. London: Academic Press, Inc. 1976.

The invention of printing was the result of a pressing need due to growing literacy rates. From the 6th century to the 12th, the scriptoria of the monasteries sufficed. The emergence from the 'Dark Ages' and intense intellectual activities led to the founding of the first European universities. Also, the pilgrimages and crusades of the middle ages led to many cultural exchanges. Study was entirely book study as lectures, etc. had not come to be used yet. Block books are dated from around 1460 and managed to pursue an independent course, regardless of the new typogaphy.

Clair, Colin. A History of Printing in Britain. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.

"This book is an attempt to provide an outline history of the development of printing in Great Britain since the time of Caxton. It contains little concerning the economics of the printing industry.

Clair, Colin. A Chronology of Printing. London: Cassel, 1969.

"A compendium of information on matters connected with printing, its first introduction to Europe, and its spread throughout the world."

Clement, Richard W. Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. "The Beginnings of Printing in Anglo-Saxon."

Traces Anglo-Saxon printing to its beginning in the mid sixteenth century.

DeVinne, Theo L. The Invention of Printing. New York: Francis Hart & Co., 1969.

"A collection of facts and opinion descriptions of early prints and playing cards, the Block-Books of the fifteenth century, the Legends of Lourens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem, and the work of John Gutenberg, and his associates."

Diamond, Jared. New York Times Magazine, April 18, 1999 "Invention is the Mother of Necessity: Gutenberg didn't invent the Printing Press and other surprises from a thousand years of ingenuity"

The printing press may be the single best invention of the last 1000 years. It allows people to read more quickly. It is falsely credited to Gutenberg though he may more accurately be accredited with contributing to the previously created printing technique.

----. Graphic Arts Monthly "Treasure the Past; Don't Trash It!" March 1988..

Traces printing by tracing printing INK through history.

---. The Spread of Printing. Amsterdam: A.L. van Gendt & Company, 1972.

The spread of printing is also linked to social history, as in Canada's case. One cannot study the press as if in a vacuum. Printing is interwoven with politics and social history. The printing press in New France, Canada was not present until the fall of Quebec at the Battle of Plaius of Abraham in 1759. Its original intention was for publishing government decrees and police proclamations. New France lagged so far behind because of bureaucratic parsimony.

Haynes, Merritt Way. The Student's History of Printing. Chicago; The University of Chicago Press, 1964.

Printing is the "art preservation of all arts". China invented paper and was the first to experiment with block printing and movable type. Japan produced the earliest block prints. The Turkish race was largely responsible for carrying block printing across Asia. The Arabs prepared the way for carrying the making pf paper from China to Europe. Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands were the first centers of the block-printing art. Germany perfected teh invention and spread it to Great Britain, the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Hindman, Sandra, ed. Printing the Written Word - The Social History of Books, circa 1450-1520. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991.

The phenomenon of of the impact of printing is best studied by looking at printed works themselves. There are two scholars, Eisenstein and McLuhan, who argue that print culture represents a radical break with scribal culture. This is the minority opinion and claims that it is responsible for "modern" society, namely the Italian Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, and the scientific revolution. Most scholars see the presumed innovations of print culture as already present in the scribal culture.

Huyghe, Francois-Bernard. "On the Road - Methods through which Ideas Traveled." UNESCO Courier June 1997, p6(4)

Globalization means that knowledge and ideas are being circulated as well as material goods. Western culture strongly encourages the flow of ideas. Books have served as the information highways of the world for centuries. However, in order to allow people access to such a highway, the books had to be peddled from one place to another. Libraries became the intersection of such highways and the center of intellectual thought.

Laufer, Berthold. Paper and Printing in Ancient China. New York: Burt Franklin, 1973 (republished)

Traces printing to the invention of paper in China, well before Mesopotamians, Egyptians, etc. Illuminates books and art as a sign of education in Chinese culture.

---, LIFE"1001-2000: The World as it Was - and the Events that Changed It". Fall 1997, Volume 20

Details major events shaping history this millenium - defends invention of printing as the most influential event of the millenium.

Messadie, Gerald. "Manuscripts on the Move." UNESCO Courier. June 1997 pg10(4).

The written word was reproduced long before printing with moveable type was invented. Political documents were being copied on clay tablets. Most copied documents, however, were of little interest to others. Once manuscripts came into being, they were highly prized by nobility and libraries were built to hold them. Cultural barriers were broken as manuscripts began to find their way to other countries. Works of Aristotle were found in Baghdad in the fifth century for example. Under the Christian Roman Empire, monks became the only licenced people that could copy writing. The more ideas a work contained the smaller the likelihood that it would circulate untouched.

The Newberry Library. The Scholar Printers. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1964.

As universities were formed around groups of scholars, stationers began to meet the students' needs by either selling manuscripts or renting them out to be copied. These stationers were the ancestors to the University printers and bookstore. A trade route for the book was already in place when Gutenberg invented printing in 1440. There was well-organized trade, with specialized booksellers and a large number of works available. Printing, however, offered economy of production and exact duplication.

Poortenaar, Han. The Art of the Book and Its Illistration. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1928 .

Poortenaar "traces the history of calligraphy and typography down to present day and treats of all the subsidary arts which contribute to making the book beautiful." Also includes invention of printing and describes how books are/were made.

Rothschild, Michael. "Cro-Magnon's Secret Weapon." Forbes - A Technology Supplement. 13 Sept. 1993, v152 n6 pgS19.

This is the first time in human existence that one generation has had to deal with the entire transformation of society. This is due to ever-improving information technology. Societies have had three previous Information Revolutions, each one allowing humans to push their own bilogical capabilities. The first revolution came about at the time of the Neaderthals in the form of a lunar calendar. The second was the use of clay objects that represented a farmer's goods, the first form of money. The third revolution was the invention of the printing press which made the machine age possible.

Steinberg, S.H. Five Hundred Years of Printing. Bungay, Suffolk: The Chaucer Press, 1955.

Political, constitutional, ecclesiastical, economic, sociological, philosophical, and literary events cannot be understood without taking the printing press into account. It is also linked with the growth of applied sciences. Changes in type-faces are due to new necessities, technological improvements, commercial considerations, and sociological changes. The history of printing from moveable types can be divided into three eras: 1450-1550 the creative century, 1550-1800 the era of consolidation, and 1800- present the period of technical advances. Gutenburg did not actually invent the first printing but merely the first possibility of editing a text identically in every copy.

Tsuen-Hsuin, Tsien UNESCO Courier. "Printing and Society in China and the West". July, 1988

Traces printing events back to the invention of paper in China.

Twyman, Michael. The British Library Guide to Printing History and Techniques. Milan: Grafiche Milani, 1988.

A history of the techniques of printing: presses, tools, types, blocks, and plates; some descriptions of how old pieces of printing were produced.

Vinocur, M. Richard. American Printer. "A Century of Progress". November 1997, Volume 220

International Prepress Association organized as a result of economic instability affecting industry in the late nineteenth century.

Wood, Christopher. The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies."Early Archaeology and the book trade". Volume 28, 1998.

Reutingers promtomg of the Rominae Vetustatis Fragmenta in 1505 introduced the novelty of graphic representation in a secular work - advanced usage of graphic representation in punlications ensued..