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The Book-Makers
A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives
Description
The five-hundred-year history of printed books, told through the people who created them
Books tell all kinds of stories—romances, tragedies, comedies—but if we learn to read the signs correctly, they can tell us the story of their own making too. The Book-Makers offers a new way into the story of Western culture’s most important object, the book, through dynamic portraits of eighteen individuals who helped to define it.
Books have transformed humankind by enabling authors to create, document, and entertain. Yet we know little about the individuals who brought these fascinating objects into existence and of those who first experimented in the art of printing, design, and binding. Who were the renegade book-makers who changed the course of history?
From Wynkyn de Worde’s printing of fifteenth-century bestsellers to Nancy Cunard’s avant-garde pamphlets produced on her small press in Normandy, this is a celebration of the book with the people put back in.
Books tell all kinds of stories—romances, tragedies, comedies—but if we learn to read the signs correctly, they can tell us the story of their own making too. The Book-Makers offers a new way into the story of Western culture’s most important object, the book, through dynamic portraits of eighteen individuals who helped to define it.
Books have transformed humankind by enabling authors to create, document, and entertain. Yet we know little about the individuals who brought these fascinating objects into existence and of those who first experimented in the art of printing, design, and binding. Who were the renegade book-makers who changed the course of history?
From Wynkyn de Worde’s printing of fifteenth-century bestsellers to Nancy Cunard’s avant-garde pamphlets produced on her small press in Normandy, this is a celebration of the book with the people put back in.
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Praise
"In a world where digital text shouts louder than ever it is refreshing to be reminded of the imagination and ingenuity of generations of men and women, many of them ignored by regular histories, who helped expand the potential of the printed book as form and object. Their stories reside in the physical volumes they made. Through meticulous study of the material qualities of those volumes Smyth breathes both books-as-objects and their creators back into life."
—Financial Times
“Vivid and often-surprising … The charm of The Book-Makers comes from its interest in wear and tear, blunders and errata, the spontaneous and the scrappy, the residual and the recycled – and in edges, of pages and bindings, society and taste”
—Times Literary Supplement
“Agile storytelling and chatty erudition together evoke not just the physicality of the book – its beauty, its complexity – but also its innate humanity.”
—Guardian (UK)
“Emphasising the human aspect in all its chaotic truth, The Book-Makers is far from your standard Gutenberg-to-Google history of the book… [Smyth] is almost uniquely well-qualified to convey what his 18 makers felt under their fingertips, and why it mattered to them so much. It is, in the truest sense, an enthusiast’s book; one that deserves to find enthusiasts of its own”
—Daily Telegraph (UK)
“The skill of a bibliographer like Smyth is to be able to read those ghostly prints and add a whole second story to the words on the page… It is, in the truest sense, an enthusiast’s book; one that deserves to find enthusiasts of its own.”
—Telegraph (UK)
“I cannot recommend it highly enough.”
—Spectator (UK)
"Agile storytelling and chatty erudition evoke not just the physicality of the book but also its innate humanity."
—Observer (UK)
“This really is the loveliest of books and you will never take for granted reading a physical copy again.”
—iNews (UK)
“Fierce scholarship and fascinating print nerdery come together here as he illuminates brilliantly a cast of printers, binders, artists, papermakers and library founders. There is a wonderful immediacy to Adam Smyth’s narrative.”
—Country Life (UK)
“By focusing on personalities over objects, Smyth infuses his history of books and printing with engaging human portraits. His use of present tense propels his prose, making books old and new gloriously, vibrantly alive for all readers, not just booksellers and librarians.”
—Booklist
“Bibliophiles will savor this sprightly walk down the book’s memory lane.”
—Kirkus
“The Book-Makers is a passionate paean to the book, in all its different forms, as an object.”
—Literary Review
“Erudite, insightful and hugely enjoyable, The Book-Makers features an eclectic cast of oddballs, eccentrics and visionaries who have shaped the printed book. A fabulous, first-class read.”
—Giles Milton, author of Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
“Explores in compelling fashion the lives of these fascinating individuals and their roles in making the most powerful objects in human history – books.”
—Richard Ovenden, author of Burning The Books
“Evocative and fascinating… We tend to think about books from the point of view of readers: Smyth has written a new, personal history recovering and respecting those who got their hands dirty.”
—Emma Smith, author of This Is Shakespeare
“Amazing. From typeface to papermaking to a whole new-to-me democratic world of book interaction like commonplacing and zines, this book is a soul-expanding celebration of the human spirit.”
—Martin Latham, author of The Bookseller’s Tale
“Fascinating... Should teach even serious book-nerds a heap of forgotten and precious information about the making of books … As full of surprises as any novel.”
—David Bellos, author of The Novel of the Century