Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Printing: An Account of Its Invention and of William Caxton, the First English Printer
There is a Striking similarity between these Chinese books and the block-books of Germany and Holland. The impressions are taken on one side of the paper only, and they are similarly bound, both the Chinese and the European books being so arranged by the binder as that the two printed pages shall lie face to face. In both countries it was customary to paste the blank sides of the leaves together, so as to make the printed matter continuous. The earliest European block-books also bear marks of having been produced by friction over the block, and nor by the application of heavy pressure. Altogether, Mr. Curzon says, the German and Oriental block-books are so precisely alike in almost every respect, that unless we can find one of the European books with any pretence to an anti quiry previous to the year 860, we must suppose that the process of printing them must have been copied from ancient Chinese specimens brought from that country by some early traveller whose name has not been handed down to our time. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
