Old China Books: Chinese Bookbinding
Title: The Booklover and His Books
Author: Harry Lyman Koopman
Year Published: 1917
Chapter: The Chinese Book
“Yet they are anatomically far more different than the man and the fish. In much the same way we may be led to suppose that a Chinese book and an occidental paper-bound book are much the same thing in origin as they are to the eye. But here too the likeness is only apparent. One book form has descended from a block of wood and the other from a fold of silk.”
page 87
The essential differences of our two cultures. Chop down a tree and make a book. OR, feed worms, harvest those worms and then extract silk, make into a fold silk. I’d rather the first one!
“The Chinese book is such a triumph of simplicity, cheapness, lightness and durability that it deserves a more careful study at the hands of our book producers than it has yet received.”
page 87
What are you saying? My school textbooks lasted a long time! They never wore out! Ha Ha Ha
“The standard book is printed from engraved wood blocks, each of which is engraved on the side of the board, not on the end like our wood blocks, and for economy is engraved on both sides. Each of these surfaces prints one sheet of paper, making two pages. The paper, being unsized, is printed on only one side, and the fold is not at the back, as in our books, but at the front. The running headline, as we should call it, with the page number, is printed in a central column, which is folded through when the book is bound, coming half on one page and half on the other. There is always printed in this column a fan-shaped device, called the fish’s tail, whose notch indicates where the fold is to come. It may be remarked in passing that the Chinese book begins on what to us the last page, and the lines read from top to bottom and follow one another from right to left. Each page has a double ruled line at the top and bottom and the inner edge. The top and bottom lines and the fish’s tail, being printed across the front fold, show as black lines banding the front edge when the book is bound. The bottom line is taken by the binder as his guide in arranging the sheets, this line always appearing true on the front edge and the others blurred….A piece of silk is pasted over the upper and lower corners of the back. Covers, consisting of two sheets of colored paper folded in front like the pages, are placed at front and back, but not covering the back edge, or there is an outer sheet of colored paper with inside lining paper and a leaf of heavy paper between for stiffening. Silk cord is sewn through the holes and neatly tied, and the book is done, light in the hand and lying open well, inexpensive and capable with proper treatment of lasting for centuries.”
page 89
and thus you have a Chinese book!
Interesting Links:
Research into Chinese books and even ancient bamboo “books”.
Paper and book making website
This link is comparing Chinese and Japanese books.
Blog about Bookbinding
This article is about Chinese bookbinding
The book can be found here.
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