The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives

by Adam Smyth

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Books About Books, Audiobook, Biography, Writing, Historical

12 pages, Audiobook

First published April 18, 2024

About the author

Adam Smyth is Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book at Balliol College, Oxford University. His most recent books are 13 March 1911 (2019) and Material Texts in Early Modern England (2018), and he is co-editor with Dennis Duncan of Book Parts (2019). He is currently editing Pericles, and writes regularly for the London Review of Books.

Reviews

[Marquise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't a history of bookmaking from the dawn of time to our day, so readers shouldn't expect it from this book. Instead, this is a short history of bookmakers, that is: the people who contributed to the evolution, transformation, and betterment of books since the invention of the printing press in the 15th century that made books possible in the form we know them now: printed words on paper.

It's been a very storied and dramatic evolution from Johannes Gutenberg's press to our e-zines, and much more rich and broad and diverse than this book will probably make you think. In fact, I'd say this book's major shortcoming is that it's very Anglo-centric: it merely covers a few innovators in Britain and the United States. Nobody else in Europe is included, which is surprising, not even Gutenberg has a chapter here and he's the one that would most merit it. I'm not sure if the author intended this to be a limited-scope overview or if the limitations come from his own expertise not extending to the history of bookmaking at large, but this omission isn't helpful. It can give a skewed impression that the Anglo-American contribution to bookmaking is larger than it really is, when this lion's share is truer for recent times more than for the past. I'm not advocating for the inclusion of bookmakers the world over, but I am concerned that the European bookmakers of German, Dutch, French, and yes, Spanish too, origins were overlooked.

That said, the eleven chapters in this book present a fair and succinct overview of the contributions of eighteen bookmakers from the 1500s to the 2000s, from Wynkyn de Worde (what a name!) who innovated on Gutenberg's existing printing methods to the five creative youths born from 1973 to 1987 that were responsible for the appearance of zines, e-zines, do-it-youself indie publications, book boxes, and artist books. Very different people, all united by the common desire to print books in new and never-seen-before ways.

All of the eighteen people are interesting in their own way, which you can glimpse from the little biographical tidbits included, some get a more extensive mini-biography than others due to source availability. That was a bit of a problem, too, because the bookmakers I found the most interesting didn't have much in terms of sources about their lives. Like the Collett sisters, Mary and Anna, who created books by the "cut and paste" method when there was no variety in fonts and illustrations (is this where "collage" comes from, the sisters' surname?). That sounds so simple to do, even toddlers do it nowadays, but back then, it was unheard of, hard to do right, and a surprise innovation.

Of course, without demerit to the excellent gentlemen bookmakers talked about in the book, it was the women bookmakers that had me most intrigued. There are so few of them and so little information about these few it's frustrating not to know more as one would like. Besides the Colletts, there was Sarah Eaves, who contributed to typography, Charlotte Sutherland, who contributed to the creation of extra illustrations in books, Lady Nancy Cunard and her small press revolution, and Laura Grace Ford with her zines. So few, yet such meaningful contributions they made that I believe they should've got their own separate book. Maybe someone will write a book on the history of women in bookmaking, because what I got from The Bookmakers was that their role in bookmaking and publishing is much bigger than we suspect. There were female scribes, copyist nuns, typographers, bookbinders, printers, publishers, book illustrators, etc., that I see mentioned in passing in other history books that aren't in this one that would be wonderful to learn more about in a dedicated book.

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Melindam · Rating 4 out of 5]

ARC provided by the Publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Considering how much I love books and reading, it is a shame that I haven't really read that much about the non-fiction (historical, social and technical) aspects of "book-making".

But this book has been a very nice remedy to counterbalance this shortcoming.

Author Adam Smyth's book is truly a worthy celebration of the BOOK/BOOKS and offers you historical, social and technical overview from the 1500s into the 2000s and treats the topics with joy and respect that really resonated with me as a booklover.

There are 11 chapters on the topics:

- Printing
- Binding
- Cut and Paste
- Typography
- Non-Books
- Paper
- Extra-Illustration
- Circulation
- Anachronistic Books
- Small Presses
- Zines, Do-it-yourself, Boxes, Artists' Books

Now this may sound dry, but the topics combined with the human element through it all makes it very interesting. The stories he chose of people (Wynkyn de Worde, Mary and Anna Collett, Benjamin Franklin & Charlotte and Alexander Sutherland - just to name a few) who were all big in the book-making department in their own ways are very intriguing.

There is a somewhat limiting factor as the author concentrates mostly on the England-US part of the world with honorary mentions outside that territory, though he acknowledges the profound debt to "immigrants from other lands". Of course, this does not takes away from the enjoyment or the validity of the information we are offered, but it left me wanting more on a wider scale.


Highly recommended.

[Christina O. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Book-Makers" is a good overview of the history of books, structured by the lives of different book makers: binders, printers, papermakers, etc. It's not a biography because there isn't much information on many of the people Smyth is focusing on--Benjamin Franklin being one of the exceptions--but he is able to explore their lives through their work and the way that work influenced the book as a form and culture as a whole.

The book can be a little dry at times. You really should be interested in the topic before you start reading it. But there are pure golden moments throughout the book that reflect on the history of books, of book-makers, and the life of a single book. If you like reflecting on any of these things, I would recommend "The Book-Makers" to you.

[Regine · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The story of the physical book is a story made by people, not algorithms, individuals with messy lives, and ideals, and talents, and non-infinite resources, and with other things to do. One of the things physical books do is carry something of the lives, or the personalities, of their makers, through their sheer weight-in-the-world presence.”

I thoroughly enjoyed the granular details from which the life of each book-maker was constructed. I could feel the author’s joy of discovery, of absorbing every nuance from a sometimes-minimal written record.

I always prefer the knobbly view that arises from interestingly-arrayed facts, not the detail-erasing generalization that may seem bold but is lazily missing the many points that matter.

[Rory McG · Rating 4 out of 5]

will be thinking about this (again) for ages

[Leanne Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

**Audible** I really enjoyed this, it wasn't exclusively about books as much as I initially hoped - but I think it's a fascinating way to look at them (through the lens of the people involved in creating them). I think I enjoyed the first 8 chapters, and then got a little lost/ disinterested in the final chapters because they concerned modern day. I also liked that the author of the book read this work on Audible.

[مروة الجزائري · Rating 4 out of 5]

صانعو الكتب يعرض لمحة تاريخية واجتماعية وفنية عن صناعة الكتاب من خلال سرد سيرة مختصرة للأشخاص الذين كانوا روّادًا في مجالهم وساهموا في تطور الكتب وتحويلها وتحسينها منذ اختراع الطباعة التي جعلت الكتب (كلمات مطبوعة على الورق) في القرن الخامس عشر إلى يومنا هذا.
من المطبوعات المبكرة للمهاجر الهولندي وينكين دي وورد إلى مجلة بلاك ماس في نيويورك وما بينهما، ستقرأ عن صناعة الورق والتجليد والخط والقص واللصق والكولاج والمكتبات والمطابع الصغيرة والكتب الكبيرة والقصص التجارية، وستقرأ عن جامعي الكتب المهووسين وناشرين ينشرون كتابًا كل أسبوع. ستقرأ عن شخصيات غير معروفة نسبيًا عرّفنا عليهم المؤلف من خلال أعمالهم وتأثير هذهِ الأعمال على الكتاب شكلًا ومضمونًا، والمصاعب التي واجهوها، والخيارات التي اتخذوها.
ولعل مثلبة الكتاب الوحيدة هو تركيز آدم سميث على اختيار شخصيات من أمريكا وبريطانيا إلى حدٍ كبير ولم يتطرق إلى الشخصيات الاستثنائية في باقي أنحاء العالم التي ساهمت في صناعة الكتاب، وقد تعزو محدودية طرحه إلى افتقاره للمصادر أو المعرفة بالشخصيات الأخرى أو لغاية في نفسه والله أعلم.

تطرق الكاتب إلى ثُنائيتي (الكتاب والناس، والكتاب الوقت) في كتابه وقال: "للكتب علاقة عميقة ومعقدة مع الزمنية، فالكتاب الذي بين يدي الآن كان موجودًا منذ عام ١٦٦٤ وسيظل فترة طويلة بعد أن أرحل عن العالم، والعلامات التي تركها القرّاء من هوامش وملاحظات وتأشيرات هي دليل حيّ على هذهِ الرحلة".

كما أشار سميث في مقدمة كتابه إلى سخافة فكرة كون الثقافة الرقمية قد حلّت محل الكتب المطبوعة مقارنًا إياها بالتحول من المخطوطات إلى الكلمة المطبوعة في القرن السادس عشر ذاكرًا أن الكتب المطبوعة حاولت محاكاة خط اليد في بواكيرها، لتكتسب المصداقية جزئيًا ولأن المخطوطات كانت الشكل المتاح عمومًا. وقال: "يمكن النظر إلى الثقافة الرقمية والطباعة كنوع من التبادلية بدل الصراع الدارويني أو الموت، وحافزًا لإثارة تطورات جديدة في عالم الكتاب كما نلاحظ في الوقت الراهن".

"عندما تصادف كتابًا قديما تعاقبت عليه الأجيال، ستلمح حركة الكتاب عبر الأزمان… لمحة بسيطة على قائمة الاسماء التي مرّ كتاب ما بين أيديها تريك افتقار ادعائنا بملكيتها".

"قصة الكتاب الورقي هي قصة كتبها أشخاص، لا خوارزميات، أفراد لديهم حيواتهم الفوضوية ومُثلهم العُليا ومواهبهم ومصادرهم المحدودة ومشاغل أخرى يقومون بها. الكتب الورقية تحمل بعضًا من حياة أو شخصيات صانعيها. وهي أشياء مُعبرة تمتلك في حد ذاتها نطاقًا عاطفيًا وتنقل، في أشكالها المادية، ما يعنيه أن يكون صانع الكتب على قيد الحياة، يصب فيها الاهتمام أو التردد أو التسرع أو التحدي أو الغضب أو الحب اذي كان يسكنه ساعة مرور الكتاب بين يديه. وما الكتب التي تراها في كل مكان إلا نتاج عمل المصممين والمحررين وكل من مرَّ به الكتاب في أثناء صناعته".

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not your mainstream 'history of the book' story. You won't find much about Gutenberg, the Bay Psalm Book, Incunabula, or the development of modern publishing. The important part of the subtitle is 'in Eighteen Lives'. Eighteen lives of people who had idiosyncratic relationships with books.

Honesty, how many of these people do you know? Wynkyn de Worde, William Wildgoose, Mary and Anna Collett, Ben Franklin, Nicholas-Louis Robert, John Baskerville and Sarah Eaves, Charlotte and Alexander Sutherland, Charles Mudie, Thomas Cobden-Sanderson, Nancy Cunard, and a raft of zine and art book makers.

One, right? Franklin. William Morris is also in there, but he's not the featured person.

Some of these people made books (as in, printers, like Franklin, although he made few books other than the almanac and much more ephemeral material – advertisements, broadsides, etc.). Some of them took books and cut them up to remake them. A few didn't make them but influenced the field (Mudie, the Jeff Bezos of his day). Others made things that might or might not be called books (the zine makers, and box makers).

The author is intrigued by people who took books and re-purposed them, either by adding illustrations or otherwise rearranging text (like conflating books of the Bible). Or by making zines or other 'book-like' objects. It's a fun part of the story of the book, but a lot of it could be described as curiosities of the trade, and not an influential part of book history.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. It's a book that peers into the nooks and crannies of the book making field, not the main part of publishing books.

In describing the oddities of the book field, this book is a bit of an oddity in itself. But fun.

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, Basic Books, for the opportunity to start reading this early for an honest review.

I must be in my non-fiction era, because I’ve been devouring non-fiction lately. The world of book binding has always interested me and this book was an excellent look into the history of bookmaking including: printing, binding, typography, paper, and other things I’ve never heard of like cut and paste, and extra-illustrations. Instead of dry facts, each chapter focuses on the life of a person or people that were pioneers in their field.

I’d recommend this story to anyone that’s interested in the minutiae and history of books and book binding.

[J R · Rating 5 out of 5]

awesome book about the people who built our idea of the books. tyssm for the arc. favorite passages are near the beginning and the end.

[Robin Wright Gunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I plan to dig deeper into some of the people that he features in some chapters.

[Evelyn Petschek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating! The author chronicles the development of the book by highlighting the lives and efforts of 18 individuals who had a big impact - printers, binders, paper-makers and more. Lots of quirky, interesting and intriguing facts, perhaps a bit pedantic at times but overall this held my interest and I found it hard to put down! If you like books and history, I recommend this! Great audio narration.

[Elizabeth]

I shall never procrastinate a book report again. Mark. My. Words. 🤘

[Abigail Moreshead · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read on the history of the book. The fact that different facets of the book/its history are narrated through individuals' lives makes it very accessible and memorable.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This got a bit dry at times, but I enjoyed the history.

[Jessica M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an interesting book. I love how the author found specific people through history and did his best to really flesh out what their life would have been like. For example, in one spot, there's a fingerprint, an accident of whoever was making the book brushing the page with his hand--I mean, how cool is that? This was a much needed book and would be a great gift to a book lover!

[Cal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Admittedly I lost interest multiple times. Usually happens with audiobooks for me, this one even easier to just drift away as it was dry at times but I expected this to happen given the content! No worries, I’m glad I listened to it for sure. Some really cool historical facts that were enjoyable to hear about if you like books or just think about the history of spreading information.

[Adrianne]

6/2024 Thank you Ashland Public Library MA for hosting the author talk via Zoom: https://youtu.be/n5HCf9ZqJSg?si=peflw...

[Kevin Crowe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adam Smyth's "The Book Makers: A History of the Book in 18 Remarkable Lives" provides an unusual but crucial perspective. Unlike most books about books, it isn't concerned with authors, nor is it concerned primarily with the content of books, though all this is present. Smyth's primary concern is the process by which book are made; in part the technology, but primarily the people who used and developed technology and insights into their motivations.

The chapters are both thematic (Printing, Binding, Cut and Paste, Typography, etc) and chronological. So, for example, the first chapter on Printing concentrates on the 15th-16th century printer Wynkyn de Worde and the way he developed techniques that future printers and publishers took up.

Within each chapter he looks at the life and achievements of the particular person under discussion and how (and if) they have influenced the development of the book. He also raises questions about what we mean by the word "book" - a key topic in his final chapter on zines and other 20th century developments. He makes it clear that, whatever we mean by "book", it is a physical object, which he distinguishes from electronic texts. In doing this, he isn't dismissing e-books or reading online or on a computer, merely suggesting that they are different and are read differently.

Most of the 18 individuals are little known yet have played a crucial part in the development of the book as we know it, with the one major exception being Benjamin Franklin who is the main subject in the chapter Non-Books. Long before he became a famous politician, Franklin was a printer and publisher, not just of books but of newspapers, pamphlets, lottery tickets and even currency. He claimed the moral high ground yet his newspapers contained adverts offering slaves for sale.

One of the most interesting chapters is Paper, which features the 18th-19th century printer and inventor Nicolas-Louis Robert. He is credited with inventing the technology that enabled paper to be created in large loops that could be cut to size rather than the tortuous process of creating single sheets. This transformed printing and publishing. But what is also particularly interesting in this chapter is what he tells us about the history of paper. In the west, we sometimes think we created paper, and that before that there were just things like papyrus and other expensive surfaces to write on.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Paper was invented in China in by Ts'ai Lun, who was a courtier in the Han dynasty, in the first century CE, and the paper the Chinese created came from wood bark. This technology spread west and by the 8th century CE reached the Islamic world. Meanwhile, the paper that we invented in the west came from clothing fibre, a much messier and more expensive way of producing it, and one dependent on there being enough discarded clothing to make it. It was to be the 19th century before the west learned how to create paper from wood pulp - almost two millennia after the Chinese and a millennia after the Islamic world.

This is a fascinating book that provides insight into the various ways books have been made and the achievements of some relatively unknown figures in its history, as well as correcting some of the myths associated with that history.

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am obviously not going to pass on a book about books, so I was very excited to read The Book Makers and quite determined to share my review with my fellow book lovers!

Through 11 chapters, The Book Makers explores the lives of 18 individuals and the various facets connected to a book, including:

Binding
Paper
Printing
Illustrations
Circulation (i.e. the Lending Library)
Zines
And more!

It was honestly fun to learn more about the different aspects of a book. Because Smyth focuses on one or two lives in one chapter, we only get a snapshot of the history (granted, normally a pivotal moment in the history of that part). But that is enough to develop an appreciate of how much went into making the book the way we know it today.

My three favourite chapters were the ones on:

1. Cut and Paste – how Mary and Anna Collett wielded their scissors to rearrange the Bible and create a new work from it. I was surprised by how books have been changed since the 17th century, a good reminder that books are not signs of stasis but can still be manipulated after publishing

2. Extra Illustration – looking at the trend of augmenting books with relevant illustrations, thus adding depth or perhaps introducing certain interpretations. This chapter somewhat overlapped with the one on Zines (though I felt the Zine chapter, with three people featured, felt a little too rushed) and also the one on Cut and Paste, which again shows how people have always changed and personalised the books that they bought.

3. Circulation – looking at Charles Edward Mudie and his lending library and how it shaped not just taste (leading to protests when he did not include certain books in his library) but also the way people wrote novels (Mudie liked the three volume novel as it helped justify a subscription to his lending library). It’s vey much similar to how programmes like Kindle Unlimited or even how online bookstores used to rank books/recommend books that influenced the way authors write (write to market, writing in certain niches, etc).

As you can see, a book is more than just paper and ink. Every part of it has a rich history of its own and has been influenced by many individuals throughout time. The Bookmakers was a good reminder that books did not magically appear in its current form but was always changing and negotiating with the contemporary technology and needs of its day.

This review was first posted at Eustea Reads

[Stephen Power · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who's been in publishing for more than 30 years and as a bibliophile, I gravitate toward books on the history of the industry, and this one is really good. It gave me the same shiver I felt when, at an antiquarian bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., I was encouraged to pick up and leaf through the first edition of Spencer's FAERIE QUEEN I'd been gawking at. The shopkeeper said I shouldn't worry about hurting the book, it was built to last, and was he ever right. They made a book well back then, and THE BOOK-MAKERS celebrates this craft by showing how that proceeded through nearly a dozen fascinating milestones. While Smyth's book is a bit overpacked at times, perhaps because there aren't that many facts to pack in so nothing was left to waste, and a bit dry here and there, I nonetheless ended the book wanting to buy a handpress and start churning out pages.

And there's much of current relevance. Former head of Macmillan Don Weisberg said during the DOJ's case against the PRH merger with S&S that a subscription book service, a Netflix for books, would destroy publishing. Setting aside that he seems to have forgotten about the existence of libraries--which is fitting because Macmillan largely ignores this market, despite it being the same size as the indies--I was fascinated by the history of the subscription libraries that preceded civic ones and how they not only didn't put publishers out of business, they bought a ton of books. I was also amused by the literary writer getting shut out of the biggest subscription service for a reason that echoes the Trump trial about election interference; the author's novel being too louche for their subscribers just as David Pecker said that a story on Stormy Daniels wouldn't work for the National Enquirer because it would upset shoppers at their biggest customer, Walmart.

What I appreciated most, though, was being inspired by the artistic approaches of these bookmakers. I recently went to a performance of several experimental plays at the Cut Edge Collective in NYC, which made me want to try my hand at writing some experimental plays too, and there was a lot in this book to prompt approaches and ideas, especially the Harmonies of LIttle Gidding. I found myself highlighting much more than I normally do.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the early look.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first chapter of this book is about someone called Wynkyn de Worde. How can anyone not love a book that starts with that? As it turns out, de Worde is an important figure in the early history of printing in England, but at first I would not have cared if the author had made him up just for fun.

But in fact, this book is both scholarly and fun, and I commend the author for doing such a good job of balancing the two. As my Goodreads friends know, I love to learn from books, but at first I was a bit worried that I might have bit off more than I could chew. But no, the author keeps things moving and always in the direction of some new interesting topic. That said, if you are not interested in the origins and development of print culture and how folks have engaged with it, this is not going to be the book for you. But if you do have any interest, this book is full of fascinating facts that you might not have learned before. Sometimes utterly unfamiliar: Folks who carved up books in order to insert illustrations they collected elsewhere (sometimes from other books they cut up), which was not something I'd heard of. Other times, new perspectives on things we might think of as familiar, such as Benjamin Franklin. The chapter on Mudie's was fascinating, reasons, and I learned that Mudie was responsible both for the dominance of the 3-volume novel in Victorian times, and for the end of that dominance when it no longer worked for his business. The final chapter about zines, DIY, artists books, and a magazine that consisted of a box of contents of various media (killed by the post office when they decided that wasn't what a magazine was supposed to be) was a great way of ending the book by reminding us that we still have a lot of different ways of engaging with print culture. And the examples focused on were all very interesting in their various ways. So I highly recommend this book to my fellow print-lovers, and those of us who like a good story about what makes people tick.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adam Smyth offers a sweep of book making over the last five centuries by zeroing in on a dozen and a half practitioners of the trade. This gives us both a happy overview and delightful storytelling of many individuals and their times. My full review appears in the January-February 2025 edition of Christianity Today, which can also be found online. https://www.christianitytoday.com/202... Here are a couple parts of the review that the editors left on the cutting room floor.

The chapter on an early bookbinder, William Wildgoose (yes, that was really his name) begins and ends with the tale of a wayward volume that was first housed in the famous Bodleian Library in Oxford, only to return unexpectedly three centuries later. In 1905 a young man comes in wanting advice on rebinding his ancient folio. When the sub-librarian and assistant librarian inspect it closely—and then more closely!—they discover that this was once in the Bodleian’s collection, sold off as new printings became available. The book has been remarkably preserved through generations. And like someone who found a priceless pearl in a field, the Bodleian raises an enormous sum now equivalent to $300,000 to buy it back. The volume? Shakespeare’s First Folio, bound by William Wildgoose in 1623.

While zines go back a hundred years, Smyth features examples of the last few decades. The creators of these periodicals intentionally positioned them outside mainstream publishing in content and production values, often being photocopied and stapled. They knew that online existed, but they were committed to the tangibility, the physicality of their publications. They believed it provided a more multi-sensual experience that is not diluted by the digital.

Perhaps the author chose to highlight them for this very reason, as Smyth’s volume is in many ways a celebration of the physical book in all its dimensions.

[Book Club of One · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly readable history of the book through 18 individuals, The Book-Makers explores the varied world of those who create printed works across five centuries from the early days of printing with Wynkyn de Word, through the ephemeral focused Franklin to the small scale contemporary zine makers.

Adam Smyth is a historian, but writes a clear narrative with many an aside or reaction to the content. But Smyth also shares from the figures he portrays, reactions to their works, public perception, or after the fact understandings. 11 chapters are featured, each with a theme that mostly focuses on one person, movement, time period or ideal. These chapters use these thematic points to discuss the changing history of book making, noting key technological adaptations, adoptions or advancements. While Smyth is predominantly focused on the Western world, he is clear to show that the development of paper and printing globally, with credit to China for the development of paper and printing and it’s spread west through the Islamic Middle East.

While Book-Makers is arranged chronologically, as it is centered on people, it is not a straightforward historical narrative. Instead it follows the lives as they unfurled with all the pettiness, success, challenges and missed opportunities that could entail. Of the many themes, some of the centrals ones are the consideration of the book as both a vehicle for the diffusion of knowledge and the book as a physical object that was purposefully created telling something of all those involved in the creation and the life (/lives) of their owner(s).

Recommended to librarians, historians and those interested in the history of the book.

I received a free digital version of this book via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the title suggests, this is a history of the book, as told in a series of short biographical essays that concern individuals who, while they may also have been writers or poets, were linked by their roles in the physical production and distribution of book (in early modern England before industrialization took over). The author, on the faculty at Oxford, knows his subject well.

So there are chapters about printers and binders. There are chapters about efforts to construct high quality individualized and large books adapted with extra illustration or other curations for clients. There is material on “non-books” or what printers did in between producing their large masterpieces and still needed to pay the rent. There is even a chapter on a 19th century commercialization of a private lending library that shows hints of what Amazon would become in publishing more recently. There are modern effort at zines that provide much of the content of blogs and podcasts but with a physical and circulating product.

All of these efforts seem to be linked to how important individuals have come to interject themselves into publishing prior to the arrival of the corporation. At the same time, however, Smyth’s fine book concludes with a recognition that books can and do take on a meaning far beyond that intended by the individuals involved in their original production. Great books outlast that mortal makers.

This was a thought provoking book and is worth the time and effort of book lovers.

[Patrick Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Book-Makers is a clever and engaging collection of biographies and vignettes from the history of books, starting slightly before Gutenberg’s time and continuing to the 2010s. I appreciate that the publishers chose to distribute the British version in the United States, with some British idioms left intact and currency denominated in British terms.

In the account on binding (Chapter 2), told through the life and work of one William Wildgoose, Adam Smyth includes an excerpt from the poem “The Book” by Henry Vaughn, prefacing it with these words: “Addressing God, Vaughn imagines the prehistory of the physical components of a book—paper, once clothes worn by people with their own lives and thoughts, and leather covers, once a creature in a field eating grass.”

With such respect for book-makers shown in this book, it is humbling to think how dehumanizing the production of mass-market books and ebooks has become. The flip side, of course, is the democratizing effect of having so much literature available, much of it dreck but much of it beautiful, worthwhile, and even sometimes life changing.

The copy of The Book-Makers that I borrowed from the library is hard bound with the text printed on groundwood paper and a cloth cover. The type is set in 12/14.75 Baskerville MT Pro, Baskerville being one of my favorite typefaces from my days working in book production. Thanks to Adam Smyth and to Basic Books for producing this gem.

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this incredible history book, Adam Smyth explores the history of the book and its evolution over the last six centuries through the lives of eighteen individuals. From old illuminated texts and handwritten copies to movable type and the zines of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the book itself has evolved with new technology and audiences. These changes, however, were done by people whose names have been forgotten by history until Smyth’s book came along. Following men and women from across time and space, he traces the chronological development of various book innovations and specific texts in Europe and North America. Supported by illustrations of the relevant texts and historical artifacts which he discusses, the balance of text and visuals in this book makes it approachable for readers of history and those unfamiliar with the genre. Smyth’s prose is straightforward and clear, and the organization of this book chronologically by individual makes it very readable. With incredible attention to detail, primary documentation, and the historical record, Smyth’s book is an excellent piece for historians and historians of the book. An excellent read for devoted history readers and historians, this is a fantastically detailed and interesting history book about the development of the medium in modern Europe and North America.

Thanks to NetGalley and Basic Books for the advance copy.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book, I am in a phase where I will read anything about the history of books and manuscripts. This book is very accessible and non-technical, and makes clear what 'book' meant at different points in the history of it at least in the west. Smyth nods to the origins of things like ink and paper in the Chinese and Arab worlds, but he does not include that in his scope, it would need a whole additional book.

Some of this was not new to me, but a lot of it was. It was particularly interesting to read about the small presses that exploded in the late 19th and early 20th century and the kinds of things they did.

What blew my mind, though, was the two chapters on people who did what I would consider destruction of books. The 'Harmonies' were made by cutting up bibles and painstakingly pasting the four gospels together to make a single story integrating all the contents of all four. And the extra-illustrators would take a single book and cut it up so they could add to it any illustration they could find that was relevant to the text, expanding one book to as many as 30 volumes. I think these people were just a little crazy!

If you love books this will be an enjoyable read.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title and subtitle describe this book accurately. It's not a point-by-point history of making books, but it gets at the history by looking at people who played key roles from late in the 15th century until the present day.

If the way things are made fascinates you, I strongly recommend reading "The Book-Makers." It's not so much my area of interest, but I am interested in how books are written. This book is so well-researched. It is right up Mr. Smyth's alley -- he is a professor of English literature and the history of the book and runs his own small printing press. It's an impressive accomplishment.

On Page 255 of "The Book-Makers" I came across a quote the perfectly summarizes my feelings about this book. It's from historian Roderick Cave in assessing Thomas Cobden-Sanderson's books: "We can admire, but it is impossible to love." Precisely.

The first chapter is about the man with the most perfect name possible for a book publisher: Wynkyn de Worde. If he hadn't been a real person, someone would have had to make him up.

I found myself rapidly losing interest while reading the final chapter, "Zinees, Do-It-Yourself, Boxes, Artists' Books," a chapter that reminds me that I am lost in my own time; and I'm afraid that I skipped the epilogue altogether.

[Robert Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a delightful book. The history is slightly more parochial than the title indicates. It'd be more accurate to say it's a history of English book-making. But that's unsurprising, and really not a draw-back. We would expect an Oxford professor to know chapter & verse on British bo0k-making, and focus his energies there. The famous Germans and Italian book-makers of yore shouldn't feel too slighted.

Gutenberg & Co. get their mentions. Smyth is more interested in tracking down and explaining the histories of unique volumes that he can hold in his hands. Some of the centuries old figures he documents worked within a few miles of his Oxford office, facts which Smyth clearly delights in. He also takes the time to geographically locate other figures within London and the English countryside.

Smyth clearly loves these books, and this history, and he works hard to recreate the worlds his bookbinders, printers & outsider artists occupied. In the process he provides edifying snapshots of centuries of the intellectual and literary development of the English language. If that's the sort of thing that floats your boat, rush out and get a copy. I enjoyed every page.