Book

‘Book’ as a form of written artefact is conventionally defined as a “portable collection of elements with a flat surface where a text can be durably written” (Muzerelle 2002–2003, s.v. livre; Ciotti’s translation). This definition does not include any form of binding, hence also a stack of folios that are loosely kept together would count as a ‘book’ (cf. ‘loose stack of folios’). Here, for the sake of classificatory convenience, we reserve the label ‘book’ for bound folios (and possibly bifolios) that are not gathered into quires (vs Codex) and extend its usual application to bound tablets.

Binding can be made in a variety of ways, mainly by stitching, glueing, or using thread rings that pass through holes pierced on one of the sides of each folio or tablet throughout the whole stack. Covers, made of rigid or soft materials, can also be added for protection.

If one accepts to include not only folios but also tablets as materials for producing books, we would then include wooden or ivory tablet diptychs (vs tablet triptychs and polyptychs that are folded as concertinas, see Concertina from Ancient Near East or Classical Antiquity (see Cammarosano et al 2019, 146–153 and Willi 2021, 45–49, respectively), as well as South Asian bound copper plates, which are tied together by means of copper rings (Francis 2018, 398–404). However, note that nowhere in the literature such written artefacts are categorised as ‘books’, but as ‘tablets’ or ‘inscriptions’, respectively. We can thus transcend or at least offer an alternative approach to the conundrum of distinguishing manuscripts from inscriptions.

In Dunhuang a number of manuscripts consisted of bifolia that were gathered in stacks that could look like quires but were in fact glued to each other along the outer edge of the centrefold (Galambos 2020, 32). From the fourteenth until the early twentieth c. the structure of the binding in Chinese books was basically reversed. In contrast to the early forms just described, the bifolia were bound with the fold facing towards the fore edge of the book rather than the spine. The bifolia were kept together with the help of twisted paper spills (later also thread) that ran through holes stabbed through the whole book block near the spine (Helliwell 1998, 39–40) (cf. the rare Western European ‘bound accordion’, s.v. Concertina).

A peculiar case from at least the time of the late Tang dynasty in China are books prepared with the technique of whirlwind binding. In this case, a stack of folios of different length (from the shortest on top to the longest at the bottom) was prepared and aligned on the left-hand side. The left edges of each folio were then glued together and enclosed in two halves of a split bamboo rod. Furthermore, holes were pierced through the rod and the folios further bound together. Note that at the time of storage, such books were rolled up like scrolls.