History of Japanese books

Source: http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~dawe5/bookbinding_pages/BB_history2.html

After the 14th century all the above bookforms were virtually supplanted by pouch bindings (fukuro toji), a style so typical of Japanese books that it is sometimes thought of as the only Japanese bookform.

It will be observed that almost without exception the pages of Japanese books are of double thickness. This is because the fluid ink used for calligraphy and wood-block printing would bleed through the absorbent hand-made papers, and because the earlier frottage wood-block printing process damaged the reverse side of the paper.

The development of the book in Japan was closely linked to printing, which was virtually a monopoly of the Buddhists. Before 1600 most books were of a religious nature – woodblock-printed Buddhist mantras are thought to be the earliest printed documents (see figure 3).

During the Edo period, (see Appendix I: Chronology of the book in Japan) however, literacy increased, the papermaking industry flourished and works of literature, which previously would have had to be transcribed by hand, could now be printed. These factors jointly led to an explosion in the number of books available on many topics; works of philosophy, science, picture books and novels were suddenly available in quantity.

The Meiji period, however, saw the beginnings of the introduction of Western technology, including collapsible letterpress printing which required very different conditions from the traditional Japanese printing methods. Where wood-block printing required a soft, absorbent, hand-made paper which, because of its absorbency, could be printed on one side only, letterpress printing required a sized, harder-surfaced paper, which meant in turn that the paper could be printed on both sides. The pouch book was soon supplanted by the Western-style multi-section casebound book.