The Invention of Printing in China and Its Spread Westward
New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1955.
Second Edition. Hardcover.
Second Edition, thoroughly revised and updated from the first edition published in 1925.
The background to block printing is investigated in the development of paper, the use of seals, and the practice of taking rubbings from stone inscriptions. Block printing began humbly in Buddhist and Taoist circles as a means of multiplying religious charms. It gained official acceptance when Feng Tao had all the Confucian Classics printed in the years 932-953, and in the next four centuries it reached a remarkably high level of development, both as to quality and quantity. Movable type was also invented in China and was widely used in Korea long before Gutenberg's time. The possible channels in the transmission of printing from China to Europe are carefully traced. These channels involve the printing of the tribes of Central Asia, the trade along the great silk ways, the Arabs' use of paper and the discovery of Arabic block prints in Egypt, the cosmopolitanism of the Mongol Empire, printed textiles, playing cards, and paper money.
Item #9014266-1/4 x 9-1/4", blue cloth, xxiv, 293pp, chart, list of words, bibliography, index, frontis. portrait, 31 illustrations in text.
Clean, tight, free of owner’s marks, fine in very good price-clipped dust wrapper with 2-1/2" line of glue residue from old tape reinforcement interior top-edge, in protective mylar.
Price: $150.00