Books were printed by rubbing paper against inked woodblocks. The paper was thin and porous, so only one side could be printed. Books were folded into accordion style and stitched at the side.

The imperial state was the major producer. It supported civil service examinations, so textbooks were printed in large numbers.

The number of examination candidates rose, leading to higher demand for printed books.

Print was no longer just for scholar-officials. Merchants used print for trade information, reading became leisure, and new readers liked fiction, poetry, plays, and autobiographies.

Western printing techniques and mechanical presses were imported. Shanghai became the hub of new print culture, serving Western-style schools. This began the shift from hand printing to mechanical printing.

Buddhist missionaries from China brought hand-printing technology to Japan around AD 768–770.

The Buddhist Diamond Sutra (AD 868) – contains six text sheets and woodcut illustrations.

Printed on:

• Textiles
• Playing cards
• Paper money

• Poets and prose writers were regularly published
• Books were cheap and abundant

In Edo (later Tokyo):

• Illustrated painting collections showed elegant urban life
• Featured artists, courtesans, and teahouse gatherings

Bookstores and libraries stocked books on:

• Women
• Musical instruments
• Calculations
• Tea ceremony
• Flower arrangements
• Etiquette
• Cooking
• Famous places

Via the Silk Route in the 11th century from China.
Enabled production of handwritten manuscripts by scribes.

Marco Polo returned to Italy in 1295 after exploring China.
He introduced Chinese woodblock printing technology.

• Italians began printing books using woodblocks
• Technology spread across Europe
• Luxury books still handwritten on expensive vellum for aristocrats and monasteries
• Merchants and students bought cheaper printed copies

• Booksellers exported books to many countries
• Book fairs held in various cities
• Scribes now worked for booksellers, not just wealthy patrons
• One bookseller could employ over 50 scribes

• Expensive, slow, and labor-intensive to copy
• Fragile and hard to handle or carry
• Limited circulation

→ Led to rising popularity of woodblock printing

• Textiles
• Playing cards
• Religious pictures with short texts

Johann Gutenberg invented the first printing press in Strasbourg, Germany.
This allowed faster, cheaper, and mass reproduction of texts.

Son of a merchant, grew up on a farm estate.
Became a master goldsmith and learned to make lead moulds for trinkets.

• Olive and wine presses → model for the printing press
• Lead moulds → used to cast metal letters (movable type)

By 1448.
First major book: the Gutenberg Bible – 180 copies in 3 years (fast for that time).

No. Early printed books looked like manuscripts:

• Metal letters copied handwritten styles
• Borders and illustrations still hand-painted
• Blank spaces left for custom decoration by buyers

• Between 1450–1550, presses set up in most European countries
• German printers traveled to start new presses abroad
• Book production exploded

• 1450s–1500: ~20 million copies
• By 1600: ~200 million copies

Shift from hand printing to mechanical printing caused the Print Revolution.

Not just a new book-making method – it transformed society:

• Changed how people accessed information and knowledge
• Altered views on institutions and authority
• Shifted popular perceptions
• Opened new ways of thinking

• Books became affordable → knowledge no longer limited to elites
• Wider readership → more people could read, question, and debate
• Encouraged independent thinking and critical views

• Challenged church and monarchical control over ideas
• Allowed new voices (reformers, scientists, philosophers) to spread
• Enabled public debate on religion, politics, and society

• Created a reading public across classes
• Boosted literacy rates
• Spread scientific ideas, news, and literature faster
• Helped form shared opinions and national identities

It democratized knowledge, broke monopolies on information, and laid the foundation for:

• The Reformation
• The Enlightenment
• Modern education and democratic thought

• Reduced book cost
• Faster, easier production → more copies
• Books flooded the market → reached wider audiences

• Before print:
  • Only elites read
  • Common people lived in oral culture (listened to stories, ballads, sacred texts)
  • No individual silent reading
• After print:
  • Reading public emerged
  • People began reading alone and silently

• Low literacy rates in Europe (until 20th century)
• Most common people could not read

• Printed popular ballads and folk tales
• Added many illustrations
• These books were sung or recited aloud in:
  • Villages
  • Taverns
  • Public gatherings

• Oral culture entered print
• Printed material was shared orally
• Boundary blurred between hearing and reading
• Hearing public + reading public = intermingled

• Wide circulation of ideas
• New world of debate and discussion
• People could print ideas against authorities
• Printed message could persuade people and move them to action

• Feared easier access to printed word
• Worried about wider circulation of books
• Thought rebellious and irreligious thoughts might spread
• Believed authority of ‘valuable’ literature would be destroyed
• Religious authorities, monarchs, writers, and artists expressed this fear

• In 1517, Martin Luther wrote Ninety Five Theses
• Criticised practices and rituals of Roman Catholic Church
• Printed copy posted on church door in Wittenberg
• Challenged Church to debate his ideas

• Immediately reproduced in vast numbers
• Read widely
• Led to division within Church
• Marked beginning of Protestant Reformation
• His New Testament translation:
  • 5,000 copies sold in weeks
  • Second edition in three months

He called print “the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one”.

• Print created a new intellectual atmosphere
• Helped spread new ideas that led to the Reformation

• Print and popular religious literature led to distinctive individual interpretations of faith
• Even little-educated working people formed their own views

• A miller in Italy in the sixteenth century
• Read books available in his locality
• Reinterpreted the Bible
• Formulated a view of God and Creation that enraged the Roman Catholic Church

• Hauled up twice by the Roman Church inquisition
• Executed for heretical ideas

• Troubled by popular readings and questionings of faith
• Imposed severe controls over publishers and booksellers
• Began maintaining an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558

• Churches of different denominations set up schools in villages
• Brought literacy to peasants and artisans
• By late 18th century, literacy reached 60–80% in some areas

• As literacy and schools spread, people wanted books
• Printers produced books in ever-increasing numbers

• Almanacs (ritual calendars)
• Ballads and folktales
• Penny chapbooks in England – sold by chapmen for a penny
• “Bibliothèque Bleue” in France – low-priced, poor-quality paper, blue covers
• Romances (4–6 pages)
• ‘Histories’ – stories about the past
• Books of various sizes for different purposes and interests

• Booksellers employed pedlars
• Pedlars roamed villages selling little books

• Developed from early 18th century
• Combined current affairs with entertainment
• Newspapers and journals carried news on:
  • Wars
  • Trade
  • Developments in other places

• Ancient and medieval scientific texts compiled and published
• Maps and scientific diagrams widely printed
• Isaac Newton’s discoveries reached wider scientifically minded readers
• Writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau widely printed
• Their ideas on science, reason, and rationality entered popular literature

• Books were a means of spreading progress and enlightenment
• Could change the world
• Could liberate society from despotism and tyranny
• Would herald a time when reason and intellect would rule

• Called it “the most powerful engine of progress”
• Said “public opinion is the force that will sweep despotism away”

• Heroes transformed by reading
• They devour books, are lost in the world books create, and become enlightened

“Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world! Tremble before the virtual writer!”

He believed print could destroy the basis of despotism.

Many historians say print culture created the conditions for the Revolution.

• Print popularised Enlightenment ideas
• Thinkers criticised tradition, superstition, and despotism
• Argued for rule of reason, not custom
• Attacked Church authority and state despotism
• Voltaire and Rousseau widely read
• Readers saw the world with questioning, critical, rational eyes

• Print created a new culture of dialogue and debate
• Public re-evaluated values, norms, institutions
• People aware of reason, questioned existing beliefs
• New ideas of social revolution emerged

• In 1780s, literature mocked royalty and criticised their morality
• Raised questions about social order
• Cartoons and caricatures showed monarchy lost in sensual pleasures
• Common people shown suffering hardships
• This literature circulated underground
• Led to hostile sentiments against monarchy

• Print helped spread ideas, but people read many kinds of literature
• Also exposed to monarchical and Church propaganda
• Did not accept everything they read
• Accepted some ideas, rejected others
• Interpreted things their own way
• Print did not directly shape minds, but opened possibility of thinking differently

• Vast leaps in mass literacy
• Large numbers of new readers emerged among:
  • Children
  • Women
  • Workers

• Primary education became compulsory (late 19th century)
• School textbooks became critical for publishing industry
• Children’s press set up in France in 1857
  • Published new works, fairy tales, and folk tales

• Grimm Brothers (Germany) collected tales from peasants
• Published collection in 1812
• Edited before publishing:
  • Removed anything unsuitable for children
  • Removed anything vulgar to elites
• Rural folk tales acquired a new form
• Print recorded old tales but also changed them

• Became important as readers and writers
• Penny magazines and housekeeping manuals aimed at women
• Novels in 19th century targeted women as key readers
• Famous women novelists:
  • Jane Austen
  • Brontë sisters
  • George Eliot
• Their writings defined a new type of woman:
  • With will, strength, determination, and power to think

• Lending libraries existed since 17th century
• In 19th century, they educated:
  • White-collar workers
  • Artisans
  • Lower-middle-class people
• Self-educated workers wrote for themselves
• After working day shortened (mid-19th century), workers had time for:
  • Self-improvement
  • Self-expression
• Wrote political tracts and autobiographies in large numbers

• Rich and old tradition
• Written in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and vernacular languages
• Copied on palm leaves or handmade paper
• Sometimes beautifully illustrated
• Pressed between wooden covers or sewn together for preservation
• Produced till late nineteenth century – even after print arrived

• Highly expensive
• Fragile
• Had to be handled carefully
• Not easy to read – scripts in different styles
• Not part of everyday life

• Village primary schools existed
• But students often did not read texts
• Teachers dictated portions from memory
• Students wrote them down
• Many became literate without reading any texts

• Mid-16th century: Printing press arrived in Goa with Portuguese missionaries
• Jesuit priests learnt Konkani and printed tracts
• By 1674: About 50 books printed in Konkani and Kanara languages

• 1579: First Tamil book printed by Catholic priests at Cochin
• 1713: First Malayalam book printed by them
• By 1710: Dutch Protestant missionaries printed 32 Tamil texts, many translations of older works

• English East India Company imported presses from late 17th century, but English press did not grow till late
• From 1780: James Augustus Hickey edited the Bengal Gazette
  • A weekly magazine
  • Called itself “a commercial paper open to all, but influenced by none”
  • Marked start of private English enterprise in printing
  • Proud of independence from colonial influence

• Advertisements, including on import and sale of slaves
• Gossip about Company’s senior officials
• Enraged Governor-General Warren Hastings
• Hastings persecuted Hickey and promoted officially sanctioned newspapers to counter damaging information

• Many newspapers and journals appeared in print
• Indians also began publishing newspapers
• First Indian newspaper: Weekly Bengal Gazette by Gangadhar Bhattacharya
  • He was close to Rammohun Roy

• Intense debates on religious issues
• Groups offered new interpretations of religious beliefs
• Some criticised practices and campaigned for reform
• Others opposed reformers
• Debates happened in public and in print

• Printed tracts and newspapers spread new ideas
• Shaped the nature of debate
• Wider public could participate and express views
• New ideas emerged from clashes of opinions

• Widow immolation
• Monotheism
• Brahmanical priesthood
• Idolatry
• In Bengal, tracts and newspapers proliferated
• Ideas printed in everyday spoken language to reach wider audience

• Rammohun Roy: published Sambad Kaumudi (from 1821)
• Hindu orthodoxy: commissioned Samachar Chandrika to oppose him
• 1822:
  • Persian newspapers: Jam-i-Jahan Nama, Shamsul Akhbar
  • Gujarati newspaper: Bombay Samachar

• Ulama feared collapse of Muslim dynasties
• Worried colonial rulers would:
  • Encourage conversion
  • Change Muslim personal laws
• Used cheap lithographic presses to:
  • Print Persian and Urdu translations of holy scriptures
  • Publish religious newspapers and tracts

• Founded in 1867
• Published thousands of fatwas
  • Guided Muslims on everyday conduct
  • Explained Islamic doctrines
• Many Muslim sects and seminaries emerged
  • Each with different interpretation of faith
  • Each tried to enlarge following and counter opponents
• Urdu print helped conduct these public battles

• Encouraged reading of religious texts in vernaculars
• 1810: First printed edition of Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas (Calcutta)
• Mid-19th century: Cheap lithographic editions flooded north India
• From 1880s:
  • Naval Kishore Press (Lucknow)
  • Shri Venkateshwar Press (Bombay)
  • Published numerous religious texts in vernaculars

• Printed and portable → read anywhere, anytime
• Could be read out to large groups of illiterate men and women

• Religious texts reached wide circles
• Encouraged discussions, debates, controversies within and among religions
• Print stimulated conflicting opinions
• Also connected communities across India
• Newspapers carried news across regions → helped create pan-Indian identities

• People wanted to see their own lives, experiences, emotions, and relationships in print
• The novel (from Europe) met this need
• Soon acquired distinctively Indian forms and styles
• Opened new worlds of experience
• Showed diversity of human lives

• Lyrics
• Short stories
• Essays on social and political matters
• All emphasized human lives, intimate feelings, and how social and political rules shaped them

• More printing presses → visual images reproduced in multiple copies
• Raja Ravi Varma made images for mass circulation
• Poor wood engravers set up shops near letterpresses
• Worked for print shops

• Cheap prints and calendars sold in bazaars
• Even poor people could buy them
• Used to decorate walls of homes and workplaces
• Shaped popular ideas about:
  • Modernity and tradition
  • Religion and politics
  • Society and culture

• Published in journals and newspapers from the 1870s
• Commented on social and political issues
• Some ridiculed educated Indians’ Western tastes and clothes
• Others showed fear of social change
• Imperial caricatures mocked nationalists
• Nationalist cartoons criticised imperial rule

• Lives and feelings of women written in vivid and intense ways
• Women’s reading increased in middle-class homes

• Liberal husbands and fathers educated women at home
• Sent them to women’s schools (set up in cities/towns after mid-19th century)
• Journals carried:
  • Writings by women
  • Arguments why women should be educated
  • Syllabus and reading material for home schooling

• Conservative Hindus: believed a literate girl would be widowed
• Muslims: feared educated women would be corrupted by Urdu romances

• A girl in a conservative Muslim family (north India):
  • Secretly learnt Urdu
  • Wanted to read in her own language, not just Arabic Quran (which she didn’t understand)
• Rashsundari Debi (East Bengal, early 19th century):
  • Learnt to read in secrecy in her kitchen
  • Wrote Amar Jiban (1876) – first full-length Bengali autobiography

• From 1860s: Kailashbashini Debi (Bengal) wrote on:
  • Women imprisoned at home
  • Kept in ignorance
  • Forced into hard domestic labour
  • Treated unjustly by family
• 1880s: Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai (Maharashtra):
  • Wrote with passionate anger on miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu women, especially widows

“For various reasons, my world is small … More than half my life’s happiness has come from books …”

• Hindi printing began seriously only from 1870s
• Large part devoted to education of women
• Early 20th century:
  • Journals for and by women became extremely popular
  • Topics: women’s education, widowhood, widow remarriage, national movement
  • Also offered household tips, fashion lessons, short stories, serialised novels

• Early 20th century: folk literature widely printed
• Ram Chaddha: published Istri Dharm Vichar – taught women to be obedient wives
• Khalsa Tract Society: published cheap booklets with similar messages
• Many in form of dialogues on qualities of a good woman

• Area in central Calcutta devoted to popular book printing
• Sold cheap editions of:
  • Religious tracts and scriptures
  • Obscene and scandalous literature
• By late 19th century: books profusely illustrated with woodcuts and coloured lithographs
• Pedlars took books to homes → women read in leisure time

• Very cheap small books sold at crossroads in towns
• Bought by poor people travelling to markets

• Set up from early 20th century
• Expanded access to books
• Located in cities, towns, and sometimes prosperous villages
• Rich patrons set up libraries to gain prestige

• From late 19th century, printed tracts and essays wrote about caste injustice
• Jyotiba Phule: wrote Gulamgiri (1871) on injustices of caste system
• 20th century:
  • B.R. Ambedkar (Maharashtra)
  • E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker (Periyar) (Madras)
  • Both wrote powerfully on caste
  • Read by people all over India

• Local protest movements and sects created:
  • Popular journals
  • Tracts
• These criticised ancient scriptures and envisioned a new and just future

• Most were overworked and lacked education → wrote little
• Kashibaba (Kanpur millworker):
  • Wrote Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal (1938)
  • Showed links between caste and class exploitation
• Sudarshan Chakr (pen name of another Kanpur worker):
  • Wrote poems (1935–1955)
  • Published as Sacchi Kavitayan

• By 1930s, Bangalore cotton millworkers set up libraries
• Followed example of Bombay workers
• Libraries sponsored by social reformers to:
  • Restrict excessive drinking
  • Promote literacy
  • Sometimes spread nationalism

• Not too concerned with censorship
• Early measures targeted Englishmen in India
  • Who criticised Company misrule
  • Who hated actions of Company officers
• Company feared such criticism would help critics in England attack its trade monopoly

• Calcutta Supreme Court passed regulations to control press freedom
• Company began encouraging newspapers that celebrated British rule

• Editors of English and vernacular newspapers sent urgent petitions
• Governor-General Bentinck agreed to revise press laws
• Thomas Macaulay (liberal official) made new rules
• Earlier freedoms restored

• Attitude to press freedom changed
• Enraged Englishmen demanded clamp down on ‘native’ press
• Vernacular newspapers became assertively nationalist
• Colonial government debated stringent control measures

• Modelled on Irish Press Laws
• Gave government extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in vernacular press
• Government tracked vernacular newspapers in all provinces
• If report judged seditious:
  • Newspaper warned
  • If ignored: press seized, machinery confiscated

• Nationalist newspapers grew despite repression
• Reported on colonial misrule
• Encouraged nationalist activities
• Attempts to throttle criticism → militant protests
• Led to cycle of persecution and protests

• In 1907, wrote with sympathy about deported Punjab revolutionaries in Kesari
• Imprisoned in 1908
• Caused widespread protests all over India