TO OUR BELOVED SONS AND DAUGHTERS
OUR EARNEST CARE AND CROWN OF JOY


AN APPRECIATION

I have examined the manuscript of your book with care. The conception seems to me to be admirable, and new in form of presentation. There is a great deal of valuable material for which one would search a long time and then not find it in the orderly and compact form which you have given it. It seems to me that Sunday school teachers would welcome it especially, and leaders of teacher-training classes would desire to use it as an auxiliary text book. I trust it will be widely read.

ERNEST BOURNER ALLEN
The Washington Street Congregational Church.

Toledo, 1917


[CONTENTS]

CHAPTER PAGE
IThe Epochal Invention of Printing[11]
IIThe Importance of the Printing Press[16]
IIIThe Period of Manuscript Literature[19]
IVThe Amplitude of the Bible in Manuscript[33]
VThe Human Element in Literature[40]
VIMaterials Embodying Literature[46]
VIIVarieties and Chances in the Materials of Books[55]
VIIIParchment and Vellum[59]
IXPapyrus[66]
XPaper and Its Manufacture[72]
XIOther Materials of Literature[78]
XIIInks[83]
XIIIImplements of Writing[87]
XIVThe Art and Science of Palæography[89]
1 The Hieroglyphic Writing[92]
2 The Cuneiform Writing[99]
3 The Alphabetic Writing[104]
4 The Classic Writing[112]
5 The Two Great Stages of Classic Writing[113]
6 The Anglo-Saxon Writing[115]
7 Palæography and the Date of Literary Productions[117]
XVMechanical and Artificial Devices of Literature[120]
XVISources of the Book-making Industry[127]
XVIIThe Literary Preëminence of Alexandria[133]
XVIIIVarying Fortunes of the Alexandrian Library[143]
XIXConstantinople the Later Center of Literature[146]
XXMonasteries and the Monastic Institution[154]
Index[172]