Publisher's Synopsis
THE invention of printing at about the middle of the fifteenth century marks an epoch in the world's literature and in the history of the human race. Previous to this invention were spread out the events, the scenes, and the achievements of ancient and medieval times; after it came the marvelous unfoldings of the modern age. The introduction of typography or the art of printing by means of movable types set in operation an instrumentality which, for multiplying the effectiveness of all literary productions, is far beyond all adequate conception;-and this all apart from the time of its origin and the person of its originator. Printing as an invention and an art-for it is both-has been ascribed to the Chinese, and is said to have been known from, or from before, the dawn of the Christian Era. Mr. George H.12 Putnam states it as a fact that "Printing from solid blocks was done in China as early as the first century A. D.," and credits the art of printing from movable types to a blacksmith who turned out books in China toward the close of the tenth century, A. D., or early in the eleventh. And a writer in the Encylopedia Britannica (Eleventh Edition) asserts that printed books were common in China in the tenth century, and that examples of xylographic or block printing in Japan date from the period of 754 to 770 A. D.
