The Book-Makers - by Adam Smyth (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

An Economist Book of the Year

A five-hundred-year history of printed books, told through the people who created them.

"Almost every page--almost every paragraph--fizzes with facts, allusions, speculations, tidbits of etymology and gems of historical interest." --Wall Street Journal

Books have transformed humankind, yet we know little about the individuals who brought these fascinating objects into existence. Who were these renegade book-makers who changed the course of history through their experiments in the arts of printing, paper making, type designing, binding, advertising, and selling?

The Book-Makers offers a new way to understand the story of Western culture's most important object through a series of dynamic portraits of eighteen men and women who helped to define the book. From Wynkyn de Worde's cheap bestsellers produced in fifteenth-century London, to Nancy Cunard's avant-garde pamphlets made on her small press in Normandy; from Benjamin Franklin's inky entrepreneurialism, to the radical culture of contemporary zines, this is a celebration of the book with the people put back in.

Review Quotes

"Smyth has fun with his material, and as a result, so do readers." --Christianity Today

"The stories behind books are page-turning in their own right."--Economist

"The Book-Makers is a passionate paean to the book, in all its different forms, as an object."--Literary Review

"The Book-Makers stands as a monument to presses past: a delightful survey of bookish achievements from the fifteenth century to the present, attentive to the printerly peculiarities of each age."--New Criterion

"[A] lively account."--Washington Examiner

"A fabulous and insightful guide for all bibliophiles."--Library Journal

"Agile storytelling and chatty erudition evoke not just the physicality of the book but also its innate humanity."--Observer (UK)

"Agile storytelling and chatty erudition together evoke not just the physicality of the book - its beauty, its complexity - but also its innate humanity."--Guardian (UK)

"Almost every page--almost every paragraph--fizzes with facts, allusions, speculations, tidbits of etymology and gems of historical interest."--Wall Street Journal

"Amazing. From typeface to papermaking to a whole new-to-me democratic world of book interaction like commonplacing and zines, this book is a soul-expanding celebration of the human spirit."--Martin Latham, author of The Bookseller's Tale

"Bibliophiles will savor this sprightly walk down the book's memory lane."--Kirkus

"Brilliant."--South China Morning Post

"By focusing on personalities over objects, Smyth infuses his history of books and printing with engaging human portraits. His use of present tense propels his prose, making books old and new gloriously, vibrantly alive for all readers, not just booksellers and librarians."--Booklist

"Emphasising the human aspect in all its chaotic truth, The Book-Makers is far from your standard Gutenberg-to-Google history of the book... [Smyth] is almost uniquely well-qualified to convey what his 18 makers felt under their fingertips, and why it mattered to them so much. It is, in the truest sense, an enthusiast's book; one that deserves to find enthusiasts of its own"--Daily Telegraph (UK)

"Erudite, insightful and hugely enjoyable, The Book-Makers features an eclectic cast of oddballs, eccentrics and visionaries who have shaped the printed book. A fabulous, first-class read."--Giles Milton, author of Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

"Evocative and fascinating... We tend to think about books from the point of view of readers: Smyth has written a new, personal history recovering and respecting those who got their hands dirty."--Emma Smith, author of This Is Shakespeare

"Explores in compelling fashion the lives of these fascinating individuals and their roles in making the most powerful objects in human history - books."--Richard Ovenden, author of Burning The Books

"Fascinating... Should teach even serious book-nerds a heap of forgotten and precious information about the making of books ... As full of surprises as any novel."--David Bellos, author of The Novel of the Century

"Fierce scholarship and fascinating print nerdery come together here as he illuminates brilliantly a cast of printers, binders, artists, papermakers and library founders. There is a wonderful immediacy to Adam Smyth's narrative."--Country Life (UK)

"Fun and informative... The Book-Makers gives you a lively sense of the way in which books have been made and unmade, crafted, handled and spliced down the centuries."--Prospect Magazine

"I cannot recommend it highly enough."--Spectator (UK)

"If there is an overlooked role worth noting in The Book-Makers, it is that of the polymath scholar-artist who can bring expert and nonexpert readers together around a shared enthusiasm for the making of books through his own keen reading of details, clear and witty style, and staggering erudition about books of all kinds and eras. The nineteenth life, the one that brings all the others together, is surely Smyth's own."--Modern Philology

"In a world where digital text shouts louder than ever it is refreshing to be reminded of the imagination and ingenuity of generations of men and women, many of them ignored by regular histories, who helped expand the potential of the printed book as form and object. Their stories reside in the physical volumes they made. Through meticulous study of the material qualities of those volumes Smyth breathes both books-as-objects and their creators back into life."--Financial Times

"Lively and enlightening... a must for book lovers."--Library Journal (Starred)

"Smyth paints a vivid narrative that celebrates the book not just as a cultural artifact but as a crucial part of human creativity and communication."--Indulge Magazine

"Smyth's voice manages to reconcile the vividness of self-contained biographies with the flow of a single story."--Critical Inquiry

"The skill of a bibliographer like Smyth is to be able to read those ghostly prints and add a whole second story to the words on the page... It is, in the truest sense, an enthusiast's book; one that deserves to find enthusiasts of its own."--Telegraph (UK)

"This is a book that bibliography needs. It unostentatiously deploys an impressive range of scholarship to serve the interests of both a general and scholarly audience."--Book Collector

"This really is the loveliest of books and you will never take for granted reading a physical copy again."--iNews (UK)

"Vivid and often-surprising ... The charm of The Book-Makers comes from its interest in wear and tear, blunders and errata, the spontaneous and the scrappy, the residual and the recycled - and in edges, of pages and bindings, society and taste"--Times Literary Supplement

An Economist and Engelsberg Ideas Best Book of 2024
A Library Journal Best Nonfiction Book of 2024

About the Author

Adam Smyth is professor of English literature and the history of the book at Balliol College, University of Oxford. He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement and runs the 39 Steps Press, a small printing press that he keeps in a barn. Smyth lives in Oxford, England.