Review
Very specialized market for this exhaustive treatise on the subject of papermaking, a book made up of selection of material from ten books published over a period of 35 years, most of them out of print, and all important to some phase or other of the industry, or to bibliophiles or collectors. The historical background is sketched from the earliest known days of papermaking in China, 1000 years before it was know to the Occidental world. The intricate technicalities of moulds (wove, laid, d??kle are terms that survive today)?? of sizes (there are over 240); of uses of paper in the Orient, the ceremonial as well as the practical uses in Europe and America. He covers all phases of watermarks, the progress in paper-making materials, from linen and cotton to wood and vegetable fibres. And he brings up paper-making machinery to the present, though the bulk of the text deals with handmade papers. (Kirkus Reviews)