A History
Human beings have been writing for possibly 5,500 years, starting with Sumerian cuneform writing and Egyptian heiroglphs.
Illuminated Manuscripts
The first books produced in UK and Europe were called manuscripts because they were written by hand. Yes, handwriting!
It took ages and ages to copy out book. As a result, only really important books, like the Bible, were ever copied. Monks would spend their days carefully copying out every word onto vellum.
They wanted to show their religious devotion by making these copies beautiful. They illustrated the pages and made the text highly decorative.
These wonderfully elaborate Bibles are known as Illuminated Manuscripts.
Printing
We’ve only been printing books for about 600 years. Johannes Gutenburg invented the printing press in Germany in about 1450.
Printing meant that poster, pamphlets and books could be mass produced. It was a revolution.
Printing Newspapers Today