Movable-type printing Imprints First edition Commentary

Bi Sheng manufacturing

Movable-type printing

• During the Northern Song dynasty
• the commoner Bi Sheng
• cut characters into porcelain clay and fired them.
• He arranged these in an iron frame and pressed them
• into a thick paste of pine resin, wax, and paper ashes,
• creating the first movable-type printing method.

Imprints

• 1313, Nong Shu, or “Book of Agriculture”
• printed with wooden movable type, by Wang Zhen.
• 1377, Jikji, an anthology of zen teachings
• printed with metal movable type, in Korea.
• 1455, Biblia Sacra, the Gutenberg Bible
• printed with metal movable type by Johannes Gutenberg.
• 1574, Taiping Yulan, an encyclopedia
• of a thousand volumes, reprinted with bronze movable type.
• 1598, Confucian Analects printed in Japan
• using metal moveable type by order of Emperor Go-Yōzei.

First edition

• I have in my possession
• certain first editions
• neither too old nor too rare.
• Of these there are few
• that I value more
• than I could sell them for.
• I know whose love
• once held them dear
• and why they are mine.
• What remains of a life
• as memories fade
• and loved ones die?
• Something about them—
• a familiarity, a smell,
• a reassurance.