Pop-up
and Movable Books
In the Context of
History
by
Ellen G.K. Rubin
(from
the catalog of Ideas in Motion exhibit
@ SUNY-New Paltz, NY April, 2005)
(see
also A Timeline History
of Movable Books )
The Chinese proverb, “I
hear and I forget; I see and I remember;
I do and I understand.” may
well have served as the guiding principal for
the inclusion of movable paper in books and
ephemera. The use of wheels,
flaps, turn-ups, pull-tabs, and pop-ups grabs the reader’s
attention and ensures active participation.
Whether intended for teaching, entertainment,
or aesthetic sensibility, the use of movable
paper devices demands the reader interact with
the book’s content and makes the experience
more memorable.
 Books
with mechanical elements date back to the 13th
century and were originally created
as teaching tools for adults. Matthew Paris,
a English Benedictine monk, devised what is
believed to be the first movable paper device,
a volvelle, for his Chronica Majorca (1236-1253)
to calculate the dates of Christian holidays
for years to come. From the Medieval Latin
verb, volvere, to turn, volvelles
are overlaid printed circles of paper or parchment,
rotating
around a knotted linen string or rivet. They
were used for religious calendars, for mathematical,
scientific, and astronomical calculations,
and as navigational aids. By turning the circles
one over the other and lining up various information,
data can be collated and new facts extracted.
[Image:Reproduction
of volvelle from Paris' Chronica
Majorca from
A Celebration of Pop-up and Movable Books:Commemorating
the 10th Anniversary of The Movable Book Society-2004; photo
courtesy of Robert Sabuda]
The invention of movable type by Johannes Gutenberg
in 1450 allowed for the inexpensive printing
of books and the wider proliferation of knowledge.
In 1543, Andreas Vesalius published his landmark
book, De corporis humani fabrica libri
septem.
Vesalius used innovative paper devices called flaps or fugitive
sheets. The book was printed
with woodcut illustrations of muscles, bones,
and viscera arranged in layers. As each illustrated
flap was lifted, the layer beneath it was revealed.
Thus, the body’s internal organization
became apparent. (Pages with flaps were often
not bound
into the books and were subsequently lost,
hence, fugitive.) For the first time, interested
readers, including surgeons, barbers, medical
students, and lay people, could have the hands-on
experience of investigating the human body.
[From Catoptrum
microcosmicum by
Johann Remmelin (1583-1632); photo courtesy
of Carol Barton]
Before the 1800s in Western Europe, books
were not written specifically
for children’s
enjoyment. Children were considered “amoral
savages” needing to be taught right from
wrong. The earliest illustrated books were
moral tales of children meeting grisly fates
for misbehavior. These attitudes toward childhood
began to change in the 18th century as children
came to be seen as “rational beings” with
distinctive needs. It became acceptable
for learning to be a pleasurable experience,
with
illustrations supporting the text,
and for books to be read merely for
the fun
of it.
 In 1765, the publisher Robert Sayer produced
the first of a series of movable books expressly
for children. These simple pamphlet-like
books had split-page illustrations.
When a part of
the illustration was lifted either up or
down, a new illustration was formed,
advancing the
story line. The “pamphlets” were
referred to as “turn-up” or “metamorphosis” books
or “Harlequinades,” after the Harlequin
character featured in the stories.
[Image: Queen Mab or The Tricks of Harlequin,
#6, Robert Sayer, 1771]
Much was happening in England at this time
to foster the proliferation of reading among
children. The Industrial Revolution was getting
into full swing, creating both middle-and leisure
classes with money to spend on luxuries, like
movable books. The Sunday School Movement of
1780, the First Public Libraries Act of 1850,
and the Education Act of 1870, which established
compulsory education in England, helped to
create a literate populace. The success of
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) and
Swift's
Gulliver's Travels (1726) and later
stories by the Grimm brothers (1823) and the
English translation of Hans Christian Andersen
in 1846 began a wave of children's literature
that continued into the early 20th century.
The consequence of all this was that English
publishers began targeting the juvenile
market. S & J Fuller printed The History of
Little Fanny in 1810, the first paper-doll
book with movable paper clothes. Dean & Sons,
credited with being the first to devise three-dimensional
illustrations in the 1850s, began printing
almost 50 different titles with other varied
and inventive movable elements, such as “peepshows,” transformations,
and metamorphoses. Other publishers, especially
Darton & Son, Ernest Nister of Nuremberg,
Germany, and Raphael Tuck & Sons, also
began producing illustrated and movable
books.
[Image:The
History of Little Fanny,
S & J Fuller-1810 with
free-standing figures, costumes & removable
head].
Books for children, no longer puritanical and
didactic, were widely translated into many
languages. Germany became the center of printing,
toy making, and hand-assembly. McLoughlin Brothers
and E. P. Dutton in the United States began
producing movable books of their own. Trade
and friendship cards and postcards were also
being printed using interactive devices. The
increased production of illustrated reading
material with animated elements was facilitated
by the use of chromolithography, cheaper paper,
and an organized labor force necessary for
hand-assembly.
At the end of the 19th century, movable books
were being printed in greater quantities than
ever before. In this Victorian world without
radio, television, or PlayStation, these unique books were a form of entertainment enjoyed
by the whole family together. This distinctive
time in publishing is often referred to as
the Golden Age of Movable Books.
 The paper engineer considered the “Genius” of
this Golden Age was Lothar Meggendorfer (1847-1925)
of Munich, Germany. Prolific, humorous, and
inventive, his pull-tab books were the delight
of adults and children around the world. Refining
the use of rivets, he was able, with the pull
of a single tab, to create multiple life-like
movements. Meggendorfer also produced pop-up “theaters” of
a circus, dollhouse, and city park. His satiric
presentation of life’s little moments
stood in stark contrast to the saccharine
depiction of Victorian boys and girls seen
in the Ernest
Nister illustrations.
[Image:
3 of 6 pull-down, pop-up panels from Meggendorfer's International
Circus-1887]
(see animated
Meggendorfer movables)
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