PaperGlory - About Movable Books

What Are Miniature Books?
Miniature books have delighted readers and have been popular for centuries because they can be easily carried or concealed. In the United States, a miniature book is usually considered to be one which is no more than three inches in size--height, width or thickness; some are smaller than a penny. However, some miniature book collectors occasionally acquire slightly larger books. Outside of the United States, books up to four inches are collected as miniature books.
The content of miniature books range from tiny "thumb bibles", encyclopedias, music and stories to famous speeches. Often, famous book titles and popular book categories become miniaturized. Examples include the Compleat Angler (c. 1825), Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes Series and illustrated nursery rhymes have been put in miniature size books. Many are bound in fine Moroccan leather, gilt in gold and contain excellent examples of woodcuts, etchings, clay tablets and watermarks. The earliest piece of block printing of a miniature book, is a Japanese wooden block print dating from about 770 AD. Today, this miniature scroll is a part of the Lilly Library's collections.
History of Moveable Books
Pop-up and movable books are not ordinary books. For more than 700 years artists, philosophers, scientists and book designers have added flaps, revolving parts and other movable pieces to enhance the text of books. It is not known who invented the first mechanical device in a book, but one of the earliest examples was produced in the 13th century by Catalan mystic and poet Ramon Llull http://www-mat.upc.es/grup_de_grafs/logo/llull_bio.htm of Majorca. He used volvelles (revolving discs) [Glossary] to illustrate his theories. Throughout the centuries volvelles have been used for such diverse purposes as teaching anatomy, making astronomical predictions, creating secret code and telling fortunes. While it can be documented that movable parts had been used for centuries, up to this point movable parts in books were almost always used solely in scholarly works.
In the 18th century moveable techniques were applied to books designed for entertainment, particularly for children. F. J. Harvey Darton, [Glossary] an English authority on children’s books, states that before 1770 there were virtually no books “produced ostensibly to give children spontaneous pleasure, and not primarily to teach them, not solely to make them good, nor to keep them profitably quiet.” London book publisher Robert Sayer http://www.popuplady.com/mov-history.htm changed that with the production of metamorphoses books. These books, which were also called turn-up books http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/child/popup.htm or harlequinades http://www.euronet.nl/users/aheino/public_html/harlequinades.htm , gave amusement. This was due not so much through their printed contents, but through their illustrations that changed and kept pace with the story.

Other forms of moveable books in the 1800’s were the Paper Doll Books, the toilet book [glossary] http://www.library.unt.edu/rarebooks/exhibits/popup2/introduction.htm and an early example of lift-the-flap book [glossary] and peep show http://www.euronet.nl/users/aheino/public_html/panorama.htm books. The first true movable books published in any large quantity were those produced by Dean & Son, a publishing firm founded in London. By the 1860’s this company claimed to be the “originator of childrens’” movable books in which characters can be made to move and act in advance with the incidents described in each story.” From the 1860’s to 1900, Dean & Son produced about fifty titles of movable children’s books.

There were several other English publishers of movable books, but it was Raphael Tuck who became the first publisher to seriously challenge Dean & Son. In 1870 Tuck and his sons founded a publishing business in London that produced luxury paper items including scrapbook pictures, valentines, puzzles, paper dolls and decorated papers. In the genre of movable books, Tuck published “Father Tuck’s Mechanical Series.” The series included stand-up items with three dimensional effects as well as movable books. To produce these books, Tuck formed editorial and design studios in London. All of the printing, however, was done in Germany.

Another 19th century publisher who specialized in movable books was Ernest Nister http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/popup/nister.html . His printing business, begun in 1877, was capable of producing works by all of the major presses of the time. However despite his wide range of publishing endeavors, he is best known for his movable books that were published form 1890. Nister’s works were similar to those produced by his contemporaries but within a three-dimensional peepshow framework. The figures were connected by paper guides so that as the pages were turned, the figures lifted away from the page within a perspective like setting. Nister also produced movable books with dissolving and revolving transformational slats.

The distribution of Nister titles was not limited entirely to European markets. The New York firm of E.P. Dutton worked in conjunction with Ernest Nister to promote and sell the publisher’s titles in the United States.
The most original movable picture books of the 19th century were devised by Lothar Meggendorfer[glossary] http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/popup/meggen.html. Meggendorfer was not satisfied with only one action on each page. He often had five parts of the illustration move simultaneously and in different directions. Meggendorfer devised intricate levers hidden between pages that gave his characters enormous possibilities for movement. He used rivets made of tight curls of thin copper wire to attach the levers so that a single pull-tab could activate all of characters. Often each layer had several delayed actions as the tab was pulled further out. Some illustrations used more than a dozen rivets.
McLoughlin Brothers http://www.library.unt.edu/rarebooks/exhibits/popup2/mcLouglin.htm of New York produced the first American movable books. Innovators of printing techniques, McLoughlin issued two separate "Little Showman's Series" in the 1880's, each containing three-dimensional scenes. These large, colorful plates unfolded into multi-layered displays.
Few movable books were produced at the turn of World War I. Due to the labor-intensive nature of movable books, after 1914 the labor force in the German printing works was required for less frivolous tasks.
However, in 1929 a new series of movable books was initiated. British book publisher S. Louis Giraud conceived, designed, and produced books with movable illustrations described as "living models." While the term had yet to be used, these were authentic "pop-up" books. Each title contained at least five, double-page spreads that erected automatically when the book was opened and had illustrations that could be viewed from all four sides.
Unlike his German precursors, Giraud's books were moderately priced. They were produced on coarse, absorbent paper, employing crude photo litho printing and color reproduction techniques, and were finished with inexpensive covers and bindings. Between 1929 and 1949 Giraud produced a series of 16 annuals, first for the Daily Express and later as an independent publisher using the trade names "Strand Publications" and "Bookano Stories." Each annual included stories, verses, and illustrations as well as five or more pop-ups. Giraud's books reached a wide audience and were very popular.
As the Depression years deepened, American book publishers sought ways to rekindle book buying. In the 1930's Blue Ribbon Publishing of New York hit upon a combination that proved successful. They animated Walt Disney characters and traditional fairy tales with pop-ups. Blue Ribbon was the first publisher to use the term "pop-up" to describe their movable illustrations. While the mechanics were elaborate, the strength and quality of the paper was poor (by modern standards) and so few of the books of this period have survived the roughness of childish appreciation.
McLoughlin Brothers reentered the movable book market in 1939 with the publication of their first Jolly Jump-up title. A new group of artists and publishers entered the movable book market in the 1940's. The commercially successful Jolly Jump-up series included ten titles illustrated by Geraldine Clyne http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/popup/jolly.html . The exciting Adventures of Finnie the Fiddler was the inaugural book of a series of titles featuring the animation by Julian Wehr http://www.library.unt.edu/rarebooks/exhibits/popup2/wehr.htm . Wehr's illustrations were printed on lightweight paper and had tab-operated mechanicals. By moving the tab, which extended through the side or lower edge of the illustrated page, the various parts of the animation were put in motion. The action was transmitted to as many as five different parts of the picture.
Beginning in the late 1950s a series of remarkably innovative pop-up books was produced by Artia in Prague, Czechoslovakia, a state-run import/export agency. Voitech Kubasta http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/popup/kubasta.html was their preeminent artist and the creator of dozens of pop-up books. Bancroft & Co. (Publishers) of London marketed the Czechoslovakian titles.
The second World War presented another interruption to the development of the pop-up and apart from paper engineered greeting cards and relatively simple pop-up books, where the pictures 'pushed-up' without the need for glue-tabs, there was relatively little interest in movable books. In the mid-1960s American Waldo Hunt http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/popup/contemp.html , President of Graphics International, a Los Angeles-based print brokerage company, was creating dimensional pop-up magazine inserts and premiums. Inspired by the Czechoslovakian works, he decided to produce his own pop-up books. This decision led to the renaissance of pop-up books as we now know them. Graphics International moved to New York in 1964 and with the publication of Bennett Cerf's Pop-Up Riddles in 1965, Hunt began producing books for Random House.
Hallmark Cards purchased Graphics International at the end of the decade and the staff moved to Kansas City, Missouri. With more than forty successful titles produced for Hallmark, Hunt left in 1974 to return to California where he began a book packaging company, Intervisual Communications, Inc. By using some of the best paper engineers in the world, such as Tor Lokvig, his company started to raise the caliber and quality of pop-up books. The beginning of the 'New Wave' of pop-up books that we still relish today, began with the revolutionary 'Haunted House' by Jan Pienkowski. Pienkowski stubbornly cajoled the paper engineer Tor Lokvig and Wally Hunt into publishing a pop-up book that contained not just one but several mechanisms on each page. Readers were enraptured by the book and it was a runaway success. A market existed that no one had realized before.
Soon afterwards, the British designer David Pelham had an idea inspired by the elaborately illustrated Victorian medical books with their colored engravings and flaps using the same principle as the very first medieval flap books. With the help of one of the greatest British paper engineers, Vic Duppa-White, they created 'The Human Body', an elaborate pop-up book designed to use 'animated' diagrams to communicate the way certain human organs functioned.
Meanwhile Ron van der Meer http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=413 , a Dutchman who had graduated from the Royal College of Art in London, was becoming well respected as an illustrator of children's books and a designer of educational toys. He realized that the strength of modern papers and glues meant that it would be possible to make an elaborate yet rugged pop-up book for children. Ron approached Wally Hunt with the idea for his first pop-up book MonsterIsland. The novel feature of this book was that the child reader was taken on a 3-D journey. Rather than the pop-ups merely being passive illustrations, the reader had to interact with the mechanisms in the book to develop the story – an ideal opportunity for parent and child to experience the adventure together. With the techniques and market established for the modern pop-up, Ron persuaded Wally to publish his next idea, Sailing Ships (1984), a truly sophisticated pop-up book aimed at the adult reader. The awe inspiring pop-ups of this book made it a prize winning classic which is regularly reprinted.
Today, there are a large number of pop-up books has grown tremendously. In England, alone, between 200 and 300 new pop-up books are produced each year.
Publication of Movable Books
The publication of pop-up books is a major production involving the skills of a number of individuals. The creation of the book begins with a concept, story line and situation. Once the basics are worked out, the project goes to the "paper engineer" who takes the ideas of the author and the illustrator and puts motion into the characters, and action into the scenes. They may even add sound, as in a book where the opening and closing of the pages cause the teeth of a saw to run across a log.
The paper engineer's task is to be both imaginative and practical. The designer must determine how movable pieces attach to the page so they won't break, which points need glue and how much, how long pull tabs should be and how high a piece can pop up. The final step for the paper engineer is to lay out or "nest" all the pages and pieces so they fit onto the size sheet that will be run through the printing press.
All contemporary pop-up books are assembled by hand mostly in Colombia, Mexico, or Singapore. After printing, the nesting pieces of a book are die-cut from the sheets and collated with their pages. Production lines are set up, with as many as 60 people involved in the handwork needed to complete one book. These people fold, insert paper tabs into slits, connect paper pivots, glue and tape. Alignment of tip-on pieces with the printed page must be exact and angles must be precise. The most complex books can require over 100 individual handwork procedures.
The movable books of the last two decades have become increasingly complex with sophisticated pop-up illustrations and intricate mechanical devices. The addition of lights and music in some titles has contributed to the surprise of mechanical illustrations.
Portions of this article came from Ann Montanaro’s, A Concise History of Pop-Ups and Movable Books http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/libs/scua/montanar/p-intro.htm
Glossary for Moveable Books

Kinds of Movable Books and Their Mechanisms
Carousel – A carousel pop-up book is a book where, when opened up fully, the front cover folds back against the back and thus resembles a carousel or merry-go-round. The book is often tied open with the aid of a ribbon. Each page opens up forming a pie-shaped scene as shown in the illustration below. Carousel books first appeared in the late 1930's, but became more popular after the Second World War. Although carousel pop-ups are still not very common, they are visually effective and quite simple to make.
Die-Cut – The process of cutting paper in a shape or design using a block (die) which holds hand-pounded steel in the shape of the design pattern.

Lift-The Flap (toilet) - A single piece of paper attached to the base page at a single point which covers an illustration, text, or movable object. In the1820s, miniature portrait painter William Grimaldi developed another type of "lift-the-flap" book referred to as a toilet book. He initially devised the idea by sketching articles from his daughter's dressing table as representations of specific virtues. The articles served as flaps, which, when lifted up, revealed scenes illustrating each virtue. Grimaldi's son Stacy published the first book in 1821. Entitled The Toilet, it enjoyed great popularity and inspired other publishers release imitations.

Metamorphosis (Transformation, Harlequinade or Turn-Up) – These illustrations are composed of single, printed sheets folded perpendicularly into four. Hinged at the tops and bottom of each fold, pictures are cut through horizontally across the center to make two flaps that can be opened up or down. When raised, the pages disclose hidden pictures underneath.

Paper Engineer – An artist who makes paper illustrations move by various techniques, e.g. cutting, folding or gluing.

Pop-Up – An illustration which rises above the level of the page when activated by either the opening of a page or lifting of a flap. One variations is the fanfolded pop-up, which is an accordion style book with slits and folds made on the printed page. When the page is opened, the pop-up will rise above the level of the page. In addition there is the double page pop-up. This is a three dimensional illustration connecting the gutter formed by two adjacent pages.

Tunnel Book (Peep Show or Scenic Book) – A type of panorama, the tunnel book is a series of illustrations die-cut into the shape of the illustration, spaced one behind the other and supported by panels. The overlapping of the various illustrations give the page a sense of depth, as in looking into a tunnel.

Volvelles – Circles or die cut pointes of paper placed one upon the other which rotate around a central axis and are secured by a central rivet. Volvelles are used for looking up information in a table. The front wheel has a legend printed on it and a number of slots through which various data items are visible. The rear wheel has the information printed on it at varying angles, so that only the information in one row of the table is visible at a time. Rotating the rear wheel lets the user display each row in turn. Volvelles are not like slide rules or monographs in that they do not do computing. They are simple look up devices.

Notable miniature books originally designed to be miniature