Chinese book is such a triumph of simplicity, cheapness, lightness,
and durability that it deserves a more careful study at the hands of our
book producers than it has yet received. In fact we do not see why books
made on nearly these lines should not be an attractive and popular
innovation in our book trade. Approaches, to be sure, have been made to
this peculiar book form, but they have been partial imitations, not
consistent reproductions. In an illustrated edition of Longfellow's
"Michael Angelo," published in 1885, Houghton, Mifflin and Company
produced a small folio, the binding of which is obviously patterned
after that of a Chinese book. But the printing is on every page, and the
paper is so stiff that the book will not lie open. In the holiday
edition which the same publishers issued in 1896 of Aldrich's poem,
entitled "Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book," they produced a volume in
which the front folds were not intended to be cut open; but they outdid
the Chinese by printing on only one of the pages exposed at each opening
of the book, instead of on both, as the Chinese do, thus utilizing only
one-fourth of the possible printing surface of the volume. In this case
again the paper was stiff and the binding was full leather with heavy
tapes for tying. A much closer approach to the Chinese book form was
afforded by "The Periodical," issued by Henry Frowde, in the form which
it bore at first. Here we have what may fairly be called a
naturalization of the Chinese book idea in the occident. But let us see
exactly what that Chinese book form is.

The standard book is printed from engraved wood blocks, each of which is
engraved on the side of the board, not on the end like our wood blocks,
and for economy is engraved on both its sides. Each of these surfaces
prints one sheet of paper, making two pages. The paper, being unsized,
is printed on only one side, and the fold is not at the back, as in our
books, but at the front. The running headline, as we should call it,
with the page number, is printed in a central column, which is folded
through when the book is bound, coming half on one page and half on the
other. There is always printed in this column a fan-shaped device,
called the fish's tail, whose notch indicates where the fold is to come.
It may be remarked in passing that the Chinese book begins on what to us
is the last page, and that the lines read from top to bottom and follow
one another from right to left. Each p