Hamlet On The Holodeck / quote 4 of 23
Incunabula: a technology in its infancy
In 1455, Gutemberg invented the printing press - but not the book as we know it. Books printed before 1501 are called incunabula; the word is derived from the Latin for swaddling clothes and is used to indicate that these books are the work of a technology still in its infancy. It took fifty years of experimentation and more to establish such conventions as legible typefaces and proof sheet corrections; page numbering and paragraphing; and title pages, prefaces and chapter divisions, which together made the published book a coherent means of communication. [...] Similarly, the narrative traditions do not arise out of the blue.