(youtube: Bindings)
Folio has a few different definitions. For one, it is a sheet of paper folded in half (Google Search). For our purposes, we will use the second definition: “an individual leaf of paper or parchment, numbered on the recto or front side only, occurring either loose as one of a series or forming part of a bound volume” (Google Search). In other words it is one or more fold sheets which have been bound together. Sounds a lot like a book doesn’t it? That’s why I am going to make the leap and say folios are still alive today.
The distinction must be made that folding, printing, cutting, and binding books is done with complex machinery today as opposed to how it was done long ago: by hand. See how it’s done today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRKsW-oVcHg
It’s a little hard to determine when the very first folio was made, as folding a bunch of sheets of paper together and binding them is something that conceivably could have been done at any point in ancient history. Therefore, I will lighten my burden by beginning the history of the folio with the first printed folio, The Gutenberg Bible. The Gutenberg Bible, made in the 15th century, is “the world’s first book printed by movable metal type and hence the celebrated harbinger of the age of printing” (Robinson 513). Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the first moveable printing press ushered in the printing of unprecedented numbers of books.
One of the most important folios, called the First Folio, was compiled in the 17th century. The name is a little misleading, as the First Folio is not the first folio at all, but rather, the first folio to contain all of William Shakespeare’s printed plays. This folio was compiled by friends of Shakespeare, John Heminge and Henry Condell, in 1623–seven years after Shakespeare’s death. This compilation is particularly important, as Robinson notes: “Eighteen of the plays had been previously published in individual, small quarto editions, but the other eighteen, including Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest, had never been printed and, but for Heminge and Condell’s volume, would have been forever lost.” (Robinson 513). This save alone, thanks to Shakespeare’s friends, is extremely clutch. Could you imagine a world with eighteen fewer Shakespeare plays? The only people to benefit from this would be students adverse to reading complex works of art.
Luckily, that was not the case. Shakespeare, just like folios/books in general, took over the world. To this day books in folio form remain the premier way to read lengthy works. Who’d want to read Harry Potter on the computer? Imagining scrolling through the entire series gives me the shudders.
Although folios have had a long history and will continue well into the future, the digital age is taking over. The age of printing is antiquated in the eyes of many and the storing of numerous print books is unnecessary. In fact, some libraries are so overstocked that they have begun destroying books (Licastro).
The printing of the folio ushered in the modern age (Robinson 520) and was the watershed moment that dealt the final blow to manuscripts. Printing reigned hundreds of years and still reigns. Now, however, with the advent of computers, we face another watershed moment–one which may see all publishing occur online, leaving the only existing works of print the works published today.
Sources:
Google Search. Google. Web. 25 Feb. 2017.
HowQueue. “How Books Are Made – How Do They Do IT? (Printing Twilight Books).” YouTube. YouTube, 30 May 2013. Web. 25 Feb. 2017.
“Making a Folio.” YouTube. YouTube, 09 Jan. 2016. Web. 25 Feb. 2017.
Robinson, Fred C. “What Is a Rare Book?.” Sewanee Review, vol. 120, no. 4, Fall 2012, pp. 513-520. EBSCOhost. Web. 25 Feb. 2017.