Timeline of the Written Word: From the Printing Press to the Audiobook

As book lovers, one thing we have in common is that we are curious minds. We love to learn, ask questions, and get in the mind’s eye of authors and their characters. For today’s article on The Emerald, we decided to focus our curiosity on learning more about books and their history.

Have you ever wondered how e-readers came to be? Or maybe you are curious how books came to be printed on paper? Don’t worry; we have questions too. After a little research, we have answers for you.

Below you’ll find a fun timeline of the history of the written word: everything you might want to know from the first fiction story ever written to the printing press to the invention of the audiobook. Sit back, relax, and read up about the history of how our favorite thing — great literature — came to be.

• 2100 B.C.: The oldest known fiction story in history is recorded

The “Epic of Gilgamesh” is a fictional poem about a Sumerian king who is two-thirds god and one-third man. The story, which was recorded on 12 clay tablets, follows his heroic journey in pursuit of immorality.

• A.D. 105: The invention of paper

Cai Lun, a court official for The Han dynasty of China, is credited with the invention of paper and papermaking. AD 105 is the recorded year in history that the Chinese Emperor was informed about the invention of paper by Ts’ai Lun, another official of the Imperial Court.

• 1454: The invention of the printing press

In 1454, German inventor Johannes Gutenburg built the world’s first printing press or movable type. The Gutenberg Bible is one of the earliest known books printed using the printing press, making the Bible widely available to the common man.

• 1588: The book wheel is invented

During a time when books were large and heavy, Italian military engineer Agostino Ramelli invented the book wheel to allow readers to reference multiple books at the same time.

• 1605: Author Miguel de Cervantes publishes “Don Quixote,” the highest selling and most translated book of all time

“Don Quixote” is known as the first modern novel and its enduring humor, wit, and sense of adventure has helped its sales reach more than 500 million copies throughout the centuries.

• 1853: The first chain bookstore opens in the United States

New York newspaper dealer August Brentano opened the first multiple-location bookstore chain with the launch of the original Brentano’s store in New York City.

• 1949: The automated reader (the precursor to the e-reader) is invented

In response to her students lugging heavy books back and forth to school each day, Spanish teacher Angela Ruiz Robles created a reader where text was printed on spools and operated by compressed air. The automated reader was not electronic, and Robles’ invention was never picked up for mass production.

• 1971: Literature first becomes digitized and distributed online.

On July 4, 1971, Michael S. Hart sent a digital version of the American Declaration of Independence across a computer network at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This was the beginning of Project Gutenberg — the first digital library — where he would go on to publish digital copies of the Bill of Rights, the American Constitution, and the Bible. Hart is credited as the inventor of the electronic book or e-Book.

• 1971: Borders opens its doors in its first location in Ann Arbor, MI

On December 10, 1971, brothers Tom and Louis Borders opened an 800-square-foot used bookstore called Borders Book Shop.

• 1993: e-books become available for sale online

Bibliobytes, the first company to create a financial exchange network on the internet, also was the first company to sell e-books.

• 1994: Amazon.com is registered as an online book retailer

When Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com in the early ’90s, he was unsure of what the online retailer would specialize in and landed on books because they were easy to source, package, and distribute. The business model was to deliver online orders directly to customers’ addresses anywhere in the world.

• 1997: The first book in the “Harry Potter” series is published

The “Harry Potter” series has sold about 500 million copies to date, with the first installment “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” selling the most copies of any installment in the series at 120 million copies sold.

• 1997: Apple unveils its iPod touch in September; Amazon releases the first Kindle a few months later.

The original Kindle was priced at $399, and it sold out in less than six hours. Apple’s new technology offers ​​an innovative, multi-touch interface with built-in Wi-Fi.

• 2010: Apple releases the first iPad

On April 3, the Wi-Fi version of the iPad became available in the United States.

• 2010: e-books gain prominence in public libraries

By 2010, 66 percent of public libraries were offering e-books.

• 2011: Borders announces liquidation plans

After failing to receive a bid from a new acquirer, more than 10,000 Borders employees lose their jobs.

• 2014: More than half of Americans own a Kindle, iPad, or tablet

Although print books still outsell e-books, more than half of American adults are using e-readers.

• 2020: Sales of print books in the U.S. have the highest yearly increase in a decade

In the year of the pandemic and global lockdowns, print book sales increased 8.2 percent to 750.89 million units.

What is one fun fact from this timeline about the history of books that you did not know? Share them with us @meetcopper so we can continue to share them with our Copper Community.

Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash