The History of Pop-Up Books
Posted on May 11, 2005
Drawn!, a blog about illustrating, has a blog entry about a new feature from the University of North Texas called "Pop-Up and Movable Books: A Tour Through Their History." The feature tells an illustrated history of pop-up books and uses animated gifs to show some of the pop-up effects. This is a very interesting report if you are curious about these special kids books. According to the feature Harlequinade produced some of the very first successful movable books:
Movable books were not created for juvenile audiences until the early nineteenth century. In fact, children's books were not published on a large scale until the latter half of the eighteenth century, when publisher John Newbery began selling books specifically for children. Soon afterward, innovative publishers started experimenting with creative and interactive ways to achieve success in a juvenile market.Drawn! is also a great resource itself. It is a multi-author blog covering illustration, art, cartooning and drawing.The first successful product resulting from these novel attempts was the Harlequinade, designed by London printer and bookseller Robert Sayer. Around 1765, Sayer developed a "lift-the-flap" style book. The book consisted of two engraved scenes. Both scenes were split in the center by a series of flaps, layered one top of another and attached at the top and bottom of the scene, so each could be lifted up from the center. The various half-scenes on the top and bottom of every flap corresponded and were interchangable with one another. As a result, turning up the flaps created amusing variations in the scenes.