Tales from far and near : history stories of other lands . CAXTONS PRINTING PRESS C upon it. The bark of which the letterswere made had been damp, and it hadmarked the paper with the shape of theletters. The letters were not verv clear, butthey could be read. When Coster sawthem he began to think. Why should not books be printedfrom letters w^et with ink? said he tohimself. In those davs there were very fewbooks, and they were very costly. Theywere not printed as our books are,because men did not then know how toprint. All books were written, and everyletter was made by hand with pen aiidink.
Tales from far and near : history stories of other lands . CAXTONS PRINTING PRESS C upon it. The bark of which the letterswere made had been damp, and it hadmarked the paper with the shape of theletters. The letters were not verv clear, butthey could be read. When Coster sawthem he began to think. Why should not books be printedfrom letters w^et with ink? said he tohimself. In those davs there were very fewbooks, and they were very costly. Theywere not printed as our books are,because men did not then know how toprint. All books were written, and everyletter was made by hand with pen aiidink. It took a long time to copy a book inthis way. Sometimes a man would workat one book every day for two or threeyears. No wonder it cost much moneywhen it was done. Only rich people could buy books then. 83. Before the printing press—Copying with the pen Most of the poor people did not evenknow how to read, for of what use wasit to learn, if they had no books? Coster tried to find out how to printbooks instead of writing them. He mademany letters, first of wood and after-wards of metal. He smeared these letterswith ink and pressed sheets of paper on 84 them. He did this bj^ hand. The inkyletters made black marks on the paper,and the marks were shaped like theletters. The old man \Yas much pleased, fornow he felt sure that books could beprinted in this way. Coster showed his printed letters to aclever voun^ man from Germany. This young man saw that Coster hadfound out something good and his way of printing took a long time. So the young German set to work tofind a quicker wa3\ He worked hard,and bv and by he made a machine forprinting books. It was called a printing-l^ress. The printing-press had cases for hold-ing the letters. It had brushes forsmearing the ink upon the lette
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Keywords: ., bookauthorsheilath, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1915
