Forty Centuries Of Ink

by David N. Carvalho

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

262 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1940

Reviews

[Teri]

This book was originally published in 1904. I imagine only ink-makers, calligraphers and historical reenactors would be interested in a history book of this type (though, perhaps, genealogists and diarists, who seek permanence for their records and documents, will find helpful information as well). Carvalho gives an overview of ink, paper and writing implements over the centuries and gives special attention to what helps make an ink permanent. The types of ink mentioned most often are iron gall inks made from various ingredients (oak galls and pomegranates, for instance) and carbon (India) inks. This isn't exactly a how-to book, though there are some centuries-old recipes included-- unfortunately, in most cases, there is only a list of ingredients and little or no instructions for how to bring them together to make the ink (and there's a little more to ink-making than just throwing everything together! There's real chemistry happening here!) I recommend going to the Iron Gall Ink website for more detailed information about the process. Perhaps ink-making was common household knowledge during and before Carvalho's time, but the process is utterly lost on most modern readers. But then, he probably did not intend for this book to be a how-to, but mainly a historical overview.

Even so, I'm very grateful the author included some of the conclusions of Dr. Stark, a chemist from the 1800's, who tested iron gall ink recipes for 20 years to find the most permanent and stable one. It's his recipe that I use and consider my "best." As an ink-maker, this book is a boon and I'm very glad to have a hard copy of it. There are very useful nuggets throughout the book that I have been able to glean and use in a practical way in my own ink-making experiments. To the ink-maker searching for the most fade-proof, stable (non-corrosive) and permanent inks (i.e. immortality of the page!) this book will help bring you a little closer to that standard... or, at the very least, help save you some time by avoiding some mistakes that can degrade an ink and make it unstable.

This book is in the public domain and can be found in a couple places online, including here and here.

[Karrie Higgins]

I make my own inks, and this book has been an invaluable resource for reasons stated in the previous review by Teri Anderson. The rich history of ink in this book has also been a source of inspiration for my book-in-progress, for which ink, properties of ink, the history of ink, and forgery detection are all crucial.