In historical dramas, archives often serve as the backdrop for romance. In reality, though, few viewers have let their gaze rest on the books on the shelves. If you look closely, the books are not standing but lying down. Because the paper and covers of old books were not stiff enough to stand upright, they were mainly stored flat. The traditional binding method ‘seonjangbon(線裝本)’ stacks sheets of paper folded in half and then stitches them with thread, a format most similar to books today. Even these old books, in which white is paper and black is writing, are, once you look closely, all different. Some are handwritten, some printed with moveable type, some with woodblocks; the size of the book, the size of the characters, and the script styles all vary. Some are clean and glossy, others grubby and ragged.

<The Secret Allure of Old Books> presents a new perspective that treats old books as objects to be “looked at and appreciated.” The interesting point is that it focuses not on content but on ‘editing’. The author, who has exhibited and researched old books at institutions such as the National Museum of Korea, carefully lays out methods for ‘seeing and observing’ old books: covers, titles, the arrangement of main text and notes, character size, paragraphing, spacing, margins outside the text block, and even the traces of ownership.

Why is a book ‘冊’? ‘冊’ is explained as a character modeled on several same-sized wooden slips inscribed with text and tied together with a cord. ‘To be orderly’the meaning of ‘deung(等)’is also explained as the act of arranging the ‘gan(簡)’, the wooden pieces that make up a book. These are what we call wooden slips and bamboo slips. The character that denotes the rolled form of a wooden slip is ‘gwon(卷)’. The reason we still use terms related to ‘冊’, which look quite different from today’s books, is that by the stage of wooden slips the elements that define a ‘book’ had been established. Wooden slips could be linked in numbers to record a great deal of text, as in modern books, and could be carried around. In terms of content they were diverse as wellscriptures, documents, diaries, and writing practice. The ways of writing and the formats of old books also trace their origins to wooden slips.

Under King Sejong, ‘Jachitonggam Gangmok Sajeongjeon Hunui’ was flawless from editing to script
Under King Sejo, looking at ‘Worinseokbo’ shows traces of thought on how to notate and spread Hangul

In this way, the author introduces how the form of books changed, from pre-paper ‘books’ such as wooden slips that mark the beginning of books in East Asia, metal plates engraved with Buddhist sutras, and steles that could be seen as books carved in stone, through seonjangbon, scrolls, and accordion-fold books. The work introduced as “a masterpiece beyond reproach from editing to script” is <Jachitonggam Gangmok Sajeongjeon Hunui> (Gangmok Hunui), published by order of Sejong in 1438. This daunting title consists of four elements: ‘Jachitonggam’, ‘Gangmok’, ‘Sajeongjeon’, and ‘Hunui’. <Zizhi Tongjian> was written by the Northern Song scholar Sima Guang, narrating 1,362 years of history in chronological order from King Weilie of Zhou in the Warring States to Shizong of Later Zhou in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. Zhu Xi, the founder of Neo-Confucianism, rewrote it by setting major items as ‘gang’ and details as ‘mok’. ‘Sajeongjeon’ was the place where Sejong and his ministers compiled the book, and ‘Hunui’ means to elucidate meanings.

<Gangmok Hunui> runs to 149 juan, or 76 bound volumesa vast scale. Dividing up scores of dynasties, editing them for instant comprehension, and apportioning content so that each section did not differ greatly in length could not have been an ordinary task. For this reason, one whole volume was devoted solely to the preface and table of contents, and even the cover helped readers by varying the position and size of the title labels. These include elements such as the main title, volume numbering, and running titles. There is also a mark called ‘seogeunje’ on the lower edge of the book block, making it easy to locate because old books were stored lying down.

The seonjangbon, which improved upon the less convenient scroll and accordion formats, also changed the layout of the main text. The rectangular frame that contains the characters is called ‘gwanggwak’ or ‘saju’, and the blank margins left on the left and right accommodate gathering and binding. The exact center where the sheet folds left to right is the ‘pansim’, and at top and bottom there is a fish-tail-shaped mark called the ‘eomi’. The basic specifications of the page are called the ‘pansik’. In the case of fascicle 20 of <Gangmok Hunui>, it has sajussangbyeon (double boundary lines on each of the four sides) with sangha-hwamun eomi (flower-shaped eomi at top and bottom).

Thus, even the craftsmanship of old books alone yields abundant information. One can also feel the labor of having accomplished “entirely by hand and eye what is no easy task even today when editing follows computer-input templates.”

It is also interesting to hear that because books in Hangul are scarce, any book containing even a little Hangul commands a higher price. The representative Hangul old books mentioned are <Worin Cheongang Jigok>, <Seokbo Sangjeol>, and <Worinseokbo>. When Queen Soheon, consort of Sejong, passed away, Prince Suyang composed <Seokbo Sangjeol>, the Buddha’s life, to pray for his mother’s repose, and Sejong wrote <Worin Cheongang Jigok>, song lyrics praising the Buddha. After Prince Suyang ascended the throne, the two were combined as <Worinseokbo>. The preface that begins with “Since the language of this country differs from that of China,” which comes to mind with ‘Hunminjeongeum’, is transmitted at the very beginning of fascicle 1 of <Worinseokbo>. These books also preserve traces of deliberation on how to write, use, and disseminate Hangul, including a Hangul script reminiscent of a Gothic (dotum) style, Hangul orthography, and the relative sizes and placement of Chinese characters and Hangul.

From old books the author reads the design and illustrations of books, efforts against damp and pests, and their histories in varied ways. The author’s wordsthat such “traces of people, layer upon layer in a single book, make one imagine some person or pesons who cherished it, perhaps preparing for the civil service examination while jotting verses or sentences in the margins”broaden our way of seeing old books.

This book helps those who, upon seeing old books in museums, simply sensed the passage of time, or who, before steles, saw only the shape of a stone block, to discover the hidden allure of old books.