Volume 5, Number 2
May 1992

Review

Making Paper: A Look into the History of an Ancient Craft, by Bo Rudin. Rudins, Box 5058, S-162 05 VäIllingby, Sweden. 1990. Available in the US for $40 (cloth) from Lyons & Burford, 31 W. 21 St., New York, NY 10010 (212/620-9580); and in the UK for E29.95 from Falkiner Fine Papers Ltd., 70 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4AR (01-831 1151). 280 pp., 150 B/W photographs and drawings, 16 pp. in color. ISBN 1-55821-167-5. Special edition, which includes a large number of paper samples, is available from Falkiner for $300.

Bo Rudin's book Making Paper intends to provide the reader with a thorough insight into the history and craft of papermaking. At first glance, there is a similarity with Dard Hunter's book Papermaking, the History and Technique of an Ancient Craft. Rudin explores the origins of papermaking and discusses the rudimentary principles of forming sheets, paper mould construction and the evolution of paper pulp. In the opening chapter he makes the distinction between paper and similar materials such as papyrus, tapa and amatl.

Rudin makes his real contribution however, through his thorough account of the development of papermaking in Sweden. He takes a close look at the last years of full scale handmade paper production, through the reminiscences of Georg Anzelius, papermaker at Tumbra Bruk. His historical account of the Klippan and Lessebo paper mills is also fascinating.

Because these mills depended at first on expertise and technology imported from nearby countries, Rudin extends his investigation into the wider sphere of European papermaking. The trade in machinery and new developments set against the ever changing European market for paper is well mapped out. It is Rudin's willingness to deal with the specifics of hand papermaking and its gradual replacement by the machine method that make this book important. In the translation into English we lose little of his enthusiasm for detailed description, from the chemistry of pulp bleaching to the description of machinery and equipment.

Perhaps because this book is self-published, Rudin is more at liberty to draw on his own specific areas of knowledge, rather than have the text smoothed out by an editor. The final chapter is somewhat surprisingly devoted to recent paper art with some well-produced color examples. He says 6f his last chapter, an introduction to paper art, T hope this short article has made it clear what an immensely versatile material paper is." There is, I feel, no need for this apologia because his account of the evolution of Swedish and northern European papermaking adequately proves his point.