Being die-hard book lovers, we generally hate dog-eared pages or overturned books left flat open to keep us from losing the page we paused reading on. This obviously causes damage to the book spine. And though we are really optimistic about remembering page numbers, we may fail to recollect whether we were to begin reading again from page 112 or 121. No wonder the bookmark is a bookworm’s partner in crime.
In the current age of digitization, where paperback is transforming into e-books, one can even bookmark favourite web pages. But from classical bookmarkers (they became known as bookmarks much later) to the ones on the Internet today, this literary paraphernalia has a long history.
The earliest books published were delicate as well as precious and something was needed to mark pages in them without causing them any harm.
Research suggests that bookmarks have accompanied books since the origin of the codex in the 1st century AD. The oldest existing bookmark dates from the 6th century AD and was made of ornamented leather lined with vellum on the back, attached with a leather strap to the cover of a Coptic codex.
In late medieval ages, between the 13th and the 15th bookmarks used in manuscripts and incunabula in European monasteries, were mostly made of vellum or leather using the rest of the material which was used to make the book cover, but existence of paper bookmarks has also been noted. Some of them were shaped as a sophisticated rotating disc made of vellum or could indicate the page or the column on the page.
The Royal Museum of Brunei showcases an ivory bookmark made in India which is embellished with a geometrical pattern of pierced holes dating from the 16th century.
In 1584 Queen Elizabeth was presented with a fringed silk bookmarker by Christopher Barker who had acquired a patent as Queen’s Printer in 1577.
We are familiar with the common type of bookmark which was in use in the eighteenth and up to the nineteenth century. It consisted of a narrow silk ribbon, bound into the book at the top of the spine and just long enough to project below the lower edge of the page. These types of bookmarks are still in use especially in hardcover and reference books.
The first detached, and therefore collectible, bookmarkers began to appear in the 1850s. One of the first references to these is found in Mary Russell Mitford’s Recollections of a Literary Life (1852).
Most nineteenth-century bookmarks were intended for use in bibles and prayer books and were made of ribbon or woven silk. By the 1880s the production of woven silk markers was declining and printed markers made of stiff paper gained momentum.
The great period of bookmark design and the use of luxuriant materials was during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. The idea that a bookmark be used to keep one’s place and protect one’s book gained mass approval, and bookmarks have been produced in a variety of materials ever since. Contemporary bookmarks are made from a variety of material including paper, silver, gold, wood, brass, copper, ivory, plastic, leather, ribbon, and silk.
With countless designs and styles available, collecting bookmarks is very popular today. The largest collection of bookmarks belongs to Frank Divendal (Netherlands) with 103,009 different bookmarks from all over the world, as of 8 February 2010, which he has been collecting since 1982.
If you still have scraps of paper or random visiting cards marking the pages of your books, it is time to invest in some much needed bookmarkers. Get a bloody bookmark for a thriller novel or a shark tail for a nautical adventure.
Whether you love the classical silk thread and ivory page markers or the recent whacky and out of the box bookmarks, there is a wide variety on the Internet that is sure to catch your eye.
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