Boston Book Fair Lecture - 15th-Century European Blockbooks: What Are They and Where Are They Now?

15th-Century European Blockbooks: What Are They and Where Are They Now?

Blockbooks, now often referred to as “medieval graphic novels,” were highly illustrated books printed entirely from woodcuts (text and image together). As such, they were the first print-on-demand books in the West. First produced in the early 1450s—at the same time as the Gutenberg Bible—their cumbersome and limited printing process, coupled with the fragility of the wooden blocks, meant that the medium couldn’t really compete with typographic printing and largely died out through the 1480s. This 30-year period, however, represents an interestingly experimental moment in European book history.

Blockbooks were ‘rediscovered’ in the 17th and 18th centuries by antiquarians trying to fit these enigmatic works into the history of printing, and early collectors of incunabula sought these rarities as the precursors of typography. Some original copies were fragmented and broken up through use, damage, and the practices of dealers and collectors. Today, there are 143 recorded examples (from complete copies to leaf fragments), representing about 110 original copies, now located in 42 institutional and private collections in North America.

Event Details

• Time TBD

• Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair, Hynes Convention Center, 900 Boylston St, Boston, MA 02115

John T. McQuillen specializes in European late medieval and Renaissance book history, particularly incunabula (books printed from 1450–1501), blockbooks, and bookbinding, and has published on incunabula, library history, and the commercial networks of early book printers. For the Morgan, he has curated or co-curated the exhibitions William Caxton and the Birth of English Printing (2015), Word and Image: Martin Luther’s Reformation (2017), Bound for Versailles: The Jayne Wrightsman Bookbindings Collection (2021–22), Holbein: Capturing Character (with the J. Paul Getty Museum, 2021–22), and Seeds of Knowledge: Early Modern Illustrated Herbals (2023–24); he organized the record-breaking loan exhibition from the Bodleian Library, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth (2019). His current exhibition, Graphic Devotions: Late Medieval European Blockbooks centering on the short-lived experiment of books printed entirely from woodcuts in fifteenth-century Europe, opens at the Morgan on 6 Nov. 2026 with a publication including the first descriptive census of all known copies in North America.

This lecture is open to all attendees of the book fair.