Monro - The paper trail : an unexpected history of a revolutionary invention

Yang Xins calligraphy for Spring

Cuneiform drawing

Map of Zhou dynasty China

Photo of Youguan Temple, China

The blind Fu Sheng dictating the Book of Documents

Yang Xins calligraphy for Happiness

Papermaking, photograph by Leone Nani

Map of Chinese Turkestan and its environs, showing Aurel Steins route

Photograph of Paul Pelliot in the cave at Dunhuang, 1908

Northern Qi scholars collating texts

Red seal of a wooden stamp, taken from Yang Xins calligraphy

Map of Central Asia

The Friday Mosque, Herat

Map of the Middle East, seventh century AD 186

Image from an early Koran, Metropolitan Museum, New York

Libert de la Presse

Paper being pressed in China, photograph by Leone Nani

I am deeply grateful to Penguin Books for taking this project on and seeing it through, in particular to Laura Stickney, Stuart Proffitt, Richard Duguid and Shan Vahidy. Thanks also very much indeed to Patrick Walsh, my enthusiastic agent, and to all at Conville & Walsh.

A particular debt of gratitude is owed to the Royal Society of Literature and the Jerwood Foundation, whose generous award so transformative for a first book of this kind funded research into the history of the Koran and the life of Martin Luther. Thanks also to award judges Robert Macfarlane, Claire Armistead and Tristram Hunt for choosing The Paper Trail.

A few formative influences must be mentioned, for both their own magnetic enthusiasms and their generosity: Pamela Clayton, Tom Sutherland and, especially, Barnaby Rogerson. Thanks also to Leyla Moghadam for her crucial help when the idea for the book first took shape. I am indebted to a number of China gurus from over the years, among them Rob Gifford, Yang Xin, David Bray and the encyclopaedic Jonathan Fenby.

My parents have been remarkably supportive and giving throughout the project.

A number of academics, librarians and independent scholars have ben exceptionally generous with their time and wisdom: Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst of the Free University in Berlin on Manichaeism, Michael Marx and the scholars of Corpus Coranicum on the Koran, Graham Hutt of the British Library on China, David Morgan on the Mongols, Gary Williams and Kirsten Birkett on the Reformation, Elizabeth Eisenstein on printing, Robin Cormack on Byzantine history, Lilla Russell-Smith of the Staatlicher Museum, Berlin, on Manichaeism, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the remarkable Tsuen Hsuin-Tsien on the history of writing and texts in China. I should also mention a few authors on whose works I have been especially reliant: Tsuen Hsuin-Tsien, Michael Suarez and Henry Woodhuysen (for their excellent Companion), T. H. Barrett, Jonathan Bloom, Mark Edwards and Robert Darnton. And thanks to Jeff Edwards for his care over producing such apt maps.

I am very grateful indeed for the three highly accomplished academics who agreed to proofread sections of the text: Edward Shaughnessy, Emran el-Badawi and Andrew Pettegree their careful and expert comments have made a great difference. There are many friends to thank also, some of them for proofreading: Julien Barnes-Dacey, Nick Watson, Barry Cole and Barnaby Rogerson. Others have been generous with beds at various key junctures Greg and Audrey Tugendhat, Jamie and Susie Child, Rob and Nancy Gifford, George and Fiona Greenwood, Ali Kille and Rebecca Pasquali, Jes Nielsen and Alex McKinnon. Long-suffering fellow travellers have also been excellent (and patient) company as I researched Chris Perceval, Julien Barnes-Dacey, Phil Kay and Max Harmel.

As the above shows, I have needed plenty of help, but the most committed, frank, and self-sacrificial support has come from Hannah, my wonderful wife. Thank you so very much. SDG.