I am a fan of notebooks. It began with Big Chief tablets, three-ring notebooks, autograph books, diaries, spiral notebooks, and blue books (the booklets used for exams). 

Roland Allen’s charming new book, The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper, is a history of notebooks, tablets, commonplace books, diaries, sketchbooks, parchment and paper. Allen’s style is clear and casual, the organization of this vast subject economical,  and he links the styles of notebooks to artists, writers, businessmen, families, and publishers from ancient times to the present.

He begins by engaging the reader with the history of the classic black Moleskine notebook.  Moleskines were first manufactured in  France around the turn of the 20th century, and used by Picasso, Matisse, and Hemingway, and other notebook lovers.

The travel writer Bruce Chatwin was a famous fan: he wrote about his Moleskine in his novel, The Songlines.  Allen includes the following excerpt.

“Do you mind if I use my notebook?” I asked.

“Go ahead.”

I pulled from my pocket a black, oilcloth-covered notebook, its pages held in place with an elastic band.

“Nice notebook,” he said.

“I used to get them in Paris,” I said. “But now they don’t make them anymore.”

“Paris?” he repeated, raising his eyebrow as if he’d never heard anything so pretentious.

Inspired by this passage, Maria Segrebandi, an Italian translator, recommended the Moleskine to her friend Francesco Fransechi, who revived and manufactured it as a small signature item for his company, Modo & Modo.  The Moleskine became an international success, and is sold in bookstores everywhere.  Barnes and Noble, the largest seller of Moleskines in the U.S., has its own identical Moleskine knock-off, made according to the same design by the same manufacturer.  And of course the Moleskine now comes in many sizes and colors, in hardback and paperback.

The history of the Moleskine segues gracefully into ancient history. Allen describes the first prototype we have of a notebook, a palm-sized hinged writing tablet, the detritus of a shipwreck near Turkey in 1305 B.C.  

 This marvelous book is full of fascinating details. He describes the pugillares (handheld writing tablets) in ancient Rome, illuminated manuscripts, ledgers in the Middle ages, the zibaldoni (commonplace books) used by Petrarch, Chaucer, Erasmus, Montaigne, and, much earlier, Pliny the Elder, the Dutch friendship books, sketchbooks used by Durer and other artists, diaries of writers and others, and the travel notebooks of Melville,  Mark Twain, and Patrick Leigh Fermor.

By the way, the Europeans had their own version of “Moleskines”:  publishers exploited the craze for friendship books and commonplace books by producing beautiful notebooks with floral borders and blank templates for coats of arms and other devices. 

Let me know your favorite brand of notebook. Are you a Moleskine fan?  Or do you prefer Rhodia, Leuchtturm, decomposition books, composition books, spiral notebooks, Paperblanks, or off=brand from WalMart or Target?