Editing Notebook (section)

==== As table-books ====
While paper was cheaper than wax, its cost was sufficiently high to ensure the popularity of erasable notebooks, made of specially-treated paper that could be wiped clean and used again. These were commonly known as table-books, and are frequently referenced in Renaissance literature, most famously in [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Hamlet]]'':<ref name="SQ" /><ref>Stallybrass ''et. al.'' give many examples of plays that mention table-books, including: ''[[Love's Labour's Lost]]'', ''[[Antonio's Revenge]]'', ''[[The Sparagus Garden]]'', ''[[The Fair Example]]'', ''[[Every Man Out of His Humour]]'', ''[[The City Wit]]'', ''[[The Guardian (play)|The Guardian]]'', and ''[[The Citizen Turned Gentleman]]''.</ref> <blockquote>"My tables,—meet it is I set it down, That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain."</blockquote>Despite the apparent ubiquity of such table-books in Shakespeare's time, very few examples have survived, and little is known about their exact nature, use, or history of production.<ref name="SQ" /><ref name="HRW">{{cite journal | title=Writing-Tables and Table-Books | author=Woudhuysen, H. R. | journal=Electronic British Library Journal | year=2004 | doi=10.23636/924 | doi-access=free}}</ref> The earliest extant edition, bound together with a printed almanac, was made in [[Antwerp]], Belgium, in 1527. 

By the end of this decade, table-books were being imported into England, and they were being printed in [[London]] from the 1570s. 

At this time, however, it appears that the concept of an erasable notebook was still something of a novelty to the British public, as the printed instructions included with some books were headed:<ref name="SQ" /> <blockquote>"To make clean your Tables when they be written on, which to some as yet is unknown." </blockquote>The leaves of some table-books were made of donkey skin;<ref name="SQ" /> others had leaves of ivory<ref>{{cite journal | title=The Library and Material Texts | author=Stallybrass, Peter | journal=PMLA | date=October 2004 | volume=119 | issue=5 | pages=1347–1348 | doi=10.1632/003081204X17914| s2cid=162221144 }}</ref> or simple [[pasteboard]].<ref name="HRW" /> The coating was made from a mixture of glue and [[gesso]], and modern-day experiments have shown that ink, graphite and [[silverpoint]] writing can be easily erased from the treated pages with the application of a wet sponge or fingertip.<ref name="SQ" />

Other types of notebook may also have been in circulation during this time; 17th-century writer [[Samuel Hartlib]] describes a table-book made of [[slate (writing)|slate]], which did "not need such tedious wiping out by {{sic|1=spunges|hide=y}} or {{sic|1=cloutes|hide=y}}".<ref>{{cite book | title=Notebooks, English Virtuosi, and Early Modern Science | publisher=University of Chicago Press | author=Yeo, Richard | year=2014 | pages=104 | isbn=978-0-226-10656-4}}</ref>

The leaves of a table-book could be written upon with a [[stylus]], which added to their convenience, as it meant that impromptu notes could be taken without the need for an [[inkwell]] (graphite [[pencil]]s were not in common use until the late 17th century). Table-books were owned by all classes of people, from merchants to nobles, and were employed for a variety of purposes:<ref name=SQ/>

{{bq|Surviving copies suggest that at least some owners (and/or their children) used table-books as suitable places in which to learn how to write. Tables were also used for collecting pieces of poetry, noteworthy epigrams, and new words; recording sermons, legal proceedings, or parliamentary debates; jotting down conversations, recipes, cures, and jokes; keeping financial records; recalling addresses and meetings; and collecting notes on foreign customs while travelling.}}

The use of table-books for trivial purposes was often satirized on the English stage. For example, ''[[Antonio's Revenge]]'' by [[John Marston (playwright)|John Marston]] (c. 1600) contains the following exchange:<ref>{{cite book | title=Shakespeare's Letters | publisher=Oxford University Press | author=Stewart, Alan | year=2008 | pages=283–284 | isbn=978-0-19-954927-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | chapter-url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45209/45209-h/45209-h.htm#Page_095 | title=The Works of John Marston | year=1887 | chapter=Antonio's Revenge (Act 1, Scene 2) | editor=Bullen, A. H. | volume=1 | via=Project Gutenberg | access-date=2023-05-03 | archive-date=2023-01-10 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230110191407/https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45209/45209-h/45209-h.htm#Page_095 | url-status=live }}</ref>
{{poem quote|''Matzagente:'' I scorn to retort the obtuse jest of a fool.
::''[Balurdo draws out his writing tables, and writes.]''
''Balurdo:'' Retort and obtuse, good words, very good words.}}

Their use in some contexts was seen as pretentious; [[Joseph Hall (bishop)|Joseph Hall]], writing in 1608, describes "the hypocrite" as one who, "in the midst of the sermon pulls out his tables in haste, as if he feared to lose that note".<ref name=HRW/><ref>{{cite book | url=https://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/hallch.htm | title=Characters of Virtues and Vices | publisher=Renascence Editions | author=Hall, Joseph | year=1608 | chapter=Book II: Characteristics of Vices | access-date=2023-05-03 | archive-date=2023-05-03 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230503170524/https://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/hallch.htm | url-status=live }}</ref> The practice of making notes during sermons was a common subject of ridicule, and led to table-books becoming increasingly associated with [[Puritanism]] during the 17th century.<ref name=SQ/>

By the early 19th century, there was far less demand for erasable notebooks, due to the mass-production of [[fountain pen]]s and the development of cheaper methods for manufacturing paper.<ref name=SQ/> Ordinary paper notebooks became the norm. During the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]], British schoolchildren were commonly taught how to make their own notebooks out of loose sheets of paper, a process that involved folding, piercing, gathering, sewing and/or binding the sheets.<ref>
{{cite journal|last1=Eddy|first1=Matthew Daniel|title=The Nature of Notebooks: How Enlightenment Schoolchildren Transformed the Tabula Rasa|journal=Journal of British Studies|date=2018|volume=57|issue=2|pages=275–307|doi=10.1017/jbr.2017.239|doi-access=free}}</ref>