The history of miniature books is thought to date all the way back to ancient Sumerian clay tablets, which were often small enough to be held in the palm of your hand. Several hundred miniature books remain from medieval Europe, many of which are religious in nature and would have been made small for convenience’s sake. Books of Hours, for example, were often portable to make daily use more easy. The phenomenon of miniature books as fine art objects is more modern, starting in the 19th century and taking off in the early 1920s when Queen Mary commissioned hundreds of tiny books from famous authors for her elaborately decorated dollhouse library.
Queen Mary’s Dollhouse
It wasn’t until 1983 that miniature books were truly standardized, at least in the United States. The Miniature Book Society was founded to ensure that categories of size and design would be consistent across all miniature books. It was the MBS that decided that “miniature” constituted a book no larger than 3 inches in length or width, though some groups still consider a book smaller than 4 inches to be miniature.
Types of Miniature Books
- Regular miniature books: around 3 inches in size
- Dollhouse books: typically 3/4 inches in size, and often a small scale replica of an existing larger book
- Oversized miniature books: larger than 3 inches but not large enough to be considered a normal sized book
- Micro-miniature books: made as small as physically possible and not intended to be read (the smallest book on record is 1mm square)
Miniature Books in Goucher’s Collection
The Goucher College Library has various miniature books within its collections. The Artists’ Book Collection in Special Collections is home to a number of finely crafted art books under 3 inches in size. The content of these books range from short stories to songs to brief histories. If you are looking for a slightly bigger book, the Siebert Collection has several children’s books under 4 inches in size.
Additionally, the Goucher College Archives contains several small clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform, excellent examples of the earliest known miniature books. These books and artifacts round out our acquisitions, and provide a strong basis for a miniature book collection at Goucher.
Relevant Goucher Courses
Goucher College offers courses in various disciplines which could work with our miniature book collection. This is not an exhaustive list, but these courses all have some connection to our acquired miniature books.
- LIT 114- Literature for Everyone
- LIT 266- Special Topics in the 19th Century British Novel
- LIT 330- Special Topics in English Literature
- LIT 341- Archaeology of Text
- VMC 213- Historical Archaeology and Material Culture
- VMC 215- Museums, Exhibitions, and the History of Collecting
- VMC 263- Romanticism: Art in the Age of Revolution
- VMC 383- The Art and History of the Book
- CPEA 201- Art of Observation
- ART 120- Artists’ Books
- DAN 153- Survey of Dance History
- DAN 351- Dancing in the Past and Present: Romanticism and Beyond