The miniature book has a long history. Miniature books date to ancient Sumerian civilizations as early as 2500 BC. An example of a miniature with cuneiform writing on a clay tablet from the UR-III Period is in the collections of Massey College’s Robertson Davies Library.

The Middle Ages is considered the birth of modern miniatures, and the first recorded miniatures were primarily religious texts. Monks’ “Book of Hours” and “thumb Bible” miniatures were created for easy storage and transport. A miniature New Testament of Luther’s Geneva Bible was printed in London during the Reformation by Christopher Barker for Protestants living in exile under the reign of Catholic Queen Mary, and aristocratic ladies in the sixteenth century kept miniature prayer books close to them by hanging them at their waist on cords of fabric or rope. These girdle books were often jewel-encrusted or encased in precious metals. One such book of prayers is “Anne Boleyn’s Gold Book” at the British Library in London. The story goes that Boleyn carried it with her to Tower Green when her husband Henry VIII, whose portrait is a page in the book, ordered her imprisonment and execution.

• Fact-checking 'Anne Boleyn's' girdle book (Medieval Manuscripts blog, British Library)

The 19th century is considered the “golden age” of collecting miniature books, and Victorians were “in love” with natural history. Victorian ladies carried these small religious texts that held sentimental value and pressed flower petals, feathers, and leaves into them. An example is Dew Drops which was published by the American Tract Society, a nonprofit, evangelical Christian organization founded in New York in 1825. Written on the flyleaf of Dew Drops is a personal note, “C.M. McLein to his sister Clare 1854,” and a tiny, pressed violet is opposite the book’s title page. Both Goldsmith’s The Traveller and Other Poems and Clare’s book of verses have natural objects pressed within them.

Walt Whitman called the book in this form literary “minims.” Drum Taps in miniature by Whitman measures just under three inches. For collectors, a book may be no larger than three inches to be “miniature.” Books measuring ¼ to one inch are microminiature books, while those less than ¼ of an inch are ultra microminiatures.

This 1854 edition of the Christian allegory Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) by John Bunyan is slightly over three inches in height and was published by the firm of Loomis & Peck as part of a series of juvenile literature. It brings together as an object two “golden ages” in the development of books, the children’s book and the miniature. Books made specifically for children were first created in the Victorian Era primarily due to the “triumvirate of Victorian illustrators” Kate Greenaway, Walter Crane, and Randolph Caldecott.

Miniature Books by Harry L. Koopman (1860-1937) is one of four hundred copies produced and the only miniature book to appear under any of the Grabhorn imprints. Koopman was Brown University’s librarian from 1893 to 1930 and a president of the American Library Association. He wrote the historical essay, and the type was set by typographer Bruce Rogers, the greatest book designer of the 20th century. It was the last book designed by Rogers who died in 1957. The text was finally printed in 1968 in this edition for Dawson’s Book Shop.

The miniature book is an amulet or commemorative piece. The German ultra microminiature collection titled “Die kleinsten Bücher der Welt: In 7 Sprachen.” (The Smallest Books in the World: In 7 Languages). The four small texts are: The Olympic Oath, The Lord’s Prayer, The Berlin Oath of Freedom, and The Phrase I Love You.

Der Olympische Eid or The Olympic Oath measures one-eighth of an inch and features Olympic rings on its cover. The Olympic oath is in five languages. Der Freiheitsschwur Berlin or The Berlin Oath of Freedom commemorates the signing of the oath at the collection for the Berlin Liberty Bell. The tiny book has the oath written in German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and Swedish.