page_title: Hua Sui
section_title: Earlier wooden and ceramic types
hierarchical_section_title: Hua Sui / Metal movable type printing / Earlier wooden and ceramic types
caption_attribution_description: English: Frontispiece, Diamond Sutra from Cave 17, Dunhuang, ink on paper. A page from the Diamond Sutra, printed in the 9th year of Xiantong Era of the Tang Dynasty, i.e. 868 CE. Currently located in the British Library, London. According to the British Library, it is “the earliest complete survival of a dated printed book”. British Library Or.8210/P.2 Deutsch: Seite des Diamant-Sutra. Gedruckt im 9. Jahr der Ära Xiántōng der Tang-Dynastie (868 n. Chr.) ist es das weltweit älteste vollständig erhaltene, sicher zu datierende Exemplar des Buchdrucks.
context_page_description: Hua Sui was a Chinese scholar, inventor and printer of Wuxi, Jiangsu province during the Ming dynasty. He belonged to the wealthy Hua family that was renowned throughout the region. Hua Sui is best known for creating China's first metal movable type printing in 1490 AD. Metal movable type printing had been invented in Korea during the earlier 13th century, but there is no concrete evidence that suggests Hua Sui's metal type print was influenced by Korean printing.
context_section_description: Movable type was invented and improved in China centuries before Hua Sui. As written by the polymath Chinese scientist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) of the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD), the commoner and artisan Bi Sheng (990-1051) was the first to invent movable type, with his ceramic type invented in the Qing-li reign period (1041–1048). During the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368 AD), the governmental magistrate and scholar Wang Zhen (fl. 1290-1333) was an early innovator of wooden movable type, as his process improved the speed of typesetting as well. Much like Bi Sheng experimenting with wooden movable type in the 11th century but finding it unsatisfactory, Wang Zhen also experimented with metal type printing using tin. Wang Zhen wrote in the book of the Nong Shu (1313 AD):
  In more recent times [late 13th century], type has also been made of tin by casting. It is strung on an iron wire, and thus made fast in the columns of the form, in order to print books with it. But none of this type took ink readily, and it made untidy printing in most cases. For that reason they were not used long.
  Thus, Chinese metal type of the 13th century using tin was unsuccessful because it was incompatible with the inking process. Although unsuccessful in Wang Zhen's time, the bronze metal type of Hua Sui in the late 15th century would be used for centuries in China, up until the late 19th century. Furthermore, a font of tin movable type was successfully employed by a Mr. Tong of Guangdong in the 19th century, who figured out how to make it more compatible with the inking process.
caption: The Chinese Diamond Sutra, the oldest known printed book in world history (868 AD), using woodblock printing.
exif: {}