This slim volume has many features to delight the hand and eye. Before I slipped the book from its wrapper my fingers told me an embossed cover lay inside. Black silk and waxed red paper combine in this modified side-sewn binding. A pattern flows out in loose ridges from the silk on the spine, cascading across the red paper and finishing in a tightly-formed wave design that crests as the paper wraps under at the tail. Inside, the bright yellow end sheets keep up the vibrant mood. The printer suggests a wave pattern again in the "spirit returned" or recycled chu (mulberry) paper which he made. Tendrils of blue-dyed chu swirl across the base of the pages, reminding us of the watery flow of the ancient papermaking process so poetically described in the text. James Rumford has translated the treatise on papermaking by the scholar Wang Zongmu, written after he visited the Imperial paper mill at Jade Mountain in 1556. Both the Chinese and English texts are presented, letter and character forms complementing each other. The text describes the exacting process of lime retting and lye cooking of the fiber, through to the production of the finished sheets. The terminology is as often spiritual and lyrical, indicating the author truly understood the heart of the papermaker and the physical and spiritual purity of the finished sheets. Illustrations by the printer enhance the text, stylistically matching illustrations produced during the period in which the text was written. Rumford has set an important text into a form preserving the intent of the original while at the same time making it accessible to the current student of papermaking arts and technology. Fine handmade paper, letterpress text, illustrations, and binding unite to become a reference that is a joy to hold and read. I savored the turning of every page.

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