Lyon: J.A. Henry, fabricant, et A. Roux, 1886 (colophon dated 1887). First Edition. 4to (145 x 175 mm). [50] pp., each page within neo-gothic decorative borders, and four full-page illustrations, all inspired illuminated gothic manuscripts. Woven in black and grey on silver silk, mounted on card, unobtrusive gossamer silk threads visible at top and bottom edges, as commonly. Bound in fine contemporary dark bluish-brown morocco Jansenist, by J. Kauffmann-Petit (signed on the front doublure) and Maillard (on the back doublure), top and bottom edges gilt, doublures of brown morocco richly gilt, five raised bands on undecorated spine, dark brown moire silk pastedowns and flyleaves. Contemporary brown cloth chemise. Item #4318

AN ASTONISHING, ALMOST UNBELIEVABLE TECHNICAL AND ARTISTIC TRIUMPH IN THE SERVICE OF BOOKMAKING THROUGH "MODERN" SCIENTIFIC INGENUITY AND THE WEAVING ARTS. IT IS A CELEBRATION OF LATE 19TH-CENTURY FRENCH NEO-GOTHIC DESIGN, REALIZED THROUGH THE EMPLOYMENT OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PUNCHED CARDS UTILIZED AS AUTOMATED WEAVING INSTRUCTIONS CONVEYED TO AN ARRAY OF MECHANIZED JACQUARD LOOMS.

Only approximately fifty, or at most sixty, copies of this book were produced, and it took more than two years of programming and weaving on Jacquard looms to do so. Each page is entirely woven from silver silk thread, programmed into the Jacquard loom using approximately 200,000 individual punch cards. Conceptually, the punch-card system is the very foundation of computer programming. The "Livre de prières tissé" has been described in error as "the first computer woven book." In fact, it was preceded by the virtually unobtainable, unillustrated, and less accomplished "Les Laboureurs: poeme tire de Jocelyn" by Alphonse de Lamartine (1883), likewise woven in silk by J.A. Henry in Lyon.

Here is one of the true marvels of nineteenth-century technology in the service of the "Book Arts," and absolutely must be seen to be fully appreciated. It is a spectacular neo-Gothic Book of Prayers, made of silvery-grey and black silk thread, woven together by means of the Jacquard automated loom method, the results being accurate to within one-tenth of a millimeter. There is a strange and wondrous dimensionality in these pages, which without exaggeration can be said to shimmer.

The Jacquard loom was invented in 1801, and for decades it remained the most complex programmable machine in existence. The incredible potential of the "Operations / Variables" punched card system, with its binary data and modern "Input / Output / Storage" capabilities, was seized upon by English visionary Charles Babbage, who integrated the process into his theoretical "Analytical Engine." James Essinger has argued convincingly that the Jacquard loom was pivotal in the in the development of computer science. With uncanny prescience, the data input mechanisms and intricate algorithms that created the present volume prefigure modern computer automation and computer programming: input in the form of "zeros and ones" that conveying complex instructions to the mechanical looms by means of punched cards; output in the form predetermined patterns; and memory in which the instructions can be stored and subsequently recovered.

The designs for the present silk Prayer Book, including its floral and illustrated borders, were made by R.P.J. Hervier. Lillian Randall determined that the full-page "illuminations" herein were actually derived from a published book, namely the "Imitation de Jesus-Christ" (Paris, Gruel et Engelmann) which contained reproductions of a variety of medieval illuminated manuscripts.

Michael Laird, writing about the book in "The World from Here: Treasures of the Great Libraries of Los Angeles," explains: "Despite the fact that this rare volume is not a printed book, it is of singular interest in that it was completely woven with silver and black silk thread. It also represents an extremely early book production involving automation and programming... The book was manufactured on silk looms that were programmed using the punched-card system developed by Joseph-Marie Jacquard (1752-1834). Several hundred thousand cards were required to program this curious magnum opus (the actual figure is not known, but estimates range from 106,000 to 500,000). After fifty failed attempts, it took two years to weave approximately sixty copies… It will be observed that the weave in the present volume is almost microscopic (it is exactly four hundred weft threads for every 2.5 centimeters [approximately one inch])…The movement of the machine was limited to one tenth of a millimeter, the result being an extremely precise piece of bookmaking, which, on account of the material used, truly gleams. It is noteworthy that Jacquard's looms, only slightly modified, are still in use today, producing some of the world’s finest fabric for furniture. The punched instructional cards utilized by Jacquard’s weaving machinery served as the primary inspiration for the famous 'Analytical Engine' conceived by Charles Babbage (1791-1871)…The present volume may represent the first, and probably the only, successful attempt at weaving a book."

Indeed, today the "Livre de prières tissé" is recognized as a landmark in the history of the computing. The Jacquard punch-cards were effectively binary, recording "zeros and ones" (i.e. an empty space / non-empty space) and could create a two-toned image in much the same way as the first computers used punch cards to store information. Herman Hollerith took the concept of using punched cards as information storage, and developed a punched card tabulating machine. This he used to input data on behalf of the 1890 U.S. Census, and gave rise to a punched-card based data processing industry (soon dominated by the International Business Machine corporation, or IBM).

PROVENANCE: This copy was specially made for "A.M." whose initials appears opposite of the title-page, below which is a banderolle which is blank save for the "H" (of J.A. Henry) on the lower left corner.

CATALOGUER'S NOTE: Whereas all complete copies of the "Livre de prières tissé" have the coat-of-arms and banderole on the verso of the half-title, the texts on the banderoles actually vary, a fact apparently noted here for the first time, with different names and/or dates. In some copies (e.g. the Morgan Library) the coat-of-arms and banderole is completely blank, and furthermore the "H" [Henry, the "fabricant"] on the left corner of the banderolle is absent. The conclusion is inescapable: copies in which the coat-of-arms and banderolles are fully accomplished, as here, would have required COMPLETELY DIFFERENT formations of punched cards for this particular page, and that our copy was made to order.

SELECTED REFERENCES: M. Laird, The World From Here (C. Burlingham & B. Whiteman, eds. Los Angeles, 2001), p. 63 (illustrated). Bowden, Faster than Thought: The Invention of Perforated Cards by M. Jacquard (London: 1953), pp. 23, 350-51, & 379-80. J. Essinger, Jacquard’s Web: How a Hand-loom led to the Birth of the Information Age, 2004. Vicaire V, 342. For a contemporary account of the "Livre de prières tissé," see Paul Marais' long entry in the 1889 Bulletin du Bibliophile (pp. 163-66): "Ce livre est une oeuvre tres remarquable comme execution et comme choix de gravures, de lettres ornees et des encadrements. C'est une tentative extremement originale, et dont la reussite et la perfection constituent une oeuvre unique et en font le plus grand honneur au fabricant de Lyon qui a entrepris cette immense tache."

CATALOGUER'S NOTE: This may be one of the very few books in which the colophon states that the work was undertaken "happily": "Cet ouvrage a ete HEUREUSEMENT acheve a Lyon le viii Sept. l'an de N.S. mdccclxxxvii sur les dessins du R.P.J. Hervier S.M. par J.A. Henry, fabricant" [emphasis ours].

Price: $37,500.00