THE POP-UP BOOK CAN TRACE ITS' ROOTS BACK TO THE 13TH CENTURY - ANIMATED, MAGICAL PAPER BOOKS.
T he name “pop-up book” is probably universally understood to be a paper book with pages that have 3d / interactive elements (like flaps or tabs), more specifically having parts of the pages which “come to life” or “pop up” as the pages are turned.
There are records of this type of book as far back as the 13th Century. At that time the books were often mystical in nature, containing what were known as Volvelles (rotating discs that pointed to a word or symbol) that were supposed to create codes or even tell the future.
1 00 years later, scholars used this type of book to illustrate & explain human anatomy. One in particular by a scholar from Dresden in Germany detailed the workings of a human hand and eye using 5 or 6 layers.
Not much changed in terms of development over the following centuries, but by around 1800 – 1820 pop-up books aimed at children started a comeback. These “lift the flap” books were published by Stacey Grinaldi, although Dean & Son, London, is reputed to be the “original” of children's pop-up books, successfully marketing many titles between the 1850s and 1900.
Originally understood to be have been trademarked in America by the New York Blue Ribbon Books Inc., this type of book conceals amazing 3 dimensional structures & mechanisms between the 2 dimensional covers.
Two world wars interrupted the following years but a revival began around 1974 by Waldorf Hunt (an American) who created a company called Intervisual Communications Inc. They raised the quality of the books of the time to feature several mechanisms on each page. This new type of pop-up was a great success and effectively created and captured a “new market”.
With ever more techniques and a solid market established for the modern pop-up, 'Sailing Ships' produced in 1984 was one of the best examples of a truly sophisticated pop-up book aimed at the adult reader that became a prize-winning classic and is regularly reprinted.