=Block Books.=--The Mediaeval Block Books were the most important of the early pictorial reproductions from engraved wood blocks. They also may be traced to China, where, as early as the ninth century, they were used for decorative as well as illustrative purposes. They retained their primitive form for a long period after their first introduction to Western civilisation, and it is interesting to note that the blocks, and not the prints, were supplied to the monks,--the scholars of the day,--the impressions being made by them as required. Towards the end of the fourteenth century Dutch merchants, like the Venetians, paid frequent visits to Chinese ports, when they too were impressed with the novelty and utility of pictorial reproduction as practised in the East. At any rate, pictorial sheets or cards, very similar in character to the Chinese playing cards, were published in Holland about that period. They bore pictures of the saints with the titles or legends engraved alongside. The production of such prints was evidently a recognised business during the early part of the fifteenth century, for there are numerous entries in the civic records of Nuremberg concerning the wood engraver "Formschneider" and cardmaker "Kartenmacher." It has been ingenuously suggested that, for convenience, collections of these cards were pasted into books; and the books available being chiefly of a religious character, the idea of illustrating religious matter with such pictures was readily suggested. The next step was the application of block engraving and printing to the production of volumes of a more pretentious character, the most noteworthy of which were _The Apocalypsio sue Historia Sancti Johannis_, the _Biblia Pauperum_, and the _Historia Virginis ex Cantico Canticorum_. In another of these books, the _Speculum Humanae Salvationis_, the titles were not engraved on the plates, but were printed with movable types. This volume was published at Haarlem, and was composed of fifty-eight plates--a very considerable production with the materials then at the disposal of the publishers. =Durer's Influence.=--In 1490 Albert Durer, who possessed a spirited imagination and deep enthusiasm for his work, marked out a distinct era of substantial progress, and impressed the art of wood engraving with that expressive power of delineation which his truly remarkable genius ever manifested. Durer was an artist of somewhat variable characteristics, but the diversity and amplitude of his productions afford conclusive evidences of a remarkable industry and skill. Like other artists of his time, and even of much later periods, he did not engrave his own drawings. He may, of course, have engraved a few blocks, but most, if not all of the wood engravings signed by Durer, were executed by Jerome Rock.