Centuries before 1440 printing is believed to have been attempted in China; presumably about the beginning of the Christian era. It is said that in the year A. D. 175 the text of the Chinese classics was cut into tablets which were erected outside the national university at Peking, and that impressions--probably rubbings--were taken of them. Some of these fac-simile impressions are still in existence, it is asserted. Xylography was also practiced in China long before Europe knew the art. It can be traced as far back as the sixth century, when the founder of the Suy dynasty is said to have had the remains of the Chinese classics engraved on wood, though it was not until the tenth century that printed books became common in China. The authorities of the British Museum also report that Chinese writers give the name of a certain Pi Sheng who, in the eleventh century, invented movable type, and the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts of the same institution possesses a copy of the Wen hsien tung Kao, a Chinese encyclopedia printed in Korea from movable type in A. D. 1337. To the Koreans also is attributed the invention of copper type in the beginning of the 15th century, and the inspection of books bearing the dates of that period seems to show that they used such type, even if they did not invent them. The first authentic European printing produced from individual movable type of which we have any recorded impression, bears the date of A. D. 1454. These documents are two different editions of the same Letters of Indulgence issued in that year by Pope Nicholas V. in behalf of the Kingdom of Cyprus. We do not know, however, whether they were printed from metal or wood type. [Illustration] As to the _exact_ date of the invention of printing from individual movable type in Europe, we know only that it was some time prior to A. D. 1454. Where and by whom the invention came about, a dispute has been waged for more than four hundred years; one of the most hotly contested questions in history. In short, Koelhoff was in part responsible for starting this dispute. He published in his "Cologne Chronicle" a statement by Ulrich Zell, a printer of Mainz in Germany and a contemporary of Gutenberg, that Gutenberg _had improved_, but _not invented_ the art, which he attributes to Coster of Haarlem, in the Netherlands, in the year 1440. Gutenberg stole Coster's type, according to Zell, and printed from them in 1442. Other unrefutable evidence shows that Gutenberg could not have begun printing at Mainz before the end of 1450. In addition to Gutenberg and Coster we also find Waldfoghel of Avignon, in France, and Castaldi of Felte, in Italy, mentioned as claimants of this invention. The value of their respective pretensions has been summed up by one well known authority in the words, "Holland has books, but no documents. France has documents, but no books. Italy has neither books, nor documents, while Germany has both books and documents."