4 ms·
This is only really true for books published during a certain interval when high acid (wood pulp) paper was common. Before the late 1800s paper was typically ma
by wiml 7y ago
This is only really true for books published during a certain interval when high acid (wood pulp) paper was common. Before the late 1800s paper was typically made of other plant fibers ("rag"); by the mid-late 1900s de-acidified wood pulp paper was cheap enough to be common. Many books today still have a small remark in the front matter telling you that it was printed on low-acid paper and will last.
Pulp paper was much cheaper, which is how lurid mass-entertainment paperbacks came to (a) exist at all and (b) be called "pulp fiction".