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The History of Altered Books, Examples, and How to Make One

© Suzanne Hill

An altered book is an old manuscript that has been embellished, decorated, painted, torn, or altered in any way to turn it into an art object. Often altered books begin as a comment about the original book, but the theme of the altered book may also be something unrelated.

How to Make an Altered Book

Find an old book at a flea market, garage sale, or library. Tear away or cut parts of pages, glue pages together, or paint, stamp, color, write or draw on the pages with pencils and pastels.

Here are some ideas for altered books:

• Find an old atlas. Map vacations or describe your personal journey.
• Make pop-ups like those in children's picture books.
• Take a mystery novel and plant clues along the way to recreate the plot.
• Write over words to cover them up or highlight words to make them stand out.
• Cut windows out of pages to show glimpses of other pages later in the book.
• Add stitching or beads sewn in a meandering path.

History and Examples of the Altered Book 

A London artist named Tom Phillips created a now-classic example of a beautiful altered book called “A Humument.” His intent was to rework the Victorian novel A Human Document into a personal work of art. One of the most famous pages is, "Be Nice to an Artist in June."

The original altered book is a palimpsest. It was a common practice in medieval times to rub out an earlier piece of writing by means of washing or scraping the manuscript, in order to prepare it for a new text. The motive for making palimpsests seems to have been largely economic. Archimedes’ Palimpsest is a famous example in which the underlying text could still be read.

Here are some modern-day examples of altered books from artist Lisa Vollrath’s website.

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