A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, journaling, or other writing, drawing, or scrapbooking and more.

The earliest form of notebook was the wax tablet, which was used as a reusable and portable writing surface in classical antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages.

As paper became more readily available in European countries from the 11th century onwards, wax tablets gradually fell out of use, although they remained relatively common in England, which did not possess a commercially successful paper mill until the late 16th century.

While paper was cheaper than wax, its cost was sufficiently high to ensure the popularity of erasable notebooks, made of specially-treated paper that could be wiped clean and used again. These were commonly known as table-books, and are frequently referenced in Renaissance literature, most famously in Shakespeare's Hamlet:

"My tables,—meet it is I set it down, That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain."

Despite the apparent ubiquity of such table-books in Shakespeare's time, very few examples have survived, and little is known about their exact nature, use, or history of production. The earliest extant edition, bound together with a printed almanac, was made in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1527.

By the end of this decade, table-books were being imported into England, and they were being printed in London from the 1570s.

At this time, however, it appears that the concept of an erasable notebook was still something of a novelty to the British public, as the printed instructions included with some books were headed: