Bibliography

The history of American penmanship starts with the publication of the very first 100 % American copybook : John Jenkins’s Art of writing, in 1791… Before this publication, European copybooks had been the only references used by writing teachers in the USA. Jenkins’s publication was different from most of the copybooks availaible, because it did not just […]

In the second half of the 18th century, we have seen that the composition of copybooks had started to change into more severe and practical publications. Most copybooks contained lines of writing for the pupil to copy again and again, flourishes and ornamentation had become very marginal – when they were present at all… This […]

We left the 17th century with the works of English Writing Masters like John Ayres, who had been seduced by the clean and simple characteristics of the French and Dutch “round hands”, based on the oval shape and derived from the Italian Bastard seen in Materot’s copybook of 1608. These round hands were very practical : […]

We have seen that in the 16th century, Italian writing masters had been at the forefront of the innovation in the world of copy-books. In each european country, scribes still used a variety of national hands designed for specific purposes : they had to use different styles based on the kind of document they were writing. […]

  The invention of printing in the middle of the 15th century had a dramatic impact on the way books were produced and consumed, and – by association – on the role that scribes played in society. While printing quickly became the prevalent method by which books were produced, the documents used in business, legal […]