The History and Technique of Lettering

Rating:
Summary: Some obscure insight to be found here
Review: I'm the current librarian for a calligraphy guild, and stumbled on an older printing of this book as I was getting acquainted with my new duties. Dover Books are unassailable in general: you always get so much for so little. And the subject matter somehow always interests me.

In this book's case, it's the quality of illustrations and coverage of more obscure hands that really stand out. In particular, it's hard to find much information on the Spanish Redondilla and German Kanzlei scripts. This book includes some detail of both, as well as some rather granular taxonomy covering scripts I've never heard of before: French Ronde, Batârde Coulee, Mercantile, and whatnot.

I recommend this book to palaeographers and any calligraphers who occasionally tire of the same old standby scripts, as well as anyone who wants to refine his grasp of alphabetic taxonomy. I personally measure the value of design and calligraphy books by how long they stay relevant. This book is just as useful today as it was fifty years ago. My only complaint is that for some of the scripts, especially the more obscure ones, complete alphabets are not always presented, so don't expect it to serve as an exemplar.