Output details

The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting, and Why it Still Matters

The Missing Ink is a study of the place of handwriting in our lives, both in the present day and over the last two hundred years or so. Research for the book covered evidence for the decline of the handwritten word; the practices of five or so educational practitioners, from the 18th century George Bickham to postwar Italic proponents; the history of the pseudo-science of graphology; the history of the fountain pen and of the cheap postwar ballpoints; the relationship of celebrated figures including Palmerston and Hitler to handwriting; and some material about ink. It was commissioned and conceived of as a popular history. Oral history was explored, interviewing a range of subjects about their relationship with handwriting and their attitude to their own handwriting in the past and the present. The book brought together a quantity of unfamiliar material, and exposed some little-known figures, including Marion Richardson, as well as exploring the role of handwriting in writers where the subject had never received any attention from scholars or readers, such as Dickens and Proust.