Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting

Kitty Burns Florey

Oct 2013 · Melville House

About this ebook

"A witty and readable (and fetchingly illustrated and glossed) excursion through the history of handwriting." —The Wall Street Journal

Let a self-confessed "penmanship nut" take you on a tour of the strange and beautiful world of handwriting. 

Since her Catholic school days learning the Palmer Method, Kitty Burns Florey has been in love with handwriting, and can't imagine a world where schools forego handwriting drills in favor of teaching something called keyboarding. 

In this "winsome mix of memoir and call to arms" (Chicago  Tribune), Florey weaves together the evolution of writing implements and scripts, pen-collecting societies, the golden age of American penmanship, and the growth in popularity of handwriting analysis, and asks the question: Is writing by hand really no longer necessary in today's busy world?

"Charmingly composed and handsomely presented," Script & Scribble traces the history of penmanship to the importance of writing by hand in an increasingly digital age (The Boston Globe).  

About the author

KITTY BURNS FLOREY is the author of Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences. She has also written nine novels—most recently, The Writing Master—and many short stories and essays. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.