Search the Community

I found this magnificent item on the Web Archive and as I know George Bickham's work was rather special in terms of penmanship I thought people might like to have a look at it. Alphabet exemplars are on pages 189 - 190. His other books, The Universal Penman and Penmanship Made Easy, have been reprinted by Dover and are available through Amazon. https://archive.org/details/britishmonarchyo00bick

http://i.imgur.com/lQyI6VY.jpg http://i.imgur.com/fLP1JTF.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Lmytvlt.jpg Snell was born in 1670, died in 1733. This book of his was published in 1712, having been engraved by George Bickham. Bickham commented on Snell's work in the introduction: "the Originals of that BOOK were the Best I ever wrought after: And tho' I have for the most part, kept close to the Proportion of the Letter, yet I think it impossible for any Engraver to Reach that Delicacy and Spirit, that is produced from the Freedom and Boldness of his Hand" Snell was apprenticed as a boy to a writing master of no particular note, but through his tireless study and practise from engraved works of Louis Barbedor (the French writing master) he attained great skill. Joseph Champion was a pupil of Snell. Snell's work was greatly admired at the time. Snell was also an expert accountant, bookkeeper and arithmetician and taught those subjects as well as penmanship. Scans on flickr here: http://tinyurl.com/pp4x4py There is a biography of Snell here: http://tinyurl.com/neln3kc A .zip of these scans is available here: https://mega.co.nz/#!iZ1mCKyA!CntxQlRI8SaIxNj4rZI4QH-F3VBxqBEXnOn8_K5HPUs I especially liked this plate of German Text (Fraktur): http://www.flickr.com/photos/21860485@N06/11383673546/in/set-72157638694372886