"According to Cocker": the Progress of Penmanship from the Earliest Times, With Illustrative Examples from "Penna Volans" and Other Old Works on the Subject

Smith, W. Anderson

Alexander Gardner, 1887

Bound in publisher's brown cloth. Corners slightly bumped. Front gutter weakened. 20 x 29 cm.   First edition. Bonacini 1736. Gives a short history of the art of writing and a more specific history of Edward Cocker, the English writing master born in 1631. His book of 1661 is reproduced in facsimile.  8, 36 pages followed by the facsimile plates. The earliest copy book produced in Britain, and so excessively rare that although recorded by Lowndes and Hazlitt they could neither state the whereabouts of a copy or give any collation.  It is printed throughout from type blocks and large ornamental initials with their fantastic figures are well worth examination.