Seeing all these posts about Shakespeare's religion has brought me out of the woodwork, because Shakespeare is one of my special interests, and I'm gathering information for what could one day be a book. My focus is on what can be learned about the man and his life through his handwriting, which in fact is why I joined this list more than a year ago. The "accepted" view is that the only examples of Shakespeare's handwriting that we have are six signatures, on various legal documents. However, there are about 3 pages from a play manuscript which are strongly suspected of being in his hand as well. I (and a few others) believe that that are other documents in Shakespeare's hand right under our noses, but to date no one has done a great job of building that case. I had intended to make a few contacts via this list to bounce some ideas off now and then and to offer opinions on letters and legal documents I'd like to compare against other samples. If this sounds like something that appeals to you, if you're highly skilled at reading the Secretary hand, if you've got a good eye for comparing samples and you've got some experience building a case for or against the idea that two pieces are by the same hand, drop a line sometime and we may correspond on a few points now and then! Thanks, Al Cunniff Baltimore, Maryland USA -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .
Hi Al I'm wondering if there may be a few wills or inventories around that he might have either witnessed or written as he was literate and quite a few of his neighbours wouldn't have been. He may have been the 'scribe' of some of the documents written at the time he was living in that particular place. A trawl through these documents in the days before he was famous may turn up trumps in identifying his handwriting. You can often tell by the signature of the witnesses which one of them wrote the main body of the document. Audrey ----- Original Message ----- From: <acunniff@abn-corp.com> To: <OLD-ENGLISH-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 11:43 AM Subject: [OEL] Shakespeare's handwriting > Seeing all these posts about Shakespeare's religion has brought me > out of the woodwork, because Shakespeare is one of my special > interests, and I'm gathering information for what could one day be a > book. My focus is on what can be learned about the man and his life > through his handwriting, which in fact is why I joined this list more than > a year ago. > > The "accepted" view is that the only examples of Shakespeare's > handwriting that we have are six signatures, on various legal > documents. However, there are about 3 pages from a play manuscript > which are strongly suspected of being in his hand as well. > > I (and a few others) believe that that are other documents in > Shakespeare's hand right under our noses, but to date no one has > done a great job of building that case. I had intended to make a few > contacts via this list to bounce some ideas off now and then and to > offer opinions on letters and legal documents I'd like to compare > against other samples. > > If this sounds like something that appeals to you, if you're highly skilled > at reading the Secretary hand, if you've got a good eye for comparing > samples and you've got some experience building a case for or > against the idea that two pieces are by the same hand, drop a line > sometime and we may correspond on a few points now and then! > > Thanks, > Al Cunniff > Baltimore, Maryland > USA > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > mail2web - Check your email from the web at > http://mail2web.com/ . > > > > > ==== OLD-ENGLISH Mailing List ==== > OLD-ENGLISH Web Page > http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~oel/ > >