Synopses & Reviews
When Philip Hensher realized that he didn't know what a close friends handwriting looked like (“bold or crabbed, sloping or upright, italic or rounded, elegant or slapdash”), he felt that something essential was missing from their friendship. It dawned on him that having abandoned pen and paper for keyboards, we have lost one of the ways by which we come to recognize and know another person. People have written by hand for thousands of years — how, Hensher wondered, have they learned this skill, and what part has it played in their lives?
The Missing Ink tells the story of this endangered art. Hensher introduces us to the nineteenth-century handwriting evangelists who traveled across America to convert the masses to the moral worth of copperplate script; he examines the role handwriting plays in the novels of Charles Dickens; he investigates the claims made by the practitioners of graphology that penmanship can reveal personality.
But this is also a celebration of the physical act of writing: the treasured fountain pens, chewable ballpoints, and personal embellishments that we stand to lose. Hensher pays tribute to the warmth and personality of the handwritten love note, postcards sent home, and daily diary entries. With the teaching of handwriting now required in only five states and many expert typists barely able to hold a pen, the future of handwriting is in jeopardy. Or is it? Hugely entertaining, witty, and thought-provoking, The Missing Ink will inspire readers to pick up a pen and write.
Review
"We all communicate, of course (tweet tweet tweet, and yack yack yack on the mobile), but not by pen and ink. Does it matter? I didn't have to read 274 pages to be persuaded that it does, but I am very glad indeed that those pages were written and that I have read them. From this book, the wisest and wittiest argument imaginable for the preservation of handwriting, I have learnt so much, and by it have been so happily entertained, that I am compelled to recommend it to everyone." Diana Athill, The Literary Review
Review
"Tremendous....What a writer he is!" Philip Pullman, author of The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
Synopsis
When Philip Hensher realized that he didn't know what one of his closest friends handwriting looked like, he felt that something essential was missing from their friendship. It dawned on him that, having abandoned fountain pens for keyboards, we have lost one of the ways by which we come to recognize and know another person.The Missing Ink tells the story of this endangered art. Hensher reflects on what handwriting can tell us about personality and personal history: are your own letters neat and controlled or messy and inconsistent? Did you shape your penmanship in worshipful imitation of a popular girl at school, or do you still use the cursive you were initiated into in the second grade? Hensher guides us through Arabic calligraphy and the story of the nineteenth-century handwriting evangelists who traveled across America to convert the masses to the moral worth of copperplate; he pays tribute to the warmth and personality of a handwritten note. With the teaching of handwriting now required in only five states, and many expert typists barely able to hold a pen, the future of handwriting is in jeopardy. Or is it? Just as Lynne Truss inspired a new generation of grammarians and Simon Garfield unveiled the exciting world of typefaces, Philip Hensher will inspire readers to pick up a pen and write. The Missing Ink brings all his considerable knowledge and self-effacing humor to bear on a book that will enlighten and thrill.
About the Author
Philip Hensher is a columnist for The Independent, an arts critic for The Spectator, and one of Grantas Best of Young British Novelists. He has written one collection of short stories and eight novels, including The Mulberry Empire, King of the Badgers, and The Northern Clemency, which was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. He lives in South London and Geneva.