Customer Reviews

Calligraphy of the Middle Ages and How to Do It (Lettering, Calligraphy, Typography)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the Dover reprint of "Yours Truly, King Arthur."

In this book, Mr. Drogin provides history and instruction for 4 hands used in the Middle Ages.

Like many books on this subject, the hands are generally simplified, generic versions. There are, however, a number of pictures of actual, historical writings that allow you to see the real thing and compare that to Mr. Drogin's writing.

Each hand is placed into its historic context by presenting the hand in relation to a particular historic persona, giving both a short lesson on the man and the hand he might have written.

All in all, it's a nice book; seems slanted towards the youth market, but is nonetheless an excellent book for adults beginning a study of historic hands, as well.

This is a book I wished had been around when I was a kid. A fun, step-by-step book for older kids showing how calligraphy developed during the Middle Ages. With each script, he introduces you to a person living during that time period, and a little history about what was going on in the world. All of the scripts have very clear pictures and instructions, plus photos of real medieval pages so you can see how the script looked. I'm an adult, but I really enjoyed this book and learned a lot.

A well written, genuninely interesting volume with excellent how to and use instructions. The text alone is worth the price of the book and the time spent reading. I for one learned quite a lot and have been practicing calligraphy for a couple of decades.

FKA, Heidelberg, Germany

This book introduces a few medieval "hands" and is pretty simplistic.
Good for a child who just saw a movie about the period or is studying it in school.

A serious student of the subject needs to spend the extra money and go for the Medieval Calligraphy: Its History and Technique

That one can get pretty dry just as reading material, but the "how-to" pages are very comprehensive and it offers a lot more hands and variations plus the sources for them.

This is a good book to start off with when learning calligraphy. It shows you many script forms from different regions and is an excellent purchase.