The Art of Writing,: Reduced to a Plain and Easy System on a Plan Entirely New. In Seven Books

Cambridge: Printed for the Author, (1813). Second Edition. 8vo. Stipple-engraved portrait frontispiece and title-page by R. Maverick after Jenkins and Bickham, 10 engraved plates, illustrations of pen strokes throughout. xx, 68, [4] pp. Contemporary half sheep and marbled boards; covers rubbed, with some loss to marbled paper, frontispiece and title stained, small hole to title, occasional toning and staining The second edition, enlarged and improved, of what was, in its first edition of 1791, the first American writing manual."The author of the following work has, since the year 1781, been employed in ten states of the Union, as an instructor in the art of writing. During this period he has seen, with much regret, the want of a proper, natural, and easy method for acquiring an art, so necessary for the gentleman and the man of business" (p. vii).Jenkins (ca. 1755-1822), a schoolmaster and itinerant writing master, "demonstrated that by the dissection of the round hand letters and analysis of their interchangeable parts practically the entire alphabet can be made up of half a dozen principal strokes. The learner drilled on these elementary strokes according to his system, separately and then in combination as letters, words and ultimately sentences, is brought by sure stages to write a neat and legible hand" (Nash, p. 4)PROVENANCE: Pearly Dodge (contemporary signature to flyleaf and inscription to rear blank, "Writing is Good")REFERENCE: see Nash, pp. 4-5