A Secretary Hand ABC Book
£10.00
New and in print, direct from the publisher – £10.
With thousands of copies sold, this very popular handy guide to “secretary hand” includes illustrations of characters A to Z, common abbreviations, practice words, numbers and some samples and transcripts of wills 16th to 18th centuries, nursery rhymes and a list of words. Written by former chairman Alf Ison, this book is published by Berkshire Family History Society.
867 in stock
Description
Buy direct from us, the publisher. Always in stock! A handy guide to “secretary hand”. It shows each letter shape from A to Z, plus common short forms, practice words and numbers. It also has sample wills from the 16th to 18th centuries, with transcripts, nursery rhymes and a word list. ISBN: 0 9508366 0 5 (ISBN-13: 978 0 9508366 0 7). First published 1982; reprinted 1983, 1985, 1990, 1994, 1996, 2006 and 2018.
This much-loved book covers the letter forms of the ‘Early modern’ age. You may still see these forms in records from the early 19th century. The late Alf Ison, a past chairman of the Society, wrote it. Berkshire Family History Society still publishes it today.
Additional information
| Weight | 150 g |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 21 × 15 cm |
Robynne –
Fabulous book that is useful and compact. When I found this little gem through Berkshire Family History Society I immediately purchased it. Great price and supports the publisher.
Jane Smith –
This little booklet is a joy – it’s an obscure subject and I love it all the more for that! I know how much work goes into these things and I have never come across anywhere I would have found this information before. A very reasonable price. Excellent buy.
Emma Hood –
This very helpful handbook was highly recommended by our palaoegraphy tutor.
I use it often, alongside AI transcriptions.
Between the three methods we quickly develop very good transcripts of Elizabethan documents.
Lucy Catten –
A hugely helpful book which has helped me no end with my studies and with reading old Wills – and at a great price! Delivery was super quick too!
Sara Butler –
The perfect tool for helping graduate students learn the basic of medieval paleography. I bought one for each of my PhD students.
Sue Day –
I joined a course on paleography and this book was recommended to support the learning material. I am pleased to say that it was a great help. It simplified what is otherwise an obscure subject and the amusing graphics reinforced the association between the archaic script and its modern equivalent. This is a perfect introduction to Secretary Hand for the beginner.
Sarah –
It took a while before I was able to find this highly accessible book through the BFHS — and it’s been so helpful for me in transliterating old family and archival documents from Northants. It’s also a fund of useful information in terms of the evolution of cursive writing, providing a link between the manuscript scripts and our more modern copperplate (Spenserian) styles. Excellent resource!
Roger K –
I found this an interesting and useful book. I was looking at wills but I am sure it will be most helpful to anybody trying to decipher old documents. A good resource at a reasonable price.
Malcolm Bolton –
A very helpful addition to my paleography collection. I have recently retired and am trying to go further back with family history than the sixteenth century, which means reading / transcribing wills, indentures and other legal documents. I am also trying to re-learn Latin (got ‘O’ level in 1967!). The difficult part, English or Latin, is trying to work out the abbreviations but I guess that it adds to the fun.
Phoebe Hope Merrick –
I have been enchanted by the book and its imaginative use of Secretary Hand and recommended it to beginners in reading old scripts.
Natalie Mayhew –
Invaluable book for anyone interested in transcribing old Wills or other documents. Containing lots of examples of how specific letters might appear and helping the researcher “crack the code”.
Paul –
Having spent several years looking at 14th & 15th century documents I found the 16th century script difficult to read. This excellent little book is a great help for diving into another century. A great little book.
Simon Pickard –
For someone starting to get to grips with secretary-hand this little booklet is invaluable, not least because it is economical, and the script examples are very clearly laid out. Some other learned tomes can leave you more confused than before you started, whereas this booklet makes it seem possible that you might one day skim through this historical handwriting almost as quickly as through a modern typescript. It has helped me out on almost every occasion I have encountered a ‘problem word’ – and in the few instances it couldn’t help me, there turned out to be some major difficulty in the original. Highly recommended.
Kate –
This little booklet is great, it is easy to use and full of different examples of secretary hand. It’s a great addition in helping to decipher 16th -18th century documents.