Words Are Made of Letters

I'd never really thought about the alphabet letters other than playing the alphabet game. They seemed so timeless, so part of the cosmos. Yet they weren't always there.
As I have dealt with words in a training for my writers group, It occurred to me those words were composed of letters. And somewhere I had a book about letters.
My mother had a pile of books left in her apartment when she went into long term care. The books moved along with her cats to my house. One of them, The 26 Letters, moved up to the top of my "To Read' list.
Ogg is a typographer at heart. He loves the looks of letters and it shows all the way through the book.
I find it interesting to know only capital letters existed until the Middle Ages. Small letters came about when literacy rates improved and overworked scribes started streamlining their capitals. This was only possible because directions for making paper arrived from China yet the printing press we know about was invented in Europe because paper was abundant and convenient.
Will knowing the history of our alphabet make me a better writer? Probably not. Will knowing this make me appreciate writing more? Yes.
Writing is truly a gift for all people made possible because those 26 letters came into existence. It's nice to know they have a noble pedigree.