Theory of the Spencerian System of Practical Penmanship, in Nine Easy Lessons

by Platt Rogers Spencer

In the mid-1800s, when elegant handwriting was much prized, the Spencerian form of penmanship became a standard. Today in our computer age, a fine, beautiful, and legible handwriting brings a warm personal touch to our correspondence. These books may be used to introduce cursive writing to second or third graders or to improve the handwriting of older students or adults. They may also be used to teach calligraphy or as part of an art class. Individual Spencerian Copybooks 1-5 are also available.

Genres: Reference, Writing, Nonfiction

52 pages, Paperback

Published February 1, 1985

About the author

Platt Rogers Spencer (also Platt R. Spencer) was the originator of Spencerian penmanship, a popular system of cursive handwriting. He was a teacher and active in the business school movement.

Reviews

[Richard]

Once upon a time, I despaired of having decent handwriting, so I bought this and four associated workbooks. But I soon realized that re-learning penmenship would take more time and discipline then I wanted to allocate, so these are lamentably unused and I have to carefully concentrate on my writing if I want it remain legible...

[Dan Gorman]

Fascinating teaching tool from a different era. The Spencerian style of cursive writing is more elaborate than modern cursive. This is quite useful for archivists and historians dealing with primary documents from the 19th century.

[Liralen]

Exactly what it advertises itself to be, and it has no practice paper, just so you're warned, but it has complete and absolute instructions on how to form every letter of the alphabet.

[Susan Molloy]

✒️ Excellent teaching and learning tool that greatly helped me in improving my penmanship.

📕Published — 1880s. In the public domain.
📖 Book version.
🎨 Illustrated.
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[Sara]

I will confess, this is rather dry reading. But of course, it isn't intended for use as entertainment. Although I find the workbooks connected with this instruction booklet to be highly valuable with hours of entertainment.

As an additional value, beyond improving one's handwriting, learning to decipher some of the letters is most helpful when wading through old census records in search of one's ancestors.

[Earl Pike]

Interesting facsimile copy of original book. This particular copy is not great and is cheap feeling. I would suggest the newer version as it has all the copy books along with theory in one book. I bought this seeking to refine my cursive handwriting. This particular version fails to meet that desire. Buy the latest version instead of this.

[Brent]

Very nice exposition and instruction of a style of writing.

[Riku Sayuj]

Read the rules, traced out a few alphabets. Good fun.