Tag Archives: writing
Making Your Mark: When Ink was Made at Home, pt 2
Last week, we looked at making basic black ink the sort Jane Austen probably use. But black can be dull and boring, right? Where colored inks a thing then? They absolutely were! So let’s take a look at how colored inks might have been made.
Continue reading →Making Your Mark: When Ink was Made at Home, pt 1
Today’s pens combine pen and ink into a convenient vessel, ready for instant use. In Austen’s day, pen and ink were separate entities, and is was often home made.
Continue reading →When Paper was a Luxury
Today, paper is quite literally something that grows on trees. It is abundant, disposable, and cheap, quite the opposite of the situation during Jane Austen’s day when paper was something of a luxury good This, and the cost of postage, explains why letters of Austen’s era were cross-written, sometimes three different times. A writer would write a page full, turn the page 90 degrees and write again, and then if quite long-winded, turn it 45 … Continue reading →
Pennmanship and The art of writing
Today, when pennmanship is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, and we type notes into our phones rather than write them by hand, we give little thought to handwriting.
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