I love a book with good endnotes. I get a novel and a history lesson all in one.
In Chapter 5 of Cranford, two characters spend the evening reviewing some old family letters. They come across "crossing." The endnote explained: "To save paper and postage (charged by weight), letters were written down the page; then turned sideways and written across at right angles." (pg. 242)
I read that several times. It seemed to say they wrote on top of their own writing, but that seemed ridiculous. How could it be legible? So, after a minute of internet research I found the following:
There are apparently letters of Henry James, Jane Austen, and Charles Darwin that are written in this style. Here are a few examples of Jane Austen's letters:
Here's one I found where it appears they wrote vertically, horizontally, and diagonally:
In Chapter 5 of Cranford, two characters spend the evening reviewing some old family letters. They come across "crossing." The endnote explained: "To save paper and postage (charged by weight), letters were written down the page; then turned sideways and written across at right angles." (pg. 242)
I read that several times. It seemed to say they wrote on top of their own writing, but that seemed ridiculous. How could it be legible? So, after a minute of internet research I found the following:
There are apparently letters of Henry James, Jane Austen, and Charles Darwin that are written in this style. Here are a few examples of Jane Austen's letters:
Here's one I found where it appears they wrote vertically, horizontally, and diagonally:
Though the price of paper and postage made it fairly common, books of etiquette rules cautioned against it, saying it communicated to the letter receiver they weren't worth the extra paper.
How could it be legible? The brain is an amazing thing. It adjusts.
And all that time in elementary school we spent making up secret codes, we could have been just crosshatching our notes.
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