June 06, 2007
Calligraphy at MIT
A couple of months ago Scott Carney had a fascinating post entitled The Last Calligraphers about an Urdu newspaper in Chennai, India whose master is still handwritten. I'm not aware of any comparable English language newspaper, but I do own a beautiful textbook of classical number theory published by the MIT Press in 1977 that, like The Musulman, is in the author's calligraphic hand. It is Joe Roberts' Elementary Number Theory: A Problem-Oriented Approach. Here is a sample page.
It is a pleasant read on number theory, too. Regrettably, it is out of print.
[Addendum: Reader Chloe Lewis has informed me that Joe Roberts teaches at Reed College, where there was a great deal of calligraphic activity, described here.]
[Addendum: Reader Chris Lance points out that the books of Alfred Wainwright on the Lakeland Fells are in the author's calligraphy and also contain the author's fine illustrations. An example can be found here. Amazon.com also has excerpts.]
Posted by Bill Poser at June 6, 2007 02:20 AM