⏳ PRINTED ON DEMAND — Please allow 2–3 weeks for delivery

This book is printed one copy at a time when you order it. There is no warehouse shelf of these — your copy goes on the press after you check out. Please allow 2–3 weeks from order to delivery.

About this book

C. A. Fleming's Self-Instructor in Business and Ornamental Penmanship (1906) teaches both halves of the penman's art: the rapid, legible business hand that got a man hired, and the flourished ornamental hand that got him noticed. Written for self-instruction, it is the complete course for the student with no teacher but the book.

The business section drills the muscular-movement writing of the American commercial classroom — speed, legibility, and endurance for the clerk, bookkeeper, and correspondent. The ornamental section takes up shaded script, flourished capitals, and offhand flourishing: the display writing of certificates, presentation pieces, and show work. Fleming builds each hand stroke by stroke, with the patience of a teacher who cannot stand over your shoulder.

In 1906 fine penmanship was still a marketable skill and a mark of education, and this manual preserves the self-taught route into the profession — the drills, exemplars, and standards exactly as the solitary student worked them. The self-instructor format was Fleming's answer to the student who could not afford a writing academy — the full course, sequenced so each lesson prepares the next, with nothing left unexplained.

For students of business and ornamental penmanship, calligraphers, pen-and-ink artists, and collectors of writing manuals. The whole penman's education, 1906, teachable from the book alone.

Details: 6×9" paperback, black and white interior, cream paper.

⚠️ Please read before ordering — about print quality

This is a print-on-demand reprint of a scanned historical document. The pages were scanned from an original 1906 printing, and the print quality of your book reflects the condition of that original scan.

What that means in plain terms: you may see faded text, uneven inking, age spots, show-through from the back of pages, and other imperfections that were in the 1906 original or introduced by the scanning process. These are preserved as-is — they are not printing defects, and they are not something we can fix.

We are not responsible for the condition of the original source material. If you want a pristine modern typeset book, this isn't it. If you want the actual 1906 book with all its character intact, you're in the right place.

Printed on demand by IngramSpark. One copy at a time — no inventory, no waste.