I made a trip to my favorite antiquarian book seller in Maine this week and scooped up a few old paper things, this early penmanship notebook, the work of a Prudence Wells of Shelburne, Massachusetts among them. (And I believe I've placed her, born in 1799, in Shelburne, Franklin, MA, married to a Thomas Nims in 1825, and living until to the age of 90 in Greenfield, MA.) Based on that, and its content, I believe this notebook dates to the late 1810s/early 1820s, with the majority of pages devoted to one word each, and progressing from A to Z, Amsterdam to Zimmerman, and then a final handful of pages devoted to poems, having by then perfected her hand! As I've said before, I just never get tired of these, each their own things, specific to their period in form and content--and yet always resonating anew in the present moment; here whole pages of words including "Lamentation", "Immensity" and "Omnipotent" feeling like very pointed poems.
8" x 6", 20 leaves, all filled front and back. One page of penmanship for each letter of the alphabet followed by a number of pages of poems. Very good condition, black ink, written with a fine point but very clearly readable all the way through. No cover.
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