crosswriting?

[Anne Fisher]

Dear SEELANGers,

Referring to the controversy over the editing of Frost's notebooks,  
an article by Megan Marshall in Slate (http://www.slate.com/id/ 
2183903/) discusses the difficulties editors have had with  
deciphering handwriting. I read with sympathy, especially the part  
about having to resort to "counting humps," and was struck by the  
19th c. practice of crosswriting, or turning a page filled with  
handwriting 90 degrees and writing more (an example by Henry James is  
viewable in the article). Was this practice a common Russian  
epistolary habit too?

Thank you,

Annie


____________________

"Reading is inescapably a social act."
- From John Clifford's introduction to a collection of articles  on  
Louise Rosenblatt's seminal Literature as Exploration.
____________________

Anne O. Fisher
Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian
Williams College
Department of German and Russian
995 Main Street, Weston Hall
Williamstown, MA  01267
anne.fisher AT williams.edu
office: 413.597.4723
fax: 413.597.3028
_____________________





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