Excuse this ghastly handwriting
When letter writers become self-conscious
For fifteen long years I’ve been sifting through the letters of others, and there’s one thing that pops up so often that it deserves mention: almost all letter writers, whether they’re literary giants or everyday mortals, have at some point felt it necessary to mention, and sometimes apologise for, their less-than-perfect handwriting—as if an unspoken standard hasn’t been met, or their “scrawl” might somehow diminish the weight of their words. Naturally, I’ve decided to collate some examples, but as you read them, bear in mind that these represent just a tiny fraction of the ones I’ve come across. And just think, in a world where handwritten letters are becoming rarer, anxious admissions like these might one day vanish altogether, ultimately replaced by impersonal fonts that tell us next to nothing about the person who chose them.1
Can you read my handwriting? I am writing like a pig.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Letter to Franz Overbeck
24th March 1883
—Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche
How nice that my handwriting is bad; I wrote “one” but it looks like “me”! It makes me self-centered!
Lucia Berlin
Letter to Kenward Elmslie
20th October 1996
—Love, Loosha: The Letters of Lucia Berlin and Kenward Elmslie
PS My handwriting is very wobbly, because the ship is shivering like someone with influenza!
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother
Letter to Queen Mary
8th May 1939
—Counting One’s Blessings: The Selected Letters of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother
We had a darts match against the Gymkhana ‘A’ Team in this house—it only finished ½ an hour ago, & a great deal of liquor was consumed by all concerned. You see the result in my handwriting for which many apologies, but the alternative is that I wait until I’m sober & miss the bloody mail & you’ll probably think I’ve been eaten by a rhinoceros or a white ant or something equally dangerous.
Roald Dahl
Letter to his mother
16th April 1939
—Love from Boy: Roald Dahl's Letters to His Mother
I swear to God this is the last of this long and doleful screed. It will be a chore to read. My handwriting—never any bargain—changes at different hours of the day.
John Steinbeck
Letter to Elaine Scott
June 1949
—Steinbeck: A Life in Letters
I’m so glad to get your letter—but you must forgive if I send in return a scrawl traced by a hand shaking with fatigue, & guided by a brain wobbling with imbecility.
Edith Wharton
Letter to Bernard Berenson
30th September 1914
—The Letters of Edith Wharton
Do you think my handwriting is that of a child of 10? But then I am so tired, so palpitating, so affectionate and, to put the lid on it, adorable, that it don’t matter how I write.
Virginia Woolf
Letter to Clive Bell
20th March 1922
—The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Vol 2
P.S.—I thought I had the prize for the WORST HANDWRITING IN THE WORLD—but you win.
Margaret Atwood
Letter to Al Purdy
16th September 1964
—Yours, Al: The Collected Letters of Al Purdy
If my handwriting looks a bit odd, it’s partly because I fell down some steps about a fortnight ago & sprained both wrists. All very silly, & no reason—not running for a bus, or full of drink—but now I can’t ‘make my bed’ (though I can lie on it) or even put on my socks, or not without many pangs. I was really fortunate not to fracture things, or break glasses, or so on.
Philip Larkin
Letter to Judy Egerton
3rd November 1974
—Selected Letters of Philip Larkin, 1940-1985
Isn’t my handwriting queer? I lost my old one, typing for years; and this one showed up last winter. Odd!
Louise Bogan
Letter to William Maxwell
26th June 1946
—What the Woman Lived: Selected Letters of Louise Bogan
I trust you find my handwriting as bad as yr own. I ain’t strong enough to hit a key tonight. Excelsior.
Flannery O’Connor
Letter to “A”
26th March 1957
—The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor
The appearance of my handwriting must be excused by the fact that two days ago I cut my right thumb very severely, filled a small bucket with my blood, and am now treating the thumb according to natural methods—no plaster or bandage, as a result of which the process of healing is 10 times as slow but 100 times more effective: no inflammation, no swelling, a veritable feast for the eye.
Franz Kafka
Letter to Felice Bauer
16th May 1914
—Franz Kafka: Letters to Felice
Sorry to scrawl so—I never write long-hand, and I’m almost illiterate.
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Letter to Maxwell Perkins
7th March 1933
—Max and Marjorie: The Correspondence Between Maxwell E.Perkins and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
I’ve had to turn to the typewriter because the letter I’ve written has such a neurotic handwriting that I can’t even read it.
Peggy Ramsay
Letter to David Hare
5th March 1974
—Peggy to her Playwrights: The Letters of Margaret Ramsay, Play Agent
Excuse this ghastly handwriting but I’m a bit nervous today. I’m beginning a very ambitious novel called “The Demon Lover” which will probably take a year2.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Letter to Maxwell Perkins
18th September 1919
—F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters
I am writing this on the typewriter so that you will be able to read it. My handwriting is getting worse all the time; at the moment it is practically undecipherable.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Letter to Sister Antonia & Sister Hélène
24th September 1929
—Into the World’s Great Heart: Selected Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay
Support Letters of Note…
This intro wasn’t meant to end so gloomily. It just happened. I also realise this particular newsletter would have been far more effective had I written it by hand and posted it to you.
The Demon Lover was soon abandoned. Fitzgerald biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli later said of it: “Nothing is known about its plot.”
Folks might like to know of the existence of The Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society: https://thehandwrittenletterappreciationsociety.org/ which exists purely to encourage people to handwrite letters.
I feel better now.