A page from Queery Leary Nonsense (1911)

The letter C in Queery Leary Nonsense.

When looking through the texts in MASC, the book, Queery Leary Nonsense (1911) caught my attention.

This book was interesting as the content was handwritten and drawn. The style of this book was fun and I enjoyed the aesthetics. One thing that really stood out to me when I flipped through the pages was the letter C.

The baseline for this letter acts more as a descender height, This can be seen with the letter j in jumped. The c almost touches this letter. The end of the C is not a barb, in my opinion, it is more like a tail that you would find on a Q.

Queery Leary Nonsense (1911)

Queery Leary Nonsense (1911)

When flipping through the book, I found the letter C used in a variety of ways. This was especially prominent within the bird section.

When looking at the Crimson and Orange bird pages, there are two very different letter C’s displayed. This interests me as they are both capital letters. The top barb is more intense on the bottom one which makes sense as the letter stays balanced. Another thing that is strikingly different is the counter space. The top C, used most often, is wide open and this allows the next few letters to sit inside of it.

A similarity that these letters have is the stress line, it is not exactly the same though. However, It does look like the stress line is rotated.

In general, I love looking at handwriting and I think a lot about letter formation when writing my own works. With these vocabulary terms, it is a lot easier to explain what I am seeing to others.