Fountain Pens: History and Design

This is not a book for those who scribble with ball‐point pens. Far from it. This is a work dedicated to calligraphers, graphologists or, to put it plainly, those who use real pens and real ink. Fountain pens in fact. One glance at this copiously illustrated volume will be enough to convince sceptics that the history of fountain pens goes back much further than they might originally have thought. Indeed, the frontispiece is a picture of a young girl sucking a pen: it is labelled “The Poetess of Pompeii” and it is in the National Museum, Naples. Yes, as will...