Bickham, The Universal Penman.

Bickham, George. The Universal Penman. Or, the Art of Writing. Made Useful To the Gentleman and Scholar, As well as the Man of Business. In all the useful and ornamental Branches of Modern Penmanship; with some necessary Observations on the Excellency of the Pen, and a large Number of select Sentences in Prose and Verse; various forms of Business, relating to Merchandize and Trade; Letters on several Occasions; accurate Specimens of the Oriental Languages, and Alphabets in all the Hands now practis’d. Written with the friendly Assistance of several of the most Eminent Masters, and Engrav’d by Geo. Bickham. The Whole Embelish’d with beautiful Decorations for the Amusement of the Curious. London, Printed for Robert Sayer, Map and Print Seller, at No. 53 in Fleet Street, ND [Engravings dated 1733 to 1741]. Folio [c. 36 x 24 cm]. Blank, unnumberred engraved Frontispiece, Engravings numbered 1 to 119 and 121 to 212. Page 120 is missing. Old black polished calf with elaborate gilt decorations to boards and spine. Dentelles. All edges gilt. Gilt title, author and publishing date (‘London 1733’) on spine. Five raised bands. Marbled end papers. Very good condition. Binding rubbed and bumped with some minor material losses to spine and corners (please review images). Front hinge started to open with front free end paper and leading two blanks partially loose. Remnants of a red morocco Ex Libris on front free end paper. The two blanks in the front of the book and the one at the end are creased and lack a corner each. The entire text black, consisting of 212 Engraved pages in Excellent condition. Mild age darkening and occasional very mild foxing throughout. The occasional small ink stain. A tiny worm hole close to the binding (not affecting any of the actual engravings) visible between pages 180 and 198. Overall an exceptionally well preserved and clean copy of this scarce item.

George Bickham (1684-1758) was an English writing master and engraver. He is best known for his engraving work in The Universal Penman, a collection of writing exemplars which helped to popularize the English Round Hand script in the 18th century.
In 1712, Bickham wrote copy books and business texts as there was a strong link between writing and mathematics (arithmetic and bookkeeping) instruction in the mid 17th century to early 18th century. Bickham collected from 25 London writing masters in 1733 to create and engrave the penmanship samples forming the Universal Penman, which was reported to be the most important and popular of copy texts used by writing masters to instruct their pupils. George Bickham also published The British Monarchy which is a collection of 188 plates of historical notes with 43 plates of views of English and Welsh counties. They are called views rather than maps although they are presented as map-like perspectives with major towns marked. (Wikipedia)