Читать книгу So I Have Thought of You: The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald - Penelope Fitzgerald, Simon Callow - Страница 8

Penelope’s handwriting is clear, graceful and original, her own creation. In her youth it was a simplified italic, each letter carefully formed and rarely joined up to the next. Later, the characters connect more often, though never for a complete word; it gives an artistic impression. It is a pleasure to read and transcribe, because there is never any doubt about what she has written.

Her punctuation has been preserved, with its occasional inconsistencies, or survivals from an earlier era (Mrs: for Mrs), its underlinings for emphasis or titles, its capitals for jokes. The ampersands, which looked so well in the blue ink italic, look like so many snails in black print, therefore they are now and. She wrote thankyou as one word, and I have not altered this.

Individual letters haven’t been cut, save in one or two cases where the fun being had at someone’s expense would never have been intended to be read by that person. She sometimes misspelt names; these have been corrected where possible.

I have kept the correspondences separate, in this way the nuances of the different relationships and the tone of voice may be better appreciated. A rough chronology has been followed in both sections. Penelope rarely included the year in her dates, so internal ordering has been more than usually difficult. It is now as accurate as we can get it, relying on family knowledge and internal evidence.