The 26 letters

One of America's foremost calligraphers here tells the complete and fascinating story of writing characters. In the days before history men scratched upon the walls of their caves animal portraits and startingly lifelike hunting scenes. Later, the Egyptians produced a really systematic means of writing, and their decorative hieroglyphics were in use as long as five thousand years before the birth of Christ. In spite of their various styles of writing—hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic—the Egyptians never really produced a true alphabet. That step, the most important of all, was taken by the…