Jumping past the physicality of words, to their meaning(s), is something, as skilled readers, we automatically and effortlessly do. But is our jumping guided by the shape and sound and sinuosity of the words? Does the way a word is written matter?

Take a look at the words of Jane Austen on a manuscript page.

What do you notice? What subtle meanings might be lost (abstracted away?) in a published book?

A type-faced page offers desirable consistencies and constancies. But for this we may pay a price:

“Handwriting . . . happily accommodates the quirks and inconsistencies of individual expression, taste, and personality, and a range of letter-shapes that grow and diminish in size regardless of rules of upper and lower case. In the print edition, where the print transcription both substitutes for and interprets the handwritten original, we largely take on trust the reliability of that substitution. . . . A print transcription, we take it, will be faithful to the linguistic elements of the text – its words and punctuation. But to shapes? to spatial relations? to the graphic ‘noise’ of dashes of varying length and sub-semiotic marks?”

–> From: Jane Austen’s Fiction Manuscripts Digital Edition