The Case of the Initial Letter

The book analyses attempts by Dickens and other nineteenth-century writers to challenge established ways of using the distinction between upper and lower case letters, in the interests of a wider radicalism. It discusses Dickenss satire - on Shares in Our Mutual Friend, on Paul Dombeys position as the Son of Dombey and Son - alongside the proto-modernist typography of suffragist poet Augusta Webster and the work of Marxs translators transforming German conventions of capitalisation into English under the influence of Dickens and Carlyle. Placing these innovations within the history of the dual alphabet from its invention by Carolingian scribes to its rejection by modernist poets and the Bauhaus printers, the book tracks the dual alphabet through Dickenss manuscripts, corrected proofs, and the prompt copies for his public Readings, highlighting distinct ways in which writing, printing and speech produce meaning. -- .