Oblong 8vo, 24pp. Wide but shallow chip to the top edge of the rear wrap, else Very Good with mild expected soil. Completed in entirety by Bessie Biddle, who has a little trouble with capital letters but shows steady improvement. Structured as individual letters bookending short specimens with narrative qualities: Zoe is zealous. Nelson is gone. Youth yearns. And, Weird wizard.

The Spencerian Penmanship Vertical Edition was published in 1896, using many of the same specimen phrases. Marketed as “the graceful lines and symmetrical forms which have distinguished Spencerian writing and made it the accepted American standard of penmanship… applied in an easy and natural way to vertical writing.” The inner covers have illustrations of correct upright posture, including a perspective view of the paper and arm position. The letters are so upright, it nearly seems like an over-correction to the iconic Spencerian slant which had gotten a bad rap. First published in 1896 by the American Book Company, who were the primary issuers of reprints for the earlier Spencerian editions, the vertical edition copybooks are especially scarce.