‘Swifte and Secrete Writing’ in Seventeenth-Century England, and Samuel Shelton’s Brachygraphy

Abstract

• In the autumn of 2006 the British acquired S. Shelton's Brachygraphy of 1672, the only copy now known to be extant. This article sets Shelton's invention in the general context of seventeenth-century shorthand and considers its importance in understanding contemporary attitudes to the new fashion of short-writing both then and now.