Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks

by Keith Houston

Book Overview

A charming and indispensable tour of two thousand years of the written word, Shady Characters weaves a fascinating trail across the parallel histories of language and typography.

Whether investigating the asterisk (*) and dagger (+)--which alternately illuminated and skewered heretical verses of the early Bible--or the at sign (@), which languished in obscurity for centuries until rescued by the Internet, Keith Houston draws on myriad sources to...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393349721
• ISBN13: 9780393349726
• Release Date: October 2014
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.4" x 8.0"