In this reflective autobiography, Rosemary Sassoon, a leading expert on handwriting and typography, looks back on her long and varied career, paying special attention to her unorthodox progression through a variety of fields. She details the route that took her from design to the educational and medical aspects of handwriting problems, then on to research and a PhD, and finally to working in the area of legibility in type design. In telling the story of an unusual and unusually successful life, Sassoon takes up a number of philosophical questions about what it is that comes together to form our characters, and what role chance and coincidence play in our lives.

In Marion Richardson: Her Life and Contribution to Handwriting, Rosemary Sassoon looks at Richardson’s life and work through the artist and educator’s own writings as well as letters and personal recollections from those who knew and worked with her. The driving force behind a momentous shift in the way art is taught to children, Richardson is perhaps best known for her groundbreaking contribution to penmanship, devising two schemes based on her observations of the natural movements of young children’s hands. The result of extensive original archival research, this book includes many illustrations that depict Richardson’s inventive approach.