page_title: Shakespeare's handwriting
section_title: Editor’s interpretations
hierarchical_section_title: Shakespeare's handwriting / Editor’s interpretations
caption_attribution_description: English: Facsimile of three lines of writing by "Hand D" from the Elizabethan play Sir Thomas More, generally believed by many scholars to be William Shakespeare's handwriting. “but chartered unto them, what would you think/ To be thus used, this is the strangers case/ And this your mountanish inhumanity” Français&#160;: Fac-similé de la pièce Sir Thomas More, considéré par certains spécialistes comme étant écrit par William Shakespeare.
context_page_description: William Shakespeare's handwriting is known from six surviving signatures, all of which appear on legal documents. It is believed by many scholars that the three pages of the handwritten manuscript of the play Sir Thomas More are also in William Shakespeare's handwriting.
context_section_description: The problems editors or compositors can face when transforming the handwritten manuscript into the printed page are demonstrated in the printed edition of Sir Thomas More, edited in 1990 by Gabrieli and Melchiori.  In the following line spoken by More addressing the mob: "This is the strangers’ case, and this your mountanish inhumanity," the reading of the word "mountanish" is supported by references in Twelfth Night and Cymbeline. However, in the handwritten manuscript by Hand D, the "un" in the word has only three strokes, or minims, which makes it look like an "m": as "momtanish". So the word has been read by modern editors as "moritanish" (referring to the inhabitants of Mauritania), or as "momtanish" (a contraction of "Mohamadanish"—referring to the followers of Mohammad), or as "mountainish" (suggesting huge and uncivil), as well as other readings and spellings.
caption: From the play, Sir Thomas More: "but chartered unto them, what would you think to be thus used, this is the strangers case and this your mountanish inhumanity"
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