'Schriftstücke — Autographen aus sieben Jahrhunderten' is a more than two-kilo volume from Gerstenberg Verlag of 2005 with about 290 pages in 25 by 32 cm format, ISBN 3-8067-2939-5, based on the collection of Pedro Correa do Lago. The book presents handwritten samples of famous personalities from seven centuries, from artistically designed scripts to the hastily scribbled note, supplemented by manuscripts, drawings and autograph cards as well as short biographies. Anecdotally illuminated are e.g. Goethe's wine order, Rubens as author of an espionage report to the Spanish king, George Sand's worry about Chopin or Wagner's begging letters. The English original texts are not translated; other languages are, however, supplied in the appendix. For collectors, especially Montblanc collectors, the facsimiles are particularly interesting, since many namesake personalities of the writing instruments are represented, including Peter the Great, Voltaire, the Marquise de Pompadour, Catherine II the Great, Frédéric Chopin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Frederick II the Great, Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway and Greta Garbo. The handwritten sources range from detailed letter and drawing through notes to the address on a letter in Kafka's case, a signed photo with Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner or a signature on a cheque with Charles Dickens.
Related pages on fountainpen.de:
• Montblanc Writers Edition Hemingway (1992): https://www.fountainpen.de/writer-hemingway-en.htm
• Patron of Arts Marquise de Pompadour (2001): https://www.fountainpen.de/patron-pompadour-en.htm