Aurelia Plath and Shorthand's Evolution

The Gregg Shorthand Manual Simplified, second edition (1955) arrived in the mail today, and will be used to sharpen my shorthand transcription skills before I visit the Sylvia Plath archives at the University of Indiana. Aurelia Plath made shorthand and longhand annotations on her famous daughter’s letters and books. Although Plath scholars are many and avid, no scholar has ever transcribed the shorthand annotations. That is up to me and I accept the challenge.

The version of Gregg shorthand Aurelia learned depends on when she learned it, and that is not yet known. The first Gregg shorthand textbook, a pamphlet titled Light Line Phonography: The Phonetic Handwriting (1888) was published in England by John Robert Gregg in an edition of 500 copies, and in the U.S. in 1898 as a book, Gregg’s Shorthand Manual. Succeeding editions presented refinements—the 1929 edition is the most lauded—but the 1949 edition had a new title: Gregg Shorthand Manual Simplified. “Simplified” emphasized speed and accurate transcription. All earlier versions of Gregg shorthand are called “pre-Simplified.” The 1949 version would have appeared during Aurelia Plath's business-school teaching career, when she was 43.

I was taught from the eighth edition, called the Diamond Jubilee Series (1963-1977), edited to “make shorthand easier to learn.” Even so it wasn’t easy to learn: in high school I studied it for two years.

The Gregg shorthand versions Aurelia learned or taught await discovery. But last autumn in Sylvia’s archives I saw and read Aurelia’s annotations (they are of textbook quality) and think that they will be of interest when transcribed.