thumb|upright=1.35|"[[B-A-C-H is beginning and end of all music", signed autograph document by Max Reger (dated 7 May 1912)]]An autograph is a person's own handwriting or signature. The word autograph comes from Ancient Greek (, autós, "self" and , gráphō, "write"), and can mean more specifically:

  • a manuscript written by the author of its content.
  • a celebrity's handwritten signature.

Whether an autograph of a major figure of antiquity survives is disputed: Some scholars, especially the American papyrologist Peter van Minnen, are of the opinion that Papyrus Bingen 45 (33 BC) contains a Greek word written by Cleopatra. The papyrus would thus contain the only surviving autograph of an important figure from antiquity.

More than a millennium later, an autograph of El Cid is known, dated 1098.

Autograph manuscript

"Autograph" can refer to a document transcribed entirely in the handwriting of its author, as opposed to a typeset document or one written by an amanuensis or a copyist. This meaning overlaps that of "holograph".

See also

  • Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence, stone blocks with depicted signatures
  • , specifically a signature made by an agent on behalf of a principal

References

Further reading

  • Collecting Autographs and Manuscripts by Charles Hamilton, Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1961, 269 pages.
  • Autographs and Manuscripts: A Collector's Manual edited by Ed Berkeley, Charles Scribner's Sons Pub., 1978, 565 pages.
  • T.J. Brown's series on Autographs in The Book Collector.
  • (early 20th-century periodical, full view)