autography

Autography is the act or practice of writing something by one’s own hand, especially the author’s own handwriting. The term is built from the Greek roots auto- “self” and graphia “writing.” In general use, autography is closely related to autograph and holograph, though the precise sense can vary by field.

In textual scholarship and manuscript studies, autography often refers to documents written entirely by the person named, as opposed to copies or prints produced by others. An autographic manuscript, sometimes called a holograph, is the original text in the author’s handwriting, which may preserve variations or annotations not found in later editions.

Autographs are valued as primary sources in literary, historical, and scholarly work because they preserve the author’s authentic handwriting and the manuscript’s marginalia, corrections, and other idiosyncrasies. In publishing, the term can extend to editions or copies produced from the author’s manuscript, or to signed copies that are collected as memorabilia.

Historically, autography can also appear in broader discussions of signing and inscribing documents by their creators. In some sources, the term is used interchangeably with autograph or holograph, though careful usage distinguishes between the signed, original manuscript and later copies or printed versions.

A less common sense of autography appears in discussions of automatic or subconscious writing, where it is sometimes conflated with automatic writing or psychography; this usage is infrequent and largely separate from the historical and bibliographic meaning.

See also: autograph, holograph, manuscript, handwriting, graphology.