The word autographe entered the French language in the sixteenth century, from the Greek autographos, 'written in one's own hand', and was first opposed to the copy: the autograph manuscript is that of the author, the apograph manuscript that of a copyist. The collecting of autographs arose in the nineteenth century — the collections of Villenave and Bérard, the Isographie des hommes célèbres (3 volumes, 1828-1830, with a supplement in 1843), which reproduced handwriting in facsimile, the first public sales of the 1820s and the Charavay catalogues from the 1830s onwards, then the journal L'Amateur d'autographes in 1862 — and developed a vocabulary still used by booksellers today: A.L.S., autograph letter signed; A.L., autograph letter unsigned; L.S., letter signed only; D.S., document signed; A.M.S., autograph manuscript signed; A.P.C.S., autograph postcard signed.
To describe an autograph is to state its nature, its author, its recipient, its date and place, its format and number of pages ('2 pp., octavo'), its medium and condition, and then its content, which determines its value: a letter from Delacroix on his painting, a letter from the Duchesse de Berry to Chateaubriand, a manuscript by Marie Laurencin. Authentication relies on comparing the handwriting and signature with verified examples, on the consistency of the paper, ink and dates, on provenance and, often, on the publication of the text in an edited correspondence.
The pitfalls are numerous: the facsimile-printed signature, the letter dictated and merely signed, the period copy in a secretary's hand, the forged letter 'after the original' produced by famous forgers such as Vrain-Lucas. The word 'autographe' taken to mean 'signature' perpetuates the confusion: an autograph of Victor Hugo is a piece written in his own hand, not merely his name at the foot of a page. The linked pages of this glossary detail each abbreviation.
