Crossed letter

{{Short description|Letter containing two sets of writing}}

File:10 16 cross writing 1020.jpg

File:From Caroline Weston to Deborah Weston; Friday, March 3, 1837 p3.jpg

A crossed letter is a manuscript letter which contains two separate sets of writing, one written over the other at right-angles.{{cite web|url=http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~awoodley/crossedletter.html|title=A crossed letter|access-date=2011-03-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110814015601/http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~awoodley/crossedletter.html|archive-date=2011-08-14|url-status=dead}}{{Cite book|title = Arrow of Chaos: Romanticism and Postmodernity|last = Livingston|first = Ira|publisher = University of Minnesota Press|year = 1997|isbn = 0-8166-2795-9|page = 143|chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=ySwihw-VVP4C&pg=PT143|chapter = The Romantic Double-Cross: Keats's Letters}} This was done during the early days of the postal system in the 19th century to save on expensive postage charges, as well as to save paper. This technique is also called cross-hatching{{citation | last=Hassam | first=Andrew | year=1994 | title=Sailing to Australia: shipboard diaries by nineteenth-century British emigrants | publisher=Manchester University Press ND | isbn=0-7190-4546-0 | page=27 }} or cross-writing.{{cite web |url=http://blog.paperblanks.com/2013/03/cross-writing/ |title=Cross-Writing: When People Wrote Across the Page to Save Paper |publisher=Blog.paperblanks.com |date=2013-03-14 |access-date=2018-06-26 |archive-date=2018-06-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180625153955/http://blog.paperblanks.com/2013/03/cross-writing/ |url-status=dead }}{{cite web |url=https://www.lonetester.com/2016/02/cross-writing-what-is-it-and-how-do-you-read-it/ |title=Cross Writing - What Is It and How Do You Read It? | Lonetester HQ |date=9 February 2016 |publisher=Lonetester.com |access-date=2018-06-26 |archive-date=2018-06-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180626163936/https://www.lonetester.com/2016/02/cross-writing-what-is-it-and-how-do-you-read-it/ |url-status=dead }}

Terri Blanchette.

[http://treasuresofasort.com/index.php/2018/06/15/the-writing-trend-we-mercifully-left-behind/ "The Writing Trend We (mercifully) Left Behind"].

2018.

A cross letter is distinct from a palimpsest, as cross-hatched manuscripts were written this way at one sitting or for the same purpose (such as a diary), rather than being re-used later.