Authors Who Have Really Cool Signatures

I recently saw a Nook cover that had several authors' signatures on it. Some of them were awesome, in some way or another. It led me to wonder which other authors, aside from the ones listed, have or had awesome signatures, which led me to research, which I will now present to you.

Most all of these signatures are on this list for an entirely different reason. All are on the list because I like them.

Also, there are a lot of pictures [20], because that makes it easier for you to judge my assessments and agree with me, so be forewarned.

1. Oscar Wilde



I really like how sloppy this is, like he's simply too busy being an aesthete and a hedonist to sign his name neatly. The 'e' is my favorite part, followed close after by the period. (I also will sometimes put a period after my signature, like my name is a sentence. And, in Oscar Wilde's case, maybe it is.)

2. Joseph Conrad



I saw this signature, and I said : "When I get home, I am going to write a blog post about this signature."
This is simply a gorgeous signature. My favorite parts are the 'C' and the 'd', because they are pieces of orthographic excellence.

3. Lord Byron



Yes, my unnatural obsession with Lord Byron is both baffling and amusing, I know.
Please, look at this signature and then say, "that signature is not awesome." Because you will be lying. Also, now I have five reasons why Lord Byron is awesome.

4. Edgar Allan Poe



Yeah, a master of horror signs his name in seventh-grade-girl cursive.

5. Victor Hugo



Such tiny letters, Mr. Hugo! And such a huge tail on the 'g'! I think I might just find this one a tad comical.

6. Fyodor Dostoevsky



"Oh," you might be saying. "I wasn't aware it was 'make fun of signatures in foreign alphabets time'. Let me go get my hat."
Yeah, it is not that. I know his name is spelled Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский and that Cyrillic cursive is pretty crazy. Take both of those into consideration and just look at the second half of his last name. That is just excellent.

7. Charles Dickens



It's about as easy to read as Hard Times.

8. Jean-Paul Sartre



The best part about this is that you can almost read it. The 'S' is probably the best part. That makes grammatic sense, and is excellent.

9. G. K. Chesterton



I think that the 'G' has a reversed 'K' written on top of it. If not, it has sun rays coming out of it, which is also pretty neat. This signature must have taken time to do, obviously, and a lot of care. It's also aesthetically pleasant.
He also underlined his name, which is always an interesting touch.

10. Aldous Huxley



Here is another signature with a period at the end, also probably written rapidly. I was going to make a fairly obvious joke but I won't. I will mention that I considered it.

11. James Joyce



"Winona," you might have been saying. "You're biased! You've only listed authors you like." While, yes, I, along with basically every other thinking individual, am biased, here is James Joyce's signature. I like that there is no real definition to the letters, just a wave of ink.
Also, imagine receiving a letter filled with the dirtiest things you can imagine, written in that handwriting. [P.S. more Hark, a vagrant]

12. Jack Kerouac



The mere mention of Kerouac in my presence leads to a physical response, regardless of what has been said about him. That is how much I dislike Kerouac. But here he is on my list, because I do like his signature. Unlike On the Road, care went into it.
Also, I didn't know that Jack was a nickname for John. The more you know.

13. Ayn Rand



I am also not a huge fan of Ayn Rand.
But I always find the signatures people who use pseudonyms use to be interesting. Signing someone else's name is hard. I think that's why most of them wind up like this, or this in cursive [check out Mark Twain].

14. Anthony Burgess



This whole thing is actually really very pretty. It is also the signature of a pen name (which I had actually forgotten until I visited Wikipedia on some semi-unrelated mission), so. And by 'so', I mean 'so there, Ayn Rand.'

15. Arthur Koestler



This is almost entirely illegible, which is part of why I like it. The other part is the way he formed the 'A'. I like it.
Also, Arthur Koestler has an honorary knighthood, so that is cool, but I personally would mention that in my signature.

16. Edward Gorey



I love Edward Gorey. I am somewhat obsessed with him, but that is no matter because he is wonderful, and wrote one of my favorite books [The Gashlycrumb Tinies. Yes. One of my favorite books is a picture book. What of it?]. And then we come to this signature, which is excellently formed. My favorite is the 'G'. (It's harder to sort out than the Disney 'D'.)

17. Bram Stoker



This is entirely illegible, not even almost. If I hadn't known it was Bram Stoker's signature from the beginning, I would have been lost.
I feel like I had something else to say, but I don't recall.

18. H. G. Wells



Whatever that thing at the bottom is, I like it and I want twenty.
The initials are pretty cool too.

19. J. R. R. Tolkien



Favorite part: the 'k'. Also, the line underneath.
I just like Tolkien, that might be eighty percent of the reason this is on here. Also he is awesome.

20. Boris Pasternak



I don't know what it is about this signature (probably the line of the 't'), but I think it is elegant.
I also find signatures that are in a different alphabet from the author's native one (such as this signature [or also Nabokov's, if you are interested]) to be interesting.


Second blog post tangentially related to literature, and also the second to mention Lord Byron. Hmm.