David Diringer (1900–1975) was a British linguist, palaeographer and writer. He was the author of several well-known books about writing systems.
On the back dust-jacket flap of Writing (1962), under About the Author, we may read the following brief biography of the author as scholar: "David Diringer, M.A. (Cantab.), D.Litt. (Florence), was educated in Florence, to which University he subsequently returned, first as Lecturer, then as Professor. He has taught [...] in England, on the Continent, in the [US], and elsewhere. He was Secretary at the First International Congress of Etruscan Studies (1928) and at the first three Congresses of Colonial Studies in Italy (1931, 1934, 1937). Since 1948, Dr. Diringer has been Lecturer in Semitic Epigraphy at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of several books, including The Early Hebrew Inscriptions (1934) [and] The Alphabet in the History of Civilization (1937), and of more than 200 contributions to learned journals. Dr. Diringer is the founder and director of the Alphabet Museum at Cambridge."
Bibliography
- The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind; ISBN 81-215-0748-0
- History of the Alphabet, 1977; ISBN 0-905418-12-3
- The Book Before Printing: Ancient, Medieval and Oriental. New York: Dover Publications. 1982. ISBN 0-486-24243-9.
- The Alphabet, ISBN 0-09-067642-4
- The Illuminated Book; ISBN 0-571-08077-4
- Writing [Its Origins and Early History], 1962. New York: Praeger (Volume 25 in the series, Ancient Peoples and Places)
- The Story of the Aleph Beth, 1958
- The Hand-produced Book. New York: Philosophical Library, 1953.