Rejoining after several years. Little time for writing posts. My parents met at the Gregg Publishing Co., where Mom (Astrid Gescheidt/ Astrid Ramsey) wrote original shorthand for The Gregg Writer, etc., and also illustrated several of the literary shorthand books.
I had a used book store for years. If you are looking to buy old books, try searching at AddAll.com http://used.addall.com/ Be cautious about listers using auto repricers, and undetailed condition grades. You can sort on price ascending.
Never heard of cooking the ink. Mom used regular India Ink.
A somewhat obscure Gregg book was called 5,000 Words. Intended for transcribing; emphasis on spelling and word division.
A quite scarce book, which I think was not published by Gregg’s, but quite interesting, was called Artyping. It was based on the old standard typewriter spacing, which would not work with a computer. You could use typewriter characters, sometimes overtyped, to make all sorts of images.
Cheers,