The ABC Birds tin got me thinking about bird alphabets so I did some poking around. At first glance I came upon this wonderful children's book, The Illustrated Alphabet of Birds, first published in 1851 by Wm. Crosby and H.P. Nichols. I love the title page typography. I also found a version where someone adapted the book and created a nice feather alphabet to accompany it. You can see a few samples above and check out the entire book here. If anyone knows who may have designed the feather letters, I would love to know. The Baldwin Library of Children's Literature in the Department of Special Collection at the University of Florida's Georgre A. Smather Libraries has a complete digital copy available of the original text for viewing here.
Hi, I love your blog! I'm wondering if you know any resources helpful in researching history of illustrated alphabets for children? (books/posters/cards,etc)
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteTo begin, you might try this link for U of Washington Special Collections:
http://content.lib.washington.edu/childrensweb/exhibit.html