Elton's Pictorial A.B.C. Embellished with 230 engravings, or illustrated nouns.
Elton's Pictorial A.B.C. Embellished with 230 engravings, or illustrated nouns.
Elton's Pictorial A.B.C. Embellished with 230 engravings, or illustrated nouns.
Elton's Pictorial A.B.C. Embellished with 230 engravings, or illustrated nouns.
Elton's Pictorial A.B.C. Embellished with 230 engravings, or illustrated nouns.
Elton's Pictorial A.B.C. Embellished with 230 engravings, or illustrated nouns.
Elton's Pictorial A.B.C. Embellished with 230 engravings, or illustrated nouns.
[juvenile]

Elton's Pictorial A.B.C. Embellished with 230 engravings, or illustrated nouns.



New York and Boston: T. W. Strong, 1848. 98 Nassau St and 64 Cornhill. Engraved wraps and 16 unnumbered pages with two letters represented on each page. About Very Good with a faint tidemark to the upper gutter subsiding toward the inner pages; mild bumping/edgewear and foxing, as expected. With a whipstitched spine repair and “Property of" inscription dated 1854—originally owned by Henrietta Dunn of Lake City, PA (1847-1892), surely one of her first books.

An exceptionally handsome alphabet book published by Thomas Strong. Strong had apprenticed under "Old" Robert Elton (alongside the McLoughlin brothers) and was just a few years into running his own operation when he published this. The 230 engravings form a defacto specimen book and are full of clever examples, like the "zig-zag" drawn as lightning. Its unusual beauty earned it a spot in the modernist designer and children’s game designer Arnold Arnold's 1969 "Pages from Early American Children's Books." A publication with the same title, but fewer pages, is recorded in OCLC (2 copies), but none match this example. An exquisite and rare graphic production.