Animal alphabet books hum with imagination and wit. Animals, birds, fish, insects, even dinosaurs, decorate and transform letters, or might be created from the letters themselves. Sometimes, the animals come in disguise, or hide, only to pop out and surprise you. Perhaps the alphabet’s pictographic origin explains this animal obsession. The letter ‘A’ comes from the word ‘aleph’ meaning cow or ox, and its early letterform resembled an ox’s head and horns. [Links in the captions will take you to more images and details.]
E.N. Ellis, An Alphabet (1985).* The letters Q and X always present challenges in finding suitably named animals. Ellis’s solution with X is as elegant as her engraving.
C.B. Falls, ABC Book (1923). Almost a quarter century after William Nicholson’s successful A Square Book of Animals, Falls applied his successful poster designing to this larger format.
Leslie Haines, Animal Abecedary: A One-of-a-Kind Alphabet Book (2018).* A strong revival of the surrealist collage.
Enid Marx, Marco’s Animal Alphabet (2000). Bringing together the talents of the engraver (Enid “Marco” Marx), “pochoir-ist” (Peter Allen) and letterpress printer (Graham Moss), this large-scale portfolio treads the boundary of fine press and artist’s book.
[Alphabet Leporello of dressed animals] (Paris, c. 1851) Opie T 407. The Books On Books Collection’s concentration on alphabet books falls primarily over the 20th and 21st centuries and extends the pre-1950s focus of the Opie Collection of children’s books. Together, the two collections offer a broad and deep source for exploring the links between artists’ books and children’s alphabet books as well as studying topics such as children’s literature and literacy.
Christiane Pieper & Anushka Ravishankar, Alphabets Are Amazing Animals (2003).* Alliteration is almost as frequent a feature of alphabet books as animal association.
Alan James Robinson and Suzanne Moore, A Fowl Alphabet (1986).* A superb collaboration between an engraver (Robinson) and calligrapher (Moore).
John Norris Wood, An Alphabet of Toads & Frogs (2002).* Sometimes past art abroad catches up with present American fauna of political celebrity.
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Marie Angel, An Animated Alphabet (1996); Angel’s Alphabet (1986) of exotic surprises in a more traditional alphabet book; and more surprises behind tabs in a leporello. Marie Angel’s Exotic Alphabet (1992).
Leonard Baskin, Hosie’s Alphabet (1972). Son Hosie and father Leonard unite their rites of passage: learning the alphabet and creating an artist’s alphabet book.
Michele Durkson Clise, Animal Alphabet: Folding Screen (1992) wrongfoots the reader with animal images that do not align with the expected alphabet letter or the letters of the first words in the leporello’s rhyming couplets. If the image does at least align with a word in the couplet (e.g., “whale”), that word’s first letter does not align with the alphabet letter expected for that panel.
Brian D. Cohen & Holiday Eames, The Bird Book (2013). Cohen’s engravings are finer in detail than most.
In Abstract Alphabet: A Book of Animals (2001), Paul Cox turns the alphabet on its evolutionary head. The letter A started out with the pictogram of an ox’s head and then developed into the abstract shape we associate with the sound /a/. Here, we have to work back from 26 different abstract shapes (each assigned to a letter on a fold-out flap) to figure out the name of the animal being spelled. The reversal conjures up the challenge that letters, objects and phonics present to children, and in their resemblance to a Hans Arp painting, the shapes challenge the reader to a renewed connection with art.
Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich, Bembo’s Zoo: An Animal ABC Book (2000). Where Sharon Forss and Sarah Werner use several type faces to shape their animals, De Vicq de Cumptich restricts his to Bembo.
David L. Kulhavy & Charles D. Jones, A Forest Insect Alphabet (2013). Extraordinary woodcuts by Jones, worth comparing with Cohen, Grieshaber, Marx and Robinson.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Animalphabet (1996). Curators’ puns and wordplay with favorites from the Met.
William Nicholson, A Square Book of Animals (1900). Nicholson followed his successful An Alphabet with this book, but it was Scolar Press in 1979 that redesigned and re-originated it in this well-chosen leporello format.
Carton Moore Park, An Alphabet of Animals (1899). Unusual for its grisaille technique and restriction of color to the cloth cover.
Rose Sanderson, An Unusual Animal Alphabet (2021)
Carol Schwarztott, ABC of Birds (2020). A curious mix of traditions: Cornell box, stamp art, leporello, miniature and pocket pages.
Borje Svensson and James Diaz, Animals (1982). Alphabet block meets tunnel book.
Sharon Werner & Sharon Forss, Alphabeasties (2009). Twenty-six lessons in typography and typographic artistry.
Christopher Wormell, An Alphabet of Animals (1990). A brilliant revival and extension of the lettering and pictorial style found in Fall and Nicholson.
Books On Books 