Conditions Governing Use

The Library believes that all or nearly all material in this collection is likely to be in the public domain, free of copyright restrictions. Visit our Permissions and Publishing page for more information about use of Special Collections materials. The library can provide copyright information upon request, but users are responsible for making their own determination about lawful use of collections materials.

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is minimally processed and open for research.

Preferred Citation

MSS 16862, The Illustrated Alphabet, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

This collection was purchased from James Aresenault & Company by the Small Special Collections Library , University of Virginia on September 6, 2024.

Content Description

This collection contains the trial drawings for an illustrated alphabet book by the Reverend George Liddell Johnston . The book, bound in crushed red morocco by C. & C. McLeish sometime in the early twentieth century, contains the inlaid drawings and manuscript pages. The book begins with two calligraphic frontispieces, one titled "The Envelope" with an angel holding a brush and canvas. This image was likely the front panel of an envelope that stored the contents before binding. Then follows three pen and ink title pages with letters in the Victorian grotesque tradition, eight manuscript leaves with limericks for each letter, twenty-six calligraphic leaves of alphabet limericks in pencil and pen, twelve watercolors, and forty-six total drawings. The bulk of the manuscript is the drawings and watercolors that illustrate the alphabet, some referencing the subject of the limericks and others alternative subjects. These are humorous and often satirical images. These include critiques of religious figures like cardinals and the Pope and more everyday situations and people like a quack, a statesman, a Yankee, an older man entranced by a younger woman, and an angry wife, among other characters.  Devils and demons are frequent figures in the illustrations. A number of the drawings that appear here also appear in a privately printed book by the same title. Johnston made a few copies of this book for his friends and family.   

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Caricatures and cartoons
• James Arsenault and Co.
• drawings (visual works)
• grotesques