Soup of Alphabets, Volume 003

A strange and wonderful time capsule of alphabet books from centuries past, this collection gathers educational verses, nonsensical rhymes, and earnest instructional poems into one delightful mess. Here you'll find earnest A-to-Z guides to fruits, birds, and farm animals alongside Edward Lear's glorious nonsense alphabet and deliberately absurd ABCs designed purely to make children laugh. But the real treasure lies in the historical oddities: an Anti-Slavery Alphabet that taught abolitionist lessons through verse, a roster of Celebrities from an era unrecognizable to us, and an Alphabet of Old Testament history. What emerges is a peculiar portrait of what adults once thought children should learn and how they thought children should play. Perfect for anyone who has ever wondered what our great-great-grandparents considered proper reading material for the young.