The Eclectic Abecedarium
So if you’re a regular patron of the Butterflies & Aliens Library — and if you are, we love you and thank you for your support! And if you’re not… yet… well welcome aboard! — you probably know that I have a particular fondness for alphabet books and also miniature books, a particularly fun sub-set of books as objects.
Well imagine my delight at discovering that Bruce Peel Special Collections at the University of Alberta has as part of its collection a miniature first edition of The Eclectic Abecedarium by Edward Gorey.
Published in 1983 by Anne & David Bromer, this edition of The Eclectic Abecedarium is part of a limited run of 400 copies, with just the first 100 being hand-coloured, and for which the Peel is steward of copy 57, signed by the author. And to give full credit where credit is due, and often missed, this edition was printed by Darrell Hyder, initially bound by Barbara Blumenthal, and then given a custom binding and slipcase designed by Michael Wilcox.
At just 28 x 33 mm in size, but ornate as a much larger volume, this edition of The Eclectic Abecedarium is a delight to behold…
We actually have a version of The Eclectic Abecedarium here at the Butterflies & Aliens Library North, as part of Edward Gorey’s 1983 anthology titled Amphigorey Also. But even though the size of the individual “pages” are identical, the effect of reading this work reproduced across two large pages instead of the 61 individual pages in the miniature edition — or perhaps more accurately put, the original size edition — is to seem like these are merely thumbnails of a ‘full-size’ book that might be properly found elsewhere…
But I suppose being “merely thumbnails of a ‘full-size’ book that might be properly found elsewhere” is actually what this is?
And as a result of now having seen the original miniature, my future readings of The Eclectic Abecedarium within Amphigorey Also will henceforth be exactly that… a reminder of the original.
Which also gives me an idea for my next altered book project… making my own original size miniature edition of The Eclectic Abecedarium, to go alongside Gorey’s other classic alphabet book, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, as part of my alphabetica collection. Pardon me as I go find my X-Acto knife…
Happy Reading!
— Winston
