A rare children's alphabet game, with every letter set within a bucolic landscape.

The set, published by Godefroy Engelmann in 1830, was available in both card and book format, with the cards, due to their ephemeral nature, being considerably rarer on the market than the book. A box set of the cards located in the Special Collections at Providence Public Library appear to be a pencil copy (dated 1855), suggesting perhaps that blank sets of similar cards were also offered for sale to allow children or adults to hone their artistic skills.

Although none of the lithographs is signed, they are most likely the work of Emma Eleanora Kendrick (c.1788-1871). The Morgan Library contains 33 of the original drawings (26 including seven alternative designs for C,H,M,O,W,Y,Z). Of the 33 cards, 19 contain the initials E.K. Kendrick was a leading miniature artist, in late Georgian London. In 1831, she was appointed miniature painter to Princess Elisabeth of Hesse-Homburg and William IV. Her main output was miniature portraits of the nobility and gentry. She was a member of the New Water-Colour Society and the Society of British Artists. Between 1811 and 1840 her work was frequently exhibited by the Royal Academy of Arts.

Godefroy Engelman I (1788-1839) was a lithographic printer and publisher, born in Mulhouse. After studying the new printing process of lithography in Munich, he set up 'La Société Lithotypique de Mulhouse', in 1816, and in June the same year he opened a shop in Paris. He improved lithography, particularly by developing lithographic wash in 1819. In 1825, he went into partnership with Jérémie Graf and Pierre Thierry, as 'Société Engelmann et Cie'. In 1826, he founded a sister company in London, 'Société Engelmann, Graf, Coindet et Cie', which was dissolved in 1833. He would later return to Mulhouse and create the company 'Société Engelmann, père et fils'.

Rare. We are only able to trace one example appearing at auction since the war. OCLC records six institutional holdings: Smith College, The Morgan Library, Princeton, North Carolina Chapel Hill, Indiana University, and the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation.