Abecedarium

I have a fascination for abecedaria and not just because the last four letters spell my first name. I found this one in an 1800s tract primer from my early reader collection. The abecedarium was a popular format in children’s books from the middle ages through the Victorian period, used to teach the alphabet and moral principles simultaneously. Author Rebecca Reid notes that there may have been a biblical precedent. The 22 stanzas of Psalm 118 in the bible use the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet in order. I think the most well known version is Edward Gorey’s The Eclectic Abecedarium which is based on the primers of the late 18th and early 19th century. A modern alphabet book that looks interesting is The Z Was Zapped by illustrator Chris Van Allsburg.

Tagged as: abecedarium, book pages, early readers