Some books are history disguised as children’s entertainment.
The Animal Alphabet is a vivid, darkly comic ABC book in the Victorian tradition — each letter paired with a verse of cheerfully morbid animal humor, illustrated in bold pen-and-ink by an artist initialing themselves V.G.G. The cover cat in her frilly bonnet pulling a toy horse is pure Edwardian whimsy at its finest.
But the back cover tells the real story. It instructs the child to hold the page to the light to watch the figure “go through the door” — and explains that Mother has called her to take Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup for her “wind colic trouble.” Mrs. Winslow’s, one of the most widely distributed patent medicines in 19th and early 20th century America, was later found to contain morphine and alcohol, and was banned in 1911 — placing this booklet firmly in the pre-ban era.
A child named Lloyd Bowman wrote his name on the back cover in a careful Victorian hand, sometime over a century ago.
Spine shows wear and partial separation; covers and pages show age appropriate to their years. A genuinely rare piece of American patent medicine advertising history.
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