PICTORIAL WEBSTER'S: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities

Webster's Dictionary, now Merriam-Webster's, was the go-to reference volume in America throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th, famed not only for its definitions but also its illustrations. John Carrera has collected 1500 of those illustrations, most of them wood engravings which he has restored himself, and in this fascinating volume he presents them as a cabinet of curiosities, inviting the reader to make stream-of-consciousness connections between the random items on every page. The Bohemian Chatterer is a rather impressively plumed arctic bird known in the UK as a waxwing, appearing here above the Book Scorpion, an insect which usefully eats moths. Other insects pictured on the same page are the Booted Tarsus and the Botfly, while below them is the Borele, the black rhinoceros. This page is not devoted entirely to animal life, though, because in the centre is an old-fashioned Book Press of the type used in earlier days for basic printing. Moving alphabetically through the volume, the Flying Fish, Flying Frog and Flying Squirrel are accompanied by a Flying Buttress, while the entry on different sorts of pipe includes not only the basic smoker's object but a bagpipe, pipe dream, a snake being charmed by piping, and an obelisk. Vishnu, Vulture, Voltameter and Vortex appear in close proximity, while Zodiac, Ziggurat, and Zither are familiar images juxtaposed more puzzlingly with Zaphrentis, Zeuglodon, and Zoanthus. 481pp, bibliography, glossary, an astonishing 1500 illus.