Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Visual Materials
Image of a page of calligraphy and penmanship examples featuring an angel with herald trumpet and laurel wreath above and a winged dragon below an alphabet in square text script.
priJLC_EDU_003836
Visual Materials
Image of a page of calligraphy and penmanship examples featuring an eagle surrounded by the alphabet in Italian style script.
priJLC_EDU_003833
Image not available
Rare Books
Child's humorous alphabet book by G.F. Godfrey. Each page is devoted to one letter of the alphabet, with W,X, and Y sharing a page. Each letter is accompanied by words, phrases, and illustrations. An Oct. 7, 1882 review in The Critic (v. 2, no. 46, p. 270) notes that although readers of all ages will be "vastly amused," the book is "unfortunately...marred by a touch of vulgarity."
610394
Visual Materials
Image of a chart of the single- and double-handed alphabet in sign language as used in the United States in the 19th century with accompanying text; bust-length portraits of the Abbe de L'Epee and Miss Laura Bridgeman at top left and right; eye-level view of the "Institution for the Deaf and Dumb" on the east side of the Hudson River in New York at center.
priJLC_EDU_001930
Image not available
Rare Books
"This volume covers ten centuries of pictorial and ornamental alphabets and initials, over 2,000 decorative letters in black-and-white line cuts. It contains a wealth of copyright-free materials and ideas for contemporary artists. The artistry of alphabetic ornamentation and printing is included here: biblical scenes, knights, martyrdoms, angels, devils, sensually robust women, fleshy children, gargoyles, birds, lambs, fishes, snakes, serpents, narrative cartoons, scenes of play and war, myths and legends, complicated and convoluted designs, floral beauty, modern geometrics, all woven and designed around letters of the alphabet ... The illustrations are arranged in chronological order beginning with an example from a tenth-century German illuminated Bible ... The book concludes with twentieth-century examples"--
608486
Image not available
Manuscripts
A letter written by a child named Milton in Lowell, Massachusetts, to someone named Olive, possibly a playmate or relative. The first page of the letter contains twenty small hieroglyphic drawings combined with individual letters to create words or phrases, also known as rebus puzzles. The author talks about his penmanship, a previous letter that was damaged, and material his parents are making for a fair.
mssHM 84496