In the summer of 1995, while poking around his grandmother’s stone farmhouse, John M. Carrera discovered a tattered 1898 Webster’s International Dictionary under his grandfather’s favorite reading chair. The loose pages revealed an eighty-page section devoted entirely to the illustrations of the dictionary: a stunning array of odd and wonderful elements printed by category. The fantastic variety of subjects was matched only by the detail and variety of engraving techniques.
“That fall I contacted the Merriam-Webster Company and discovered that the engravings still existed,” says Carrera. “I found out that they had been given to Yale University. This book is the culmination of a long odyssey to put the engravings back into print and make a book designed to educate, inspire, and entertain. It’s a record of all the wonderful natural discoveries and innovations of the time of the Industrial Revolution.”
(view the other pic embedded here)
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