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Article: The Story of A: The Alphabetization of America from The New England Primer to The Scarlet Letter. (Reviews).
- Article from:
- Journal of Social History
- Article date:
- June 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Journal of Social History. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Story of A: The Alphabetization of America from The New England Primer to The Scarlet Letter. By Patricia Grain (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001. x plus 315 pp. $45).
This is a most unusual book: fascinating, original, informative, amusing ... not one's ordinary reading fare. Patricia Crain focuses on the evolution of representations of the letters of the alphabet in books designed for children just beginning to read. She treats printed renderings of the alphabet from the sixteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century, reading successive forms as texts carrying both current and archaic literary and oral allusions. Probing those ...