Creator
Alfred Crowquill
Title
The Pictorial Grammar.
Coverage
London
Publisher
Joseph Rickerby
Date
1842
Description
Alfred Henry Forrester (1804–1872) wrote under the pseudonym Alfred Crowquill. In the year of this book’s publication, his cartoons began appearing in Punch. According to one memoir, Crowquill was “a universal favorite” who set many a table “in a roar with his medley of songs.” He could write, he could draw, and he was an admirable vocalist. This grammar is most notable for its many clever illustrations, including his anthropomorphic conception of verb conjugations—as illustrated in the three photos above and to the right (in Crowquill’s words, “regular, irregular, and defective”).