ABC of Animals

A is for Antelope, B for the Bee — twenty-six animals and a rhyme apiece, printed on linen in 1913 so a small child could not tear it.

About the Book

1913Published
The Saalfield Publishing CompanyAuthor
26Letters

The Saalfield Publishing Company of Akron, Ohio was one of the largest producers of children's books in America, and printed a great many of them on linen — cloth-backed pages a toddler could chew, crumple and not destroy. This alphabet is one of them, copyright 1913.

It is twenty-six animals from Antelope to Zebra, each with a coloured picture and a rhyming couplet. The rhymes are cheerfully of their time: the antelope is worth hunting, the elephant is fed peanuts at the park, and the lobster “after being boiled, gets as red as can be.”

At about five hundred words it is the shortest book in this collection by a wide margin.

This site reproduces the complete text of the original 1913 edition, digitized page by page from the original printing. The book is in the public domain.

Rights & ReuseThe complete text of ABC of Animals (1913) is in the public domain in the United States — like all works published before 1928 — and is free to read, download, quote, teach from, and reuse. This digital edition (its transcription, restored images, and site design) is © 2026 PhotoOpAI, and any editorial commentary we add is clearly marked as ours; the underlying public-domain text carries no such restriction.