Programs

Join the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books for a special lecture celebrating the 165th anniversary of Canada’s first picture book, Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon’s “An Illustrated Comic Alphabet”. 

Margo L. Beggs (M.A., Ph.D.) is an independent art historian in Toronto. She obtained her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in 2013, where she taught for nine years. Since 2020, she has been conducting research on nineteenth-century illustrated manuscripts at the Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books. Her book chapter “The ABCs of Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon: new views on her manuscript ‘An Illustrated Comic Alphabet’” was published in Nineteenth-Century Women Illustrators and Cartoonists in 2023 (Manchester University Press). 

Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon was a young British teacher who lived in Sarnia, Ontario, in 1859. She produced the charming handmade book long assumed to be for her students, “An Illustrated Comic Alphabet”. This jewel in the Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books is acclaimed as Canada’s first picture book.

In her talk, Margo will present extensive visual evidence that Howard-Gibbon’s manuscript in addition to being a delightful teaching tool is an ingenious and audacious creation; in it, Howard-Gibbon embedded the very history of British children’s alphabet books, while simultaneously claiming her place in a literary lineage almost entirely dominated by men.

This free event will be held in the auditorium, on the lower level of the Lillian H. Smith Branch.

Doors will open at 5:30 pm and the event will start at 6:30 pm. No registration is required. Everyone is welcome.

Questions about the program? Please email us at osstaff@tpl.ca.

Toronto Public Library is committed to accessibility. If you identify as a person with a disability or as a person who is Deaf, and require an accessibility accommodation to participate in this program, please contact Accessibility Services by email, accessibleservices@tpl.ca, or voicemail, 416-393-7099, to make a request. Please contact us at least three weeks in advance.