In 1897 William Nicholson and his brother-in-law, James Pryde, combined forces to form The Beggerstaff Brothers. Nicholson cut a series of wood blocks of 'An Illustrated Alphabet' for publisher William Heinemann. Originally these were issued in a very small run of woodcuts, hand coloured by Nicholson's wife at the kitchen table. Their popularity led to the images being transferred to lithographic stones and printed as 'quatorzains' (a lithographic technique) in a bound volume by Heinemann. The original hand coloured woodcuts printed directly from the woodblocks are very scarce and some images were not reproduced in full in the bound volume. This collection of four woodcuts are amongst the earliest offerings of now familiar images, prior to the publication by Heinemann. The inking of each is strong and even, and the hand colouring in watercolour is quite distinct from the published image. These are scarce and have the distinction and integrity of having been produced by The Beggerstaff Brothers from the original blocks.