Another New Year is coming, Christmas is closing on our doorstep. The world in turbulence, the economy is crashing, natural disasters everywhere ... so many bad news and so little good ones. But we shall keep our hope of a better world alive and I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

Lyman Frank Baum is an American author, famous for his The Wonderful Wizard of Oz series, one of the most well known children's book in the world . The Army Alphabet was first published by Geo. M. Hill in 1900. This title and its companion The Navy Alphabet were issued to coincide with Chicago's hosting the 34th Annual Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic in August 1900. This clever military review in doggerel is shown from a little boy's perspective. Some letters challenged Baum's poetic invention, such as "X represents the Xalatan." Although he supported the Spanish American War in 1898, Frank Baum later became a pacifist.. The illustrations was done by Harry Kennedy and text is hand-lettered by Charles Costello.

The Tales of Hoffmann is a well known opera by Jacques Offenbach, unfortunately Offenbach did not live to see his opera performed, he died just over four months before its premiere. Here is one of the rare illustrated Tales of Hoffmann. The illustrations was done by Mario Laboccetta, Italian designer, futurist artist-painter. He gained a bit of fame in Paris for his illustrations in fashion magazines during the "Crazy Years" (20s). Les Contes d'Hoffmann, illustrated by Mario Laboccetta, was first published in 1932 by L'Édition d'Art Henri Piazza, Paris.

Dorothy P. Lathrop is one of the most influential and important illustrators of children's books in the thirties and forties. She illustrated the Newbery Medal winning  Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field in 1930, arguably her most famous work and it is still in print today.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (186 –1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draftsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the decadent and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an oeuvre of provocative images of modern life.

Throughout his career, which spanned less than 20 years, Toulouse-Lautrec created 737 canvases, 275 watercolors, 363 prints and posters, 5,084 drawings, some ceramic and stained glass work, and an unknown number of lost works. Toulouse-Lautrec is known along with Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Gaugin as one of the greatest painters of the Post-Impressionist period.

Howard Pyle was one of the great early American illustrator. In 1900, he founded his own school of art and illustration called the Howard Pyle School of Illustration Art, also know as the "Brandywine School" of illustration. Many of his students are among the greatest American illustrators, including N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Frank Schoonover.

With a bit of time, I've re-scanned the book A House of Pomegranates illustrated by Jessie M. King.  A House of Pomegranates is a collection of fairy tales, written by Oscar Wilde, that was published as a second collection for The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1892). Wilde said once that this collection was "intended neither for the British child nor the British public."

Erte, real name is Romain de Tirtoff, born in St. Petersburg, Russia. He moved to Paris to pursue a career as a designer and worked for a time sketching for Paul Poiret and designing opera and theater costumes. Erte is most famous for his elegant fashion designs which capture the art deco period in which he worked. His delicate figures and sophisticated, glamorous designs are instantly recognizable, and his ideas and art influence fashion into the 21st century.