Special Collections and Digital Initiatives
The latest oddity to be added to the Auraria Library Digitial Collections is Histoire de France: par l'Image et l'Observation directe, a comic-form history of France published in 1923. This beautiful example of early comic art for educational purposes was illustrated by Ferdinand Raffin (1870-1948), a French artist who worked primarily in children's literature and magazines like Le chat noir and Le semaine du Suzette.
The first 32 pages are in color, while the last four, covering the late 19th century to 1922, are black and white, but are themselves ripe for hand-coloring (hint! hint!). The book covers the history of France from the time of the Druids, to the life and death of Jeanne d'Arc, the storming of the Bastille, and ends with a survey of France's fantastic achievements in locomotion and engineering!
Bonne lecture!
