Illustration of animal sounds from the 1705 English edition of John Comenius‘ Orbis Sensualium Pictus.
Featured on PDR in the essay In the Image of God: John Comenius and the First Children’s Picture Book
In the mid 17th-century John Comenius published what many consider to be the first picture book dedicated to the education of young children, Orbis Sensualium Pictus - or The World of Things Obvious to the Senses drawn in Pictures, as it was rendered in English. Charles McNamara explores how, contrary to Comenius' assertions, the book can be seen to be as much about the invisible world as the visible.