Lost Literacies: Experiments in the Nineteenth Century US Comic Strip is the first full-length study of American comic strips from the period prior to the rise of Sunday newspaper comics. Lost Literacies introduces readers to an ambitious group of artists and editors who were intent on experimenting with the storytelling possibilities of the sequential comic strip, resulting in playful comics whose existence upends prevailing narratives about the evolution of comic strips.  

 

Many of the images in Lost Literacies have not been available to the public for over 150 years. As you view the selection of images from the book, consider the variety of approaches that nineteenth century American comic artists used as they experimented with the then-new medium of the comic strip.