A Bestiary

A Bestiary, published in 1955, was compiled by Richard Wilbur and illustrated by Alexander Calder. Calder created more than fifty whimsical drawings and Wilbur chose excerpts from classic works of literature--poetry, essays, novels, plays, and stories--to accompany them. The "wire-form" illustrations of animals and mythical creatures are paired with engaging and unexpected quotations, producing juxtapositions such as William Blake on the Sheep, William Shakespeare on the Bee, William Faulkner on the Dog, Ben Franklin on the Eagle, Walt Whitman on the Spider, Henry Thoreau on the Mouse, and Franz Kafka on the Mermaid. Other pairs are more obvious, including Herman Melville on the Whale and Rudyard Kipling on the Ape.