How Do I Love Thee? 💗💗💗
Happy Valentine's Day from Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Dick Ellescas
I’m writing this as the snow falls outside. It is perfect romantic weather – ideal for cozying up with one’s love next to a fire—the stuff of novels and movies and poems and fantasies.
For Valentine’s Day, I thought I would share a tiny yet perfect Valentine’s book. While I don’t care much for invented holidays—and have never celebrated Valentine’s Day—I do rather adore the aesthetic and colours of today.
Around 1969 the Ohio-based card company American Greetings started an imprint for greeting card books, Sunbeam Library. Small (usually around 4.5” square), hard-backed and fully illustrated, these books were sold at gift and stationary shops as more elaborate expansions on the simple greeting card, usually complete with a place for an inscription on the first page. From humorous to saccharine, Sunbeam books were produced for every possible occasion; several examples, currently for sale on ebay and etsy, can be seen below.
Taking Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee?” (Sonnet 43) as its centerpiece, this petite book captivates through its sumptuous illustrations done by Dick Ellescas. Published towards the end of Sunbeam’s existence in 1974, Ellescas crafts a romantic fantasy using a psychedelic palette and all-over patterning effects. Maidens in period-appropriate 1840s gowns (Browning wrote the sonnet in 1845)—in historically impossible vivid colours—frolic with elegantly dressed beaus against a landscape of trippy shapes, candy-coloured clouds, and abstract trees. Swans, butterflies, dolls, and flowers contribute to a dreamlike, hypnagogic feel.
For years this tiny book has been the fount of endless inspiration for me—something I’ve returned to as the starting point for my wedding invitations and for the design of other work projects.
Last year I interviewed Dick Ellescas for my podcast. I am incredibly behind in editing my backlog of episodes, but maybe publishing this newsletter (and the imminent arrival of my baby) is the kick I need to get his edited. Lots more on Ellescas’ endlessly inspiring work soon.
Below are scans of the full book—I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do. Here’s to love and roses and doves and romance!
