Alexandre Nikolayevich Benois (1870—1960) was a graphic artist, painter, stage designer, publisher, writer, and one of the creators of modern book image. He also represented Russian modernist style.

1870 — Born in Petersburg to the family of architect N. Benois.
1888 — Participated in the creation of a multi-volume monograph ‘The History of World Art’; authored the 19th volume ‘The History of Russian Art of the 19th Century’.
1890s — Lived in Paris and St. Petersburg; served as an art consultant for Princess N. Tenisheva in Paris.
1898—1899 — Participated in the creation of artists and writers association, ‘World of Art’.
1903 — Illustrated the publication of Pushkin’s poem ‘The Bronze Horseman’ by I. Knebel publishing house.
1910s — Designed the stage for the Moscow Art Theatre; worked with V. Nemirovich-Danchenko and K. Stanislavsky.
1922 — Emigrated to France.

Launched in St. Petersburg, ‘The ABC’ was completed in Finland in summer, at a dacha on the Gorki estate. Many years later, Alexandre Nikolaevich would remember this place fondly, ‘perfectly pure air, aroma of pines and fir trees, transparency of lake waters and tender melancholy of lemon and yellow dawns’. Here, away from the bustle of the city, Benois could work on the ‘The ABC’ in peace.

The process of working on the book can be traced thanks to the preserved album with sketches (now stored in the State Russian Museum). For each letter, the artist used a separate page, decorating it with elegantly executed designs on fairy-tale subjects. One day, reflecting on children’s books, Benois said that he would like to express ‘an authentic passion, fun, real, non-imaginary feelings, the sun, the forest, flowers, dreams of something distant and dangerous, a courageous and heroic spirit, pursuit of heroism, and beautiful pride’.

We can find it all on the sparkling with fantasy and fun pages of ‘The ABC in Pictures’. Initially, the Moscow publishing house of Joseph Nikolayevich Knebel was going to release the book. However, prudent and practical Knebel proposed to mass-produce ‘The ABC’ using a cheap printing design at a price of 25, 50 and 75 kopecks. Benois refused. He turned to the best Russian state printing house — Expedition of the Preparation of State Papers that had previously published fairy tales illustrated by I. Bilibin and V. Vasnetsov; at that time, ‘The Captain’s Daughter’ illustrated by Benois was in the works at that printing house. In October 1904, ‘The ABC’ got clearance from censors, and six months later, in mid-August - early September 1905, it went on sale at a price of 3 roubles. At that time, Benois was in Paris, where he received the author’s copies. The artist was dissatisfied with the book and complained to his friends about the errors made by the printing house. The readers’ reactions to the release of ‘The ABC’ were mixed: some critics accused the book of being pretentious, while M. V. Dobuzhinsky called it ‘wonderful’.