Oracles from the poets: a fanciful diversion for the drawing-room
Oracles from the Poets is a New York parlour game book of 1854, edited by Caroline Howard Gilman and published by Clark, Austin & Smith for drawing-room amusement, built around fortune-telling by poetic quotation. Its initial ornaments are the pictures here: a fantastical winged-beast capital, a framed T with a cartouche, a square initial set in vine-and-leaf ground, and a Library of Congress 1800 eagle seal, which is a library stamp rather than part of the book. The engraved initials show dense stippled grounds, scrolling vines, and heraldic shields a designer could adapt for monogram or border work.
