The artist Mike Wilks set out in the 1980s to depict as many words as possible in twenty-six images corresponding to the alphabet. His four-year painting odyssey resulted in a suite of magnificent compilations, all minutely detailed, masterfully rendered, and slightly surreal. Each image contains hundreds of items all starting with the same letter. The reader need not go crazy, however, trying to name all of the words represented in the images (at last count, 7,825 ). Numbered line drawings accompanied by lists of words serve as keys to the paintings. The images in this book were first published in 1986 in the best-selling The Ultimate Alphabet, and later in The Annotated Ultimate Alphabet, in which keys to the images were included. Now, The Ultimate Alphabet: Complete Edition brings these two volumes together in this deluxe slipcase edition. One volume presents the paintings with introductory text by the artist; the other offers the keyed drawings and alphabetical lists of words.