Letter W

The last alphabet. English artist and book illustrator Mike Wilks (b. 1947) became famous for his invented and drawn book "The Ultimate Alphabet" (1986), a book that has become a world bestseller. It is a collection of 26 paintings, each of which is a collection of objects whose names begin with a specific letter of the alphabet. This book differs from the usual alphabet, firstly, that it contains rare words, and secondly, a complex painting technique. In 1986, when this book was first published, a game (a kind of competition) began that ended in 1988 with a prize of £ 10,000 to the winner. Objects are in complex relationships with each other, each letter is represented several times: in Braille, Morse code, semaphore language, sign language, and in traditional printed form.

Wilkes claims that the book contains images of 7,777 words (from 30 for the letter X to 1229 for the letter S), and the same painted object can be described by more than one word starting with the same letter (for example, witch ( witch) and woman (woman) .On the other hand, the same word could relate more,
than one object (for example, a tripod leg and a human leg).
An additional small book was published for the participants of the competition, containing a list of 12,000 words: 7,777 words depicted in the pictures, and an additional 4223 words that were not in the pictures. Contestants had to name all the words drawn, and they received one point for each
correct word, but lost 2 points for each incorrect word. The winner was to be the one with the most points. Participants sent their options by mail, the game ended on April 1, 1988.


Following the completion of the competition, Wilkes published The Last Alphabet with Answers, in which the drawings were numbered and accompanied by drawings, links and explanations.

In June 2010, The Last Alphabet was released for the iPad.