Browse Items (42 total)

The Oriental Annual continued the tradition of including engravings and writings about far-flung locales around the British Empire that piqued the curiosity of their middle class readers. This type of voyeurism, though, fostered the continued idea…

In order to attract their readers, publishers paid exorbitant prices to “borrow” original paintings and have them rendered as engravings. A single portrait required anywhere between twenty and two hundred guineas for borrowing fees and up to two…

For this first volume, Ackermann used only one engraver, John Samuel Agar, to create both the steel plate frontispiece engraving and the monthly wood-cut engravings of Twelve Months that are the focus of this first volume. Though Rudolph Ackermann's…

By 1840 in England, the number of literary annuals fell to thirty-five with a slow, general decline each year until 1857 when only three British titles were published. Before their demise, the British publishers attempted gimmicks in publishing to…

Both Friendship’s Offering and the Forget Me Not were originally published with paper boards and were perhaps perceived as more ephemeral than the Keepsake, published with silk-covered boards, or The Literary Souvenir, published in leather or cloth…

Very quickly in the life of the British literary annuals, the 300-pages of 10-12 engravings and 30-40 literary contributions became more and more ornate, like this embossed inscription plate. When present, the dedication page replicates supplications…

Though this set of title pages and frontispiece (somewhat marred by water damage to the pages), offer different views of a mosque and a temple more to marvel at the architecture instead of the natural surroundings or a focus on the people. To see the…

The first British literary annuals were originally published in small octavo and duodecimo sizes with glazed paper boards and a slipcase usually bearing the same image

The opening pages of the first Forget Me Not, as with all literary annuals in England and America, invite reader participation and encourage gift-giving with a presentation plate and tissue guard. The engraving itself includes the year and title of…

Originally published in paper boards from 1823-26, the annuals were bound in a variety of styles; eventually the bindings moved to the ever popular leather. Alaric Watts’ Literary Souvenir was one of the few to be delivered to the bookseller already…