Browse Items (42 total)

The Orientalist for 1841, a continuation of The Oriental Annual, continued the tradition of stamped leather boards with this detail of wrapping and stamping the board edges but eschewed the gild paper edges (or perhaps the edges were cut for…

In 350 pages of this volume, only 14 pages were dedicated to Indian authors (both poetry and prose). Despite the bombastic and colonial nationalism apparent in the opening essay, "The Literati of British India," the editor David Lester Richardson,…

This literary annual specifically employed the practice of ekphrastic poetical renderings: the engraving was provided to the poet to create a poem focused on the image's contents. With the larger size, Fisher's and L.E.L. usher in a new kind of…

Contining in the tradition of this ekphrastic practice, the 1833 volume of Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap-Book includes the rare engraving of England at home interspersed between engravings and poems about British colonial holdings. Compare the scene in…

The first page of the accompanying poem to the "Liverpool" engraving.

As a study of the natural habit, this savannah scene highlights the Indian Rhinoceros (instead of the double-horned African Rhinoceros). To see the intricacy of steel plate engravings and witness the artistry of an engraving, click on the image…

Before The Bengal Annual and The Oriental Annual became popular, Rudolph Ackermann was already engaging in a colonial voyerism through both the engravings and literature offered in this originating literary annual title. This engraving accompanies a…

Printed on India paper and tipped (glued) onto the opening page, this frontispiece engraving (drawn on stone and printed using lithography instead of steel plate engraving methods) opens the poetry, prose, and sheet music included in this luxuriously…

L.E.L.'s ekphrastic poetic rendering of the "Delhi" engraving is followed by a historical note from the author to contextualize this poem. This is an unusual practice in literary annuals and one that provides insight into the author's research and…

Shoberl and Ackermann continue including engravings and stories in concert with the publication of Bengal Annual through 1830, as is seen with this engraving and the accompanying first-person non-fiction prose sketch of Calcutta (July 1828) by famed…