Browse Items (82 total)

This first Forget Me Not volume introduces a much more intricate steel-plate engraving, Madonna, engraved by John Samuel Agar. This frontispiece sets the tone for Ackermann’s experiment by presenting an image of the Madonna “from a painting by…

The first literary annual that was profoundly successful was published in green paper boards with ornate designs on that cover and its slipcase as well as gild edges on the paper. Published in a duodecimo (small) format, the engravings and literary…

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…

Many engravings in the literary annuals were portraits, bucolic scenes, and these kinds of botanical arrangements. A process of intaglio steel plate engraving was widespread by Rudolph Ackermann after he successfully created a production line in his…

Though the paper size evolves through the life of most literary annuals, the printed space, the printing plate, remains octavo and the page begins to incorporate large margins around the text blocks in 1825 with The Literary Souvenir. This was done…

The neo-classical embellishments adorning early annuals' covers and slipcases remind readers of the three graces: charm, beauty, and literature. Ackermann, with this final marker of the literary annual, focuses on establishing the literary annual in…

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…

One of the alterations popularized by the Literary Souvenir mimicked elements of the “album” genre. The Literary Souvenir included printed facsimiles of authors’ signatures in the last three to six pages of the book. Though the autographs are…

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…

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