Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Literary annuals enjoyed the peak of their enormous popularity in the 1820s and 1830s, and while some forms of ‘annual’ publishing persist today, their prominence and cultural impact in the later part of the Romantic period are too often overlooked. They were, first of all, luxury items: beautifully bound and presented volumes, which aimed to include original poems and essays by serious as well as popular writers. Produced once a year, they were gift-books aimed at the Christmas market, when high-volume sales would counter high production costs: they were a canny amalgamation of art, commerce, and feeling. Ackermann's Forget Me Not was the first to appear (in 1823), followed by the Literary Souvenir in 1825 (when it sold 6000 copies), but there were many others; the most popular, the Keepsake , began publishing in 1828 (its inaugural volume sold 15 000), and in 1829 boasted contributions from a surprising number of prominent poets, such as Wordsworth, Scott, Coleridge, Southey, and Shelley (posthumously). One of the key innovations of the annuals was the inclusion of numerous high-quality illustrations that took advantage of the possibilities offered by steel engraving. As material objects, they sold themselves on the strength of their ‘embellishments’ – which could refer not just to the excellence of the illustrations, but also to the decorative features of the physical text. ... log in or subscribe to read full text