Children's Annuals

[callmemadam]

There are some nice pictures on the AbeBooks site today.

AbeBooks: Beautiful Vintage Annuals for Children

I have quite a few annuals like this one:



I doubt very much if I could sell it for the sort of price the Abe dealers ask.
I also have Girl, Girls' Crystal and School Friend annuals, plus a selection by Blackie, Oxford, Warne, Selfridge and other quite old ones. Any favourites? I like some of the Collins' annuals, which have book-length stories from their author stable. Collins were great recyclers. You'll often find annual covers reproduced from colour plates in books. TBH I have too many annuals as I can't resist buying them for a pound. One of my best buys was a lovely copy of The Rose Book for Girls. The 'colour' series was really pretty.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I've just been re- reading some of my Collins Magazine Annuals. The standard of fiction writing is really high, but I'm amazed at the ratio of boy-centric stories to girl-centred ones, I haven't counted, but I think it's about six to one yet Collins Magazine was advertised as for 'boys and girls'. Anyway thank-you for the blog, it's brought me an enormous amount of pleasure since I discovered it (and you!) three years ago

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I have quite a few Elizabethan magazines but just one Collins Magazine Annual. I love the John Verney illustrations. I hadn't thought of the magazine as boy-centric but I'm sure you're right.

Thank you for your kind comments!