Christmas Supplement

Decorating with holly and mistletoe. Fans were also recommended to brighten a sombre wall. This (inset) image is from an article in the Girl's Own Paper in the early 1880s

About this Supplement

Over the next few weeks I shall be posting up pages with a Christmas and New Year holiday theme. They include ones which have been restored from the archive, with interesting additions like the unusual 1860s recipe for a suet-less mincepie. As last year, I hope to continue adding material to these seasonal pages in the run-up to Christmas.

Victorian Christmas Issues & Annuals

The Girl's Own Paper, from which more than one item appears in this Christmas Supplement, had special summer and Christmas issues, both intended to be enjoyed over the holiday, but the weekly issues were also collected and attractively bound as the Girl's Own Annual so that it could be bought as a gift. The gilded image of a girl reading on the Literature Page is taken from the cover of one such volume. Another children's magazine, aimed at a younger age group, Aunt Judy's Magazine, was issued bound twice-yearly as "Christmas" and "May Day" volumes specifically, so readers of the Introduction to the first volume were told, 'to adapt them the better for presents, prizes or birthday gifts'. The marketing of bound periodicals as gifts in this way drew on the earlier example of the illustrated annuals of the 1820 and 30s, though these latter were generally much more expensive than later imitations, and lacked the emphasis on the festive season to be found in the special issues.
Christmas annuals were certainly not limited to the young. Mary Braddon's monthly Belgravia, for example, had a special Christmas annual. For more about her annuals see the feature Victorian Christmas .

To be continued..

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