Yellowbacks
This is a virtual version of an exhibition originally mounted in
November 1991, and is part of a project to retrospectively load onto our
home page some of the more important exhibitions we held in the
pre-internet era.
"Yellowbacks" were a publishing phenomenon in the second half of the
19th century. They were popular books, simply bound in boards, with
highly-coloured graphics on the covers. The designs were lithographed
onto paper, pasted over boards. The profusion of Victorian
advertisements, printed inside the book, forms another interesting
feature of the yellowback.
One reason we have chosen to resurrect this particular exhibition is
to complement the next exhibition, planned for October 2004, which will
feature cloth-bound books from the same period. Many of these also
display very colourful designs, from the higher levels of Victorian
publishing.
You may read the text of the catalogue
with a selection of illustrations online.
The cover illustrations are
from items 59,
127,
130,
150. |
