Decorated title-page
Routledge's Every Boy's Annual
1885
Embossed and gold-stamped paper
9 1/2 x 6 1/2
[See commentary below]
Other Material from this periodical
Photograph by Siobhan Lam
Text by George P. Landow
Unlike the title-page for the 1865 volume, this one from two decades later emphasizes reading as a proper activity for young men — Routledge was after all selling reading material — for it uses a young man in a scholar's mortarboard as its cental figure, adding readers in each of the four seasons: a boy in a sailboat (autumn) and a standing reader (winter) engage in reading while a boy on his way to play cricket (summer) hands a book to a young fisherman (spring). Outdoor physical activities are represented by associated items that flank the central panel with the title — a gun, cricket bat and balls, oar, anchor, fencing foil, and straw boaters — and symbols of the arts, including brushes, a recorder, and a feather pen, provide the base of the periodical and the boyhood. This idealization of the reader and reading obviously provides a far more varied image of schoolboy activities than the 1865 title-page.
Last modified 20 August 2007