Virtually Indestructible: The Ephemeral Life of Victorian Picturebooks for Children

Since their first appearance, in mid-nineteenth century, it became clear that picturebooks for children – particularly when of the cheapest kind – were doomed to a fleeting existence, exposed as they were to be thumbed, torn, passed through siblings and cousins in large Victorian families. Usually bound in paper wrappers, mid-nineteenth century picturebooks soon developed a parallel form of existence: publishers and printers started to print them on linen, to mount them on cloth, even to wax them. In short, to produce publications 'of better and stronger quality' than the books with the same titles and contents printed on plain paper. Advertised as 'indestructible', 'untearable', 'everlasting', they apparently gained an eternal existence: for an extra charge they acted as they would have survived forever. Building on the documentary material emerged from publishers' and printers' accountbooks and archives, cross-referencing it to illustrators' drawings, sketchbooks and ledgers, and comparing all these evidences against surviving stocks of woodblocks, this chapter will identify the creative, technological and commercial processes beneath the production of cheap picturebooks for children in Victorian times. Moreover, the weapons used as a guarantee of their eternal existence will be analysed and the reasons of this lost-before-it-began battle considered.