Printed ephemera

Abstract

Ephemera that survive from the eighteenth century suggest a general opening up of printing to ordinary people on an unprecedented scale. With the relaxation of control over the setting up of printing houses in Britain, one sees a gradual spread of printing beyond London and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge to the rest of the country. The innovations such as emphatic typographic display, colour-printing, lithography and steel-engraving, prepared the way for changes in the appearance of ephemera in the early nineteenth century. Among other things, these new approaches to design and production helped to characterize different market sectors: monochrome and often robust letterpress printing catered for routine work; coloured and refined designs for the tastes of a leisured class. This distinction may not have been entirely new, but it was one that must have become increasingly evident from the 1820s.

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