Exhibitions
19th Century Mass Media: Magazines, Annuals and Scrapbooks
On display until Friday 12 July 2024
This exhibition draws on ongoing academic research on magazines and annuals using material held in our collections, including a nationally significant collection of scrap albums and commonplace books. It has been curated by Dr Emma Liggins, Reader in English and Co-Director of the Long Nineteenth-Century Network at Manchester Metropolitan University, and Prof Brian Maidment, Liverpool John Moores University.
The exhibition explores the visual appeal and innovative use of illustrations and design in nineteenth-century British magazines. The nineteenth century was the first age of mass media. Advances in communication technologies and printing accelerated the production of all forms of print and their global distribution. With their eye-catching images, star contributors and glossy advertisements, magazines were appealing to ever wider audiences.
A range of key popular magazines from the early to late nineteenth century are on display here, all of which attracted diverse readerships. You can also view annuals, pocketbooks and scrapbooks, which remediated traditional magazine content in slightly different forms.
Society of Bookbinders’ 50th Anniversary Exhibition
On display until Friday 12 July 2024
As part of the celebrations for the Society of Bookbinders’ 50th anniversary, this exhibition has been specially curated by Flora Jackson, a postgraduate student at Manchester Met. Flora is studying Contemporary Curating with 19th-century Literature and has selected books from our Book Design Collection that celebrate the 19th-century revival of bookbinding as an art form.
The exhibition includes examples of fine bindings, marbled endpapers, and cover designs by notable illustrators of the time, including Aubrey Beardsley and Walter Crane.
Poetry in Print: new work by MA Publishing students
On display until Friday 12 July 2024
This exhibition presents the work of students studying MA Publishing, alongside examples from our Artists’ Book Collection. Earlier in the year, the students came to Special Collections to research the Artists’ Book Collection as part of a new unit called Poetry in Print, which is led by Brian Sneeden, lecturer in creative writing and publishing in the Department of English.
Students also worked with the Manchester Poetry Library and the Manchester School of Art Bindery to compose, edit and print a pamphlet of poetry applying principles of book design, layout and marketing. A selection of their pamphlets is included in this exhibition along with some of the artists’ books the students looked at during their research into the material history of poetry publishing.
Bringing a group
