One of the most important collections of printed ephemera in the world

The John Johnson Collection: An Archive of Printed Ephemera broadens access to a wide array of rare or unique archival materials documenting various aspects of everyday life in Britain in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, including programmes, playbills and handbills for theatrical and non-theatrical entertainments, broadsides relating to murders and executions, book and journal prospectuses, popular prints, and a wealth of different kinds of printed advertising material. The collection will form an invaluable resource for researchers interested in the histories of consumption, leisure, gender, popular culture, commerce, technology, crime, and a host of other areas. With each item presented as a full colour, high-resolution facsimile, it will also be invaluable for researchers studying the development of printing and visual culture in the age of industrialisation and mass advertising.

Housed in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the John Johnson Collection is widely recognised as one of the most important collections of printed ephemera in the world, and generally regarded as the most significant single collection of ephemera in the UK. It was assembled by John de Monins Johnson (1882–1956), Printer to the University, who was visionary in his preservation of Britain’s vulnerable paper heritage. It contains a high proportion of very rare material which has remained largely unknown to scholars and researchers.

ProQuest’s John Johnson Collection: An Archive of Printed Ephemera offers access to more than 65,000 documents (in excess of 150,000 high-resolution colour images) from the Bodleian collection, providing a unique insight into Britain’s past for researchers working across a broad range of disciplines. It consists of five different categories of material:

• 19th century entertainment material – this material falls into two distinct groups: theatre and the performing arts, and non-theatrical entertainments such as circuses, exhibitions and pleasure gardens. Both categories provide a wealth of insights into 19th century leisure activities, popular and high culture, and the development of different types of entertainment.
• Booktrade material – examples include publishing material (eg prospectuses of books and journals), booksellers’ trade cards, circulating library labels and bookplates. This material will be of interest to anyone studying the history of the publishing industry or reading during this period. Bookplates will prove invaluable to those interested in the provenance of books, or in design history.
• Popular prints – these prints provide an invaluable record of locations and landscapes, architecture, humour and satire, popular tastes and appetites for artistic works, and the trade in prints and scraps.
• Crime, murders and executions – a mixture of broadsides and pamphlets that afford unique insights into the judicial system and its punishments, notably the application of the death penalty and of transportation. The crime material is currently much used in a variety of research areas (eg women and crime, and woodcut iconography).
• Advertising – social and economic historians, historians of popular culture, trades and industries, students of typographic design, and many others will find that these items provide a fascinating insight into the development of consumerism.