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Gift books, literary annuals or a keepsake were 19th-century books, often lavishly decorated, which collected essays, short fiction, and poetry. They were primarily published in the autumn, in time for the holiday season and were intended to be given away rather than read by the purchaser.〔(【引用サイトリンク】work=The Cambridge History Of English And American Literature chapter 20 )〕 They were often printed with the date of the coming new year, but copyrighted with the actual year of publication.〔 (page 201)〕 ==History== Gift books first appeared in England in the 1820s. They were modelled after the long-established literary almanacs published in France and Germany such as the ''Almanach des Muses'' (1765–1833) and Schiller's ''Musen-Almanach'' (1796–1800), but lacked some of the critical prestige of their Continental counterparts.〔Paula R. Feldman's introduction to a re-edition of ''The Keepsake for 1829.'' Broadview Press, 2006.〕 The first known example is Rudolph Ackermann's ''Forget Me Not'', subtitled ''a Christmas and New Year’s Present for 1823'', published in November 1822. It was decoratively bound and came in a slipcase. It was successful, and by 1832 there were sixty-three different annual gift books being published in England. In 1826, The ''Atlantic Souvenir'' was the first American annual published.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Special Collections at FSU )〕 Many gift books were among the first periodicals to pay contributors and editors regularly. This was a draw to many writers, many of whom tailored their work to suit the readers of these types of publications.〔Baker, Thomas N. ''Sentiment and Celebrity: Nathaniel Parker Willis and the Trials of Literary Fame''. New York, Oxford University Press, 2001: 30. ISBN 0-19-512073-6〕 Some of the more important annuals of the time were the ''Opal'', ''Talisman'', the ''Magnolia'', the ''Gift'', the ''Liberty Bell'' (an abolitionist work) and the ''Token''. The era of the gift book did not outlast the 19th century;〔 in England most ceased publication before 1860.〔"(Special Collections and Archives )" at the University of Liverpool. Retrieved 18 August 2009.〕 The ''Illustrated London News'' parodies of 1842 (vol. 1, p. 521) focussed their attacks on four popular annuals: ''Friendship's Offerings'', ''The Book of Beauty'', ''Forget-Me-Not'' and ''The Keepsake'', and mimicked the poetry of these books, inverting the sentiment and twisting the illustrations. ("My pretty blue-bell, I'm going to tell..." instead of "My pretty blue-bell, I'll never tell...") The ''American Book of Beauty'' had contributed to the death of the annual, by including a story of prison torture followed by an etching of a well-dressed woman holding a lap dog. They published this book several times, sometimes with the etchings in different orders or including additional William Henry Mote etchings. Almost all contained steel engravings, a new technology around 1820 which allowed mass production, and of which the expense was offset by the potential for resale and reuse. Watercolor became popular in the 1830s, and the black-and-white etchings allowed people of ordinary skill to color in and display these book plates, which gave more legs to the fad. In 1844 there was an article referring to it as imbecilic mania, and finally an "Obituary for the Annual" appeared in the ''Art Journal'' of 1857. The new cheaper illustration techniques of the 1860s could not produce the same illustrations (usually well dressed women, with long dresses with sharp facial details). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gift book」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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