The Bookseller.com

30th August 2008

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Bodleian publishes postcards series

14.05.08 Alison Flood

The Bodleian Library has delved into its archives to create a new book series drawn from a collection of postcards. The Postcards from . . . series kicks off with Postcards from the Trenches, a collection of images portraying everyday life in the First World War battlefields. One image shows a group of men receiving communion before going into battle; another shows Tommies “at home in the German trenches”.

The book is published this week as an ￡8.99 hardback, alongside Postcards from the Russian Revolution, which chronicles the period between 1905 (when Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich was murdered) and the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. Postcards include satirical sketches of Russia’s ­rulers, royalist and revolutionary propa­ganda, and pictures of ordinary people who took to the streets.

The books come from the collection of John Fraser, who bought his first card aged 12, 60 years ago. Each will feature 50 postcards, with an image from the front on the right-hand page, and the verso on the facing left-hand page, along with an explanatory caption.

The Bodleian Library will follow up in November with Postcards from Checkpoint Charlie: Images of the Berlin Wall and Postcards from Political Icons: Leaders of the Twentieth Century, with more books to follow if the first four titles are successful.

Book libraries Alison Flood Bodleian