It’s day 21 of our Heritage Advent calendar and also the Winter Solstice, to celebrate we’re delving deep into a very beautiful item from our Special Collections. Some of our favourite winter plants can be found in the beautifully illustrated encyclopaedia of trees Sylvan Musings, or, The Spirit of the Woods (1849)by Leeds botanist and…
Author: Leeds Libraries
A Christmas Carol Playbills
Following on from yesterday’s great post about the first publication of A Christmas Carol, today, for day 20 of the Heritage Advent Calendar, we bring you the playbills of the show as it appeared historically in Leeds. These playbills are part of our playbill collection, and available to view online at leodis.net Charles Dicken’s ‘A…
A Christmas Carol and the Ghosts of Christmas
By Rhian Isaac, Senior Librarian for Special Collections A perfect Christmas treat for day 19 is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens which was published on this day, in 1843. The cold, dark winter nights have always invited the sharing of supernatural tales and Christmas has long been associated with ghosts. However, the telling of…
The Infant Prodigy Master Herbert – It’s Panto Season
By Becky Bavill, Library and Digital Assistant For Day 19 we’ve got more Pantomimes for you with another entry from our Playbills collection which can be viewed on the Leodis.net website. At Christmas, many families enjoy seeing a show. On Tuesday 21st and Thursday 23rd December 1830 they could have gone to the Concert Room…
Military Christmas Cards
Day 16 of our Heritage Advent Calendar is brought to you by Rhian Isaac, Senior Librarian for Special Collections. In 1968 Sir Alvary Gascoigne donated to Leeds Libraries, a collection of over 3000 books, pamphlets and periodicalsin memory of his father, Colonel F.R.T. Gascoigne, of Lotherton Hall. The Gascoigne Collection mostly includes items relating to military…
How to Research Christmas
By Antony Ramm, Librarian It’s Day 14 of the Heritage Advent Calendar, and it’s time to look into the history of Christmas. Even Christmas – that eternal day of uniformity – has a history; a history of why people have celebrated Christmas and a history of how people have celebrated Christmas, both changing through time….
Vogue – The Christmas Issue
It’s Day 10 and we really need to start thinking about those Christmas outfits, Jude Ramm, Library & Digital Assistant has been raiding the Art Library closet for something a little bit glam. This Christmas 1958 edition of the ever-glamorous Vogue is billed as the “Young Idea party portfolio” (possible title of my biography?). It…
Victorian Scrapbook
By Jude Ramm, Library and Digital Assistant For day 6 of our Advent Calendar, we’ll turn the Christmas spirit up to eleven with our Victorian Scrapbook. This incredibly beautiful scrapbook was donated to the Art Library in the 1990s. It’s packed full of a variety of Christmas cards, scraps, and cut-outs from the Victorian era…
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