BKAS ESSAY SHORT No. 10 (May 2023)
Serial Fiction and Advertising Peter Robinson (Japan Women's University) Advertising has always been the lifeblood of newspapers. Apart from the income derived from direct sales and subscriptions, a huge portion of their income comes from product advertising in a symbiotic relationship that continues to this day, despite the new digital medium. The importance of this connection can be seen in the layout of newspapers too. Well into the twentieth century, many newspapers had their front and back pages dedicated to advertising, not news headlines and sport which we might expect today. Advertising revenue allowed the newspaper to expand in scope and richness, and played a crucial role in supporting the […]
BKAS ESSAY SHORT (No. 9) May 2023
Advertising Asia-related Books in the Times Literary Supplement Peter Robinson (Japan Women's University There has been considerable research charting he changing relationship between Japan and its ally Britain from the singing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902, to the commencement of hostilities in WWII. These four decades saw, the emergence of the idea of near-equal allies with distinct geopolitical sphere ("two-island empires"), Japans rapid economic and industrial development and increasing military threat which began to be recognised at the Washing to Conference. Internally, Japan had seen whole-sale restructuring of is society after the Meiji restoration, with increasing Western influence and fascination with modernity, best captured by Hisui Sugiura's (1876-1965) posters […]
BKAS ESSAY SHORTS (No. 4)
Trade Advertising Postcards as Business Artefacts David Finkelstein (University of Hull) Introduction If someone were to ask what came to mind when they said the word ‘postcard’, those of a certain age might think of holidays and excursions, and of picture postcards circling lazily around small carousels outside tourist shops and visitor centres, waiting for you to pick out a card with picturesque views of local sights and famous buildings to send to a relative, or of tropical drinks you’d enjoyed the night before and were sure your work colleagues would love to see and feel envious about. You might scribble some quick note on the back in the section […]
BKAS ESSAY SHORTS No. 3 (March 2018)
Manufacturing the Market: Selling the Over-Seas Daily Mail Aiko Watanabe (Waseda University) Introduction In the first half of the twentieth century, the Daily Mail became the world’s first mass circulation daily, widely influencing public opinion and specifically targeting lower-middle and working-class readers. Reflecting its readers’ social world, it also sought to expand their cultural and material horizons, as a sort of slightly more educated friend. It was on the 4 May 1896 that its founder, the irascible Lord Northcliffe, acted upon his astute observation that there was a public appetite for a daily newspaper which was less stuffy than what had hitherto been on offer – an appetite for a […]
BKAS ESSAY SHORTS No. 2 (April 2018)
Preservation of Newspapers: The Vulnerability of Advertising Peter Robinson (Japan Women's University) Newspapers remain a critical source for the study of book advertising. This fact alone justifies consideration of the state of newspaper preservation globally, and reflection on some of the difficulties the researcher may encounter in using such material. In 2001, Nicholson Baker launched his now infamous "assault" on libraries and librarians1 in a contentious, but much-cited attack on what he perceived to be their scandalously cavalier attitude towards the very items they were entrusted to preserve, namely books, periodicals and newspapers. Initially as a shocked observer, but later a leading newspaper activist and preservationist, Baker embraced the mantle […]
BKAS ESSAY SHORTS No. 5 (February 2021)
Book Advertising with a Cause: Publications of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR)* Peter Robinson (Japan Woman’s University) The Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), was founded in 1925 to, “study the Pacific Peoples and their mutual relations”. It represented, as Sean Phillips has argued, “a distinct, formative attempt to consider and collaborate on regional issues” (Phillips, 2018), but its significance and impact has been grossly underestimated by scholars since its closure in 1967. It was the offspring of a two-week programme of events held at Oahu College in Honolulu in July 1925, in which all parties interested in the Pacific were invited to participate, including missionaries, business leaders, and academics. […]
BKAS ESSAY SHORTS No. 6 (March 2021)
Japanese Book Advertising: Tactics, Tropes, and Taboos* Peter Robinson (Japan Women’s University) This BKAS Essay Short is a work in progress, which will be expanded and updated as the research progresses. In the first part, consideration is given to book advertising produced by the Japanese publisher, Hokuseido Press. Founded in 1914, the Kanda-based publisher, in Tokyo’s famous “book street”, was well-known for its English-language publications, yet its company history remains opaque and little researched. Nevertheless, it published a large number of important works about Japan and Japanese culture by a wide range of Western writers and cultural figures, including Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), and the Japanophile Reginald Horace Blyth (1898-1964), famous […]
BKAS ESSAY SHORTS No.1 (March 2018)
(March 2018) Literary Gifts for the SeasonBook Advertising in The Times' Christmas Books Supplement, 1909-1919 [Part I] Peter Robinson (Japan Womenʼs University) Introduction On the 7 December 1909, The Times newspaper issued the first of its ʻSpecial Christmas Gift Books Supplementsʼ (SCBS), a gratis sixteen-page magazine insert to the daily newspaper. Designed as an attractive, richly illustrated supplement printed on glossy paper, it targeted the affluent and discerning readers of The Times, presenting the selected seasonal lists of most major British and American publishers (Fig. 1). The primary function of the supplement, as a prominent editorial apology indicated, was to market books as Christmas gifts: ʻThe Times tenders apologies to […]