The Illustrated London Almanack (ILA) was published annually by The Illustrated London News from 1845 to 1895. Beginning in 1858, each issue offered six seasonally themed colour engravings by the Leighton Brothers, whose prints were considered highly collectible both then and now.
As the name suggests, the ILA focused upon the needs of the London reader. Issues averaged 60-65 pages and included information about London institutions, scientific societies, banks, public officials and government ministers, members of the royal household, postal rates and regulations, taxes and license fees, and even such items as London cab fares. Most issues also included a list of key events, obituaries, laws and Acts of Parliament from the preceding year.
Moving beyond local topics, the ILA also offered lists of world monarchs, historic monarchs, data on the economic status of various British colonies, articles on seasonal customs and folklore, features on seasonal wildlife, and articles on social and recreational events for the year. Earlier issues also offered an astronomy feature, covering 'the night skies over London' for the year to come.
After 1880, the Almanack dropped most of its articles and focused almost entirely on charts, lists and so forth. The quality of its colour prints also began to decline, and in 1888 the magazine switched to duotones. In that year it also switched from being a compendium of useful information to, primarily, a publication of short (and not very good) fiction.
This collection contains The Leighton Brothers' images from volume 14 in 1858 through to volume 43 in 1887. It includes pictures of flowers, fruit, butterflies, birds, swans, cats, farm animals (including pigs, cows, sheep and horses), fish and playful children as well as a few snowy Christmas images.
This is a great collection if you want to delve into the world of Victorian children's illustration.
This download features 176 hi-res images, in jpeg format. The images are all 300dpi and range in size from 3609 pixels wide/tall to 6367 pixels wide/tall.
The pictures are out of copyright and in the public domain, so you are free to use them in whatever way you’d like, including commercial use.
