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    Pears’ Annual [#29, Christmas 1919] (A. & F. Pears, Ltd.; London, 2/-, 24+xvi, 11" x 15¾" tabloid, cover by Frank Reynolds)
    Details supplied by Mike Ashley.
    • 1 · Christmas 1969: The Kind of World on Which I Should Like It to Dawn · W. L. George · ar; amongst other desires, WLG hopes all Britain’s major trades will be nationalized; he hopes all men and women can vote at age 21 and that children can choose representatives to vote on their behalf. He is also “oppressed by this question of transport, for already sometimes London is impassable.”.
    • 4 · A Festive Christmas in 1969 · W. Heath Robinson · pi; typical Heath Robinson designs, “The Automatic Carol-Singer”, “Submarine Skating”, “Blind Man’s Buff”, “The Christmas Dinner”.
    • 6 · Tommy’s Christmas Report, 1969 · A. A. Milne · fa
    • 7 · A Christmas House-Party in 1969 · Twells Brex · ss; being extracts from the diary of Samuel Pepys the Second.
    • 8 · The Dark Cottage · Mary Cholmondeley · ss; starts in 1915 then moves on to 1965 to the children of a war-affected family and sees another war victim gradually re-discovering the world about him.
    • 14 · The Secret Playmates · Dion Clayton Calthrop · pl; short play for children also set in 1969 when, apart from a few ’South sea Islands’ the whole world has gone vegetarian and teetotal.
    • 17 · England in 1919 · G. K. Chesterton · fa; being an extract from a school history of the period published in 1969 - details of the period are vague because most historical documents were destroyed by the Futurist Government of 1943. Interestingly forecast Prohibition.
    • 19 · Extravagance · S. L. Bensusan · ar
    • 20 · Through the Gate of Horn · F. Britten Austin · ss The Saturday Evening Post Jun 28 1919; in a coma following an accident a man awakes at ten year intervals and witnesses the world up to 1972. Includes a forecast of television in every home.

    Pears’ Annual [Christmas 1921] (A. & F. Pears, Ltd.; London, 2/-, 42 + 14 + 10pp, 11" x 15¾" tabloid, cover by Frederic Whiting)
    It’s a huge tabloid thing,around 15.75" x 11", 42 pages, plus 14 unnumbered pages of coloured plates (plus 10pp advertising), price 2/-, not far off the price of a hardcover back then. Although I see from the miracle conversion chart that it’s only the equivalent of €; £2.60 today (about $4).Published by A. & F. Pears, Ltd, 71-75 New Oxford St., London WC1 (Soapmakers to the King).

    It goes in a lot for arty things. The front cover in colour is a painting, “Portrait of a Lady” by Frederic Whiting, RI, ROI, RBA. Alas there were two presentation plates, “The Sleeping Beauty” by the Hon. John Collier and “Ballet” by Septimus Scott, but I don’t have them. There’s lots of other full page colour paintings by the likes of Graham SImmons, H. Hope Read, Fougasse, Steve Spurrier, Claude Shepperson etc., but I’m sure we’re more interested in the “literary” contents, which are: Details supplied by Mike Ashley.

    Pearson’s Magazine    (about)
    Pearson’s Magazine—UK; Jan. 1896-Nov. 1939 (527 issues); C. Arthur Pearson; monthly; standard format, on quality stock, imitation-Strand; probably second in fame only to The Strand Magazine, its fiction authors included George Griffith, W. W. Jacobs, C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne (“Captain Kettle” stories), Max Pemberton, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells (“The War of the Worlds,” 1897), Allen Upward, Baroness Orczy, Rafael Sabatini; an editorially separate American edition ran 1899-1925, and was edited by John Thompson (1908-1916) and Frank Harris (1916-1923).

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