Issue 208
Summer 2026
£20.00
In this issue: Taking stock: 50 years of the Ephemera Society, Julie Anne Lambert / The ephemera of death: printed funeral tickets in 17c Europe, Chloe Aker-Brewer / The graphic play: early poster design at the National Theatre, Rick Poyner / French prune labels from a collection by Ann Stephens / The spirit of Léon Coquemer, forgotten printer and typographer, Alexandra Jaffré / Celebrating the oyster, Amoret Tanner / For the use of schools at Christmas’: Penmanship samplers and the print trade, Jill Sheffrin / The influence of orientalism in date labels, Dennis Johnson and Jane Macknight
Welcome to the Winter issue Nº 208 of The Ephemerist. It feels poignant that we commemorate fifty years of The Ephemera Society in the same year as the passing of our President Emeritus Michael Twyman. One of the first members of the Society, Twyman was a tireless supporter, contributor and ambassador for most of its fifty years. Lambert writes movingly about both on pages 3–9. Other contributions to this issue span several centuries of ephemera – from the funeral tickets of the seventeenth century, to the fashion for ‘orientalist’ date labels and penmanship samplers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, National Theatre posters in the late twentieth century and ‘oyster ephemera’ in the twenty-first. We wish all our members happy collecting in 2026. The Editor
