Cheap Toys for All in Nineteenth-Century Europe

In this article I will attempt to outline this process as it unfolded in some areas of what we can define We-stern Europe, in particular France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain. In order to do so I will draw a brief sketch of cheap print for children focusing on a subgenre: illustrated broadsides. I will then describe how printers of cheap print, capitalising on the emergence of juvenile audiences, literally flooded the market with cheap do-it-yourself paper toys in the nineteenth century. Finally, I will discuss printers’ outputs in relation with the better-known tradition of the so-called Victorian novelties in order to highlight some transnational phenomena that deserve further investigation. This paper presents a work in progress under development in Children and Transnational Popular Print 1700-1900, funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 (framework programme for research and innovation, grant agreement 838161).