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'The Huns Have Got My Gramophone', a book about advertisements from the First World War

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How the Great War was advertised thumb

How the Great War was advertised

Documentary producer, director and writer Andrew McCarthy has been fascinated by the First World War since boyhood. He and former ‘Punch’ magazine archivist Amanda-Jane Doran are now co-authors of ‘The Huns Have Got My Gramophone! Advertisements from the Great War’, published last month by Bodleian Library Publishing. The authors’ imaginative way in to the events of a hundred years ago has quickly made the book one of Amazon’s World War 1 best sellers. Andrew tells the two-year story of finding a publisher, researching illustrations and photographs, seeing the book into print and becoming a contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Huns cover FRONT ONLY with Author credits
In 2009, Amanda-Jane Doran and I were looking at magazines published during the Great War.  We wanted to know how the war had been reported pictorially. Illustrated weekly news magazines, such as the ‘Sphere’ and the ‘Graphic’, provided the only high-quality photographic news of the war. In 1914, newspapers could not print pictures to such a high standard.  We realised that the advertisements were fascinating, and might make a book on their own. Amanda used to be the archivist at ‘Punch’, and has a detailed knowledge of the magazines of the period.
If you go to the London Book Fair, you can see what is being published, and you can talk to publishers. I saw some of Bodleian Library Publishing’s smaller books, such as Postcards From the Russian Revolution, on their stand. They were nicely designed and printed.  In a crowded market, it helps if a book looks attractive. Amanda and I thought that a book of advertisements in this format would be enjoyable to write, and might sell well.
Samuel Fanous, Head of Publishing at the Bodleian, liked our idea. He was thinking along the same lines as us. Sometimes you offer an idea to a publisher, and they seem not to be listening. You offer them an orange, they want a banana, and they do not understand that you do not grow bananas, and might not be very good at it.
Samuel said that the source material must come from the Bodleian’s collections. I looked at the online catalogue. They had Punch, the Sphere, the Illustrated London News, and many other magazines. We sent Samuel a proposal, with chapter-headings, such as ‘Trenchcoats’, some advertisements, and a sample chapter.
Samuel commissioned the book in August, 2012. We agreed that the book would have around nineteen chapters, with several advertisements in each chapter. The pictures came first, and the text would put the advertisements in context. We copied hundreds of advertisements, and sent the best ones to Samuel and our editor, Janet Phillips. We needed advertisements with a strong image and a striking slogan. Some chapters, such as ‘Watches’, were dropped because the images were dull, and would not be visually stimulating. All the time, we kept searching through the magazines. We selected two advertisements from the Andrew Clark collection in the Bodleian. Andrew Clark was the Rector of Great Leighs, in Essex. During the Great War he saved all the ephemera he could find – recruiting posters, newspaper cuttings, advertising leaflets, official handbills, anything which might be of interest.
The book began to take shape as a set of pictures on screen. In total, we selected fifty images. We discussed titles. Samuel said that we needed a title which would stand out in a crowded marketplace. Possible titles came and went, then Samuel suggested ‘The Huns Have Got My Gramophone’, which came from a Decca gramophone advertisement. Wonderful! I said that we could explain why the Germans were known as ‘Huns’ in 1914.
Amanda, Janet and I discussed the running-order. Amanda had edited 25 books of cartoons and articles when she was at Punch, and suggested a likely order. We divided the chapters up between us, and began writing. We had already done a great deal of research, but there were still things we needed to find out. What was the weather like in France and Flanders between August and December 1914?  How did this lead to the development of the Trenchcoat? The book began to take shape. Janet made constructive suggestions, and pointed out inconsistencies. I wrote the Introduction. Dot Little designed an eye-catching cover, with a period typeface.  The cover is important, because it has to catch the eye online and in bookshops. So many recent books about the Great War have covers which look similar.
We had found the first ever advertisement for a Trenchcoat, from Punch in December 1914.  This pre-dated the first example of the use of ‘Trenchcoat’ in the Oxford English Dictionary by two years. I submitted our information to the OED, and was delighted when they amended the Trenchcoat definition in their June 2014 update.
The proofs arrived as pdfs. I read the entire text out loud to myself to make sure that it sounded euphonious, we made minor revisions, and the book was sent to the printers.
Some weeks later, the author’s copies arrived. The book looks splendid. We are very pleased with both words and pictures. It was a strange sensation to hold the book for the first time, because someone else had printed a book which we had only seen on screen until then. It is the same, and yet not the same.


Posted by author: Elizabeth Underwood

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