Professor Lynda Mugglestone co-curates Bodleian’s ‘Art of Advertising’ exhibition

Fellow in English Language and Literature, Professor Lynda Mugglestone, is co-curator of the Bodleian’s upcoming exhibition in the Weston Library, The Art of Advertising.

The Art of Advertising tells the story of British advertising from the mid-18th century to the 1930s through an incredible collection of handbills, trade cards, novelties, posters and much more. The exhibition will reveal how advertisements reflect social attitudes over time while showcasing some of the finest examples of advertising illustration and commercial art.

Professor Mugglestone’s chapter in the volume which accompanies the exhibition explores how language techniques and usage in advertising have evolved from the late 15th century to the present day, looking at the diversity of visual and verbal strategies that can be used to exploit fundamental human insecurities, or to play on topical forms of anxiety and persuasion.

While we often pay more attention to great writers and canonical texts, ephemera of this kind can, she stresses, be a highly illuminating resource, revealing, say, the antecedents of modern ‘wellness’ in Victorian campaigns to consume more drinking chocolate, or the inventive tactics by which we might be tempted to purchase ‘Angelick Snuff’ or buy into the dubious pleasures of the ‘Antipestilential Quilt’.

The exhibition will run from March 5th to August 31st, and more details can be found on the Bodleian website.