1917.]. Oblong 8vo, 174 x 276mm; ff. [8] leaves of postcards in lithograph, four per page, separated by perforations, thus 32 in all, of which 16 are printed in full colour, and 16 are duplicates in outline ready to be coloured in; central leaf detached; very minor rusting to central gutter from staple, aside from some occasional light soiling, and minor offsetting from colour, quite fresh and bright; stapled as issued in the original decorative card wrappers, staple rusted, covers somewhat soiled and lightly scuffed, with some minor staining, a couple of small marginal tears, corners a little bumped and furled; still a very good copy of a scarce ephemeral item. A scarce and unusual W.W.I ephemeral survivor - a rare postcard colouring book showing the street trades and inhabitants of the port of Salonika (now Thessaloniki). Unused and seemingly complete, the booklet is a fine example of the mass market for postcards which developed as a direct consequence of the war, booksellers quickly responding to the demand from soldiers far from home, for cheap and lightweight souvenir cards. Extraordinary efforts were made to keep the flow of mail to the troops at the front, and, in return, to Britain, France, Italy and further afield. Postcards were to become a vital form of communication, an easy way to show and tell families about where they were and what life was like. Popular with the military authorities as well, being easy to censor, a mass market soon developed, booksellers and publishers printing and selling hundreds of thousands of cards, with a vast array of subject matters depicted, frequently scenic, sometimes capturing camp and military life or, as here, more light-hearted.
Of the 32 cards, 16 are vibrantly coloured, with the remaining 16 reproduced in outline ready for colouring - a gentle distraction no doubt. One can only imagine that crayons and paints would be in short supply in the field, but a note on the verso of the current booklet helpful notes ‘'For colouring use the non-poisonous colours of Bourgeois Ainé’. Very much of the time, and thus somewhat stereotyped, amongst the street trades depicted we find crossing-sweepers, musicians, money-changers, grinders, confectioners, ‘schoemakers’ (sic), a photographer, a tailor, a milkman, a lemonade vendor, a barber and a fishmonger. They brightly convey to those back home the sense of ‘other worldliness’ of life in Salonika, and would in all probability amaze, amuse, hopefully reassure, and no doubt be treasured, by the recipient, something to be held dear until their return.
Included amongst the Allied Forces, as is well known, were several authors, poets, artists and cartoonists, and some of these artists went on to contribute series of cartoons for postcards. Whilst some of these serving, military, artists remain anonymous, the present series, according to Diana Wardle in her chapter ‘Write Home Salonika’, is the work of the lithographer Jacques Touchet (1887-1949), the series also being published in French as ‘Les petits metiers a Salonique’. Wardle suggests that, as here, the series was made up of 16 ‘trades’, and notes further that ‘a double spread of his work was published in L’Illustration in February 1917. After the war, Touchet provided a series of his caricatures of Salonica ‘types’ for the benefit of l’Union de Femmes de France’ (p. 244 in Archaeology Behind the Battle Lines. The Macedonian Campaign (1915-19) and its Legacy edited by Andrew Shapland and Evangelia Stefani).