Postcards from the Nursery transports us back to an age when children derived pleasure from sending and receiving warm messages of endearment on a postcard. The book provides a unique glimpse of people's lives at the time: our own personal histories and also important historical movements and events. The first world war, the rise of women artists from Victorian society to the time when they could compete with men on equal terms postcards in advertising and children's literature, the popularisation of art through mass reproduction: all are documented by the 750 postcards in this collection, using a rich variety of illustrated styles.Postcards, together with mass-circulation magazines, provided illustrators with a stepping stone to even greater achievements. The lives and work of 90 or so artists and illustrators are documented here, including Anne Anderson, Mabel Lucie Attwell, Cicely Mary Barker and Arthur Rackham, as well many previously little-known artists.