The Illustrated War News was launched soon after the start of the first World War and published regular weekly issues from 1914–18. Its 238 issues give us a vivid, illustrated, patriotic, and in places sensational account of the Great War. The periodical was a subsidiary publication from the Illustrated London News publishing company. And an advertisement in the opening page of the junior periodical proclaimed:
Were the editors and publishers of the new magazine anxious that they might undercut the popularity of the mother publication? They need not have worried: The Illustrated War News provides a fascinating, separate and focussed view which is well worth visiting. The Illustrated London News itself continued to publish regular weekly issues.
Casting our mind back into the late summer and Autumn of 1914: what would it be like to read and browse this new magazine as it was published, with issues appearing regularly? What would it have been like to be reading The IWN in a library, a wardroom, a club, or a trench as it was published 111 years ago? We think it may be useful to have a way of presenting issues of a magazine from the deep past in a time-delayed sequence that allows for retrospective sampling and reading.
Exact Editions has databased The IWN with the encouragment of CAHL, the owners of the rights in the publication. We shortly expect to make it fully available to subscribing libraries, and in due course to individual subscribers. As an initial taster of the resource we offer a time delayed and ongoing view of the publication which can be accessed from a free link.
http://exacteditions.com/historic/iwn
This opens a Historic View of the periodical giving free access to 4 issues that were published 111 years ago:
As this blog is drafted in late August 2024, the ‘historic’ link opens a web page which looks like this:
Only two issues available. Within two weeks the fourth issue will appear and thereafter the older numbers will drop out as new ones arrive. The issues are fully accessible and they make for fascinating reading. They can be searched but when you are in the historic link, only of the content in those issues. The link lasts and will shift its historic spotilight forward in the rest of 2025, 2026 … A persistent and patient reader of the historic link will have to wait for many months to find any discussion of ‘tanks’ climbing over trenches, or ‘asphyxiating gas’ and two years for the first mention of Lenin. In these very early issues the editorial tone is confident and almost jaunty. The content accessible from the link will change in a predictable and steadily periodical flow. Browse them while you can, as they will drop from view after 30 days.
We think of the ‘Historic View’ of a periodical as offering a ‘moving spotlight’ for the magazine: a slice of free content that inches through the archive at the same pace as it rolled off the press.
This method of setting up a moving spotlight or ‘access window’ focussed on a magazine’s archive has parameters that can be adjusted. The IWN historic link has a focus of 30 days, and it reaches back 111 years. The issues are accessed and not downloaded. No registration or personal details are required. Our aim is primarily promotional: giving users and researchers a simple way to sample the title — and yes to recommend its acquisition to librarians for whom perpetual access subscriptions will be available.
Exact Editions expects to deploy historic views from other titles and publishers. In this case the focus for access is 30 days, and the time-lag is 111 years. 111 years simply because that magazine and the war it covered started then. For other titles another time-lag and sampling period would be offered. Publishers with complete archives of valuable and historic magazines are invited to contact Exact Editions.
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