Come and celebrate Christmas light day and night at the Bodleian Library

As part of the city-wide celebrations which mark the arrival of the Christmas season, the Bodleian Library is putting on public display for one day only a charming selection of Victorian Christmas cards from the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera. The display focuses on the 1870s-1890s, the heyday of the commercial Christmas card (invented in 1843), when chromolithographic printing was well established and publishers were competing with each other to create 'novelties', eagerly awaited by the public. Many of the Christmas traditions invented or revived by the Victorians are represented in the cards, such as Father Christmas, Christmas trees, turkeys, boar's head, Christmas puddings, holly, and an indulgent focus on children. While you are at the Bodleian, you can visit our shop which offers 10% discount on this day or get free access to the Divinity School and the Convocation House in the evening while listening to musical entertainment offered by the Oxfordshire County Music Services