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Series comprises 477 magazine covers, predominantly from early 20th-century issues of fashion magazines such as Vogue, Vanity fair, Harper’s bazar (after Nov. 1929, Harper’s bazaar) and The delineator. Series also includes a small number of covers from general-interest periodicals such as Collier’s and The Saturday evening post, art magazines such as Shadowland, and other magazines, issued chiefly in the United States and Canada. The covers feature the art of over 80 named illustrators, chiefly American artists. Often fanciful, the images provide colourful illustration of Art Nouveau and Art Deco design in the period, primarily in women’s clothing, and include the work of prominent magazine illustrators Helen Dryden, Erté, Anne Harriet Fish, C. Coles Phillips and George Wolfe Plank. The techniques used to create the cover designs were predominantly drawing and painting, although two 1913 covers for the magazine Dress and Vanity fair are illustrated with uncredited photographs. Advertisements for automobiles, cosmetics, clothing and household products appear on verso of the covers. Some files include duplicate items or the same cover image from different editions of a magazine.

Collection consists of illustrations clipped from fashion magazines, general-interest periodicals, children’s
picture books and other illustrated books, bringing together the work of over 275 illustrators published
between the 1860s and the 1920s, chiefly in the United States, Britain and Canada.
Fashion magazine covers in series 1 featuring imaginative and extravagant costumes are full colour
lithographs, as are most of the sheets in series 4 (Illustrations from publications for children). Illustrations
in series 2 (Book and magazine illustrations) are largely achromatic images depicting events in fictional
and poetic works, and include printed black-and-white wood engravings. Many folders contain a single
sheet of illustration by one artist, while series 3 (Gustave Doré illustrations) consists of more than two
hundred published wood engravings by prolific French artist Gustave Doré. The collection of over 3000
items offers a perspective on the era of illustration by graphic artists before it was largely superseded
(except in children’s literature) by photography.