1925-58 The Rag Rag

Description

First Edition, Publishers' Original Binding, Scarce

Twenty-six issues of the rag magazine of the University of Manchester, 'The Rag Rag'.

In their original bright decorative wraps, with incorporated the snake and sun from the University's coat of arms.

It's very scarce to see a set of this rag at all, let alone so many issues in one set.

An almost continuous run from 1925 to 1958, lacking a total of five issues for the years 1941, 1946, 1952, 1954, and 1955.

The rag was not published in the years 1943, 1944, and 1945.

'The Rag Rag' was a cheap magazine sold by students to members of the public during Rag Week. Manchester's was published between 1924 and 2003. 

Manchester's rags contains a variety of anonymously-contributed contents, including adverts, stories, and cartoons. Often the contents were offensive or irreverent to authorities, with rags and rag weeks of various universities' becoming controversial in the first half of the twentieth century due to their perceived antisocial behaviour. 

Rag Weeks took place annually around Shrove Tuesday; after the First World War Manchester led the trend of using the event to raise money for charitable causes. 

Some of the adverts, nicknamed 'ragvertising', were produced by the students for local businesses.

This set includes the years: 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1942, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1953, 1956, 1957, and 1958.

The 1953 rag is a special coronation issue.