ABSTRACT
Opinions have differed on how imperialist and how bellicist the late Victorian and Edwardian public really was. However, there undoubtedly was much public interest in the greatest imperial war, the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902, during its first year; though apparently later, in the prolonged and discouraging guerrilla phase, there was some diminution of interest, even a form of war-weariness, among the British public. Responding to, expressing, exploiting and further stimulating this interest in the war, were those who manufactured a great variety of media communicating images of the war. These were mostly established and profitable media, already well placed to respond to the interest in the war. No new media were introduced during the war, though some were relatively recent, introduced earlier in the 1890s: for example, film and hollowcast toy soldiers.
