"The Annual" was a long-running fad from 1824 until 1857 which started in England, but spilled over into the U.S. Steel plates of the 1820s allowed book publishers to mass-produce pictures. What started out as an "annual book" or a gift for the holidays turned into something that had up to 17 editions through the year (yet were still called annuals). Countess Blessington and other royal women contributed to the works and altered fashion. This fad was sometimes referred to as "beauty", as books with plates of women defined the content.