Scrapbook views of life…
I was very surprised to see how many views my short little piece on Robin Hood was fortunate to have. But then perhaps it’s not really surprising. Old books have always drawn booklovers to them and a post about one is no different.
When I think about it, it is perhaps the ONLY thing I regret about an e-book. That one can’t fossick through a glorious second book stall/market/shop picking up titles, flipping through, smelling the elderly paper, revelling in drawings by Ransome, Shepherd, Atwell, Greenaway and so forth. There’s no denying that our e-books will be there for readers into eternity, but olde books are really something special.
And whilst this next book I want to share isn’t exactly an olde fiction book, it is an old book. Another one of my father’s from his childhood… an old-fashioned scrapbook and I love it for its close-up view of society at the time.
I leave you to make up your own mind.
There is another scrapbook… a magnificent thick Victorian scrapbook that I adore. It belonged to an elderly great aunt and I was tickled when she gave it to me when I turned eight. It is filled with Victorian cards, stickers, scrap cuttings from magazines, dried flowers, sayings… a truly dimensional social history. I might pop that on the blog one day as well!
Lovely! I adore historical ephemera…how kind of that great-aunt to share this with you!
Rowenna, this one was actually my father’s own childhood scrapbook. the victorian one, lush and almost claustrophobic, is yet to be photographed.
But you are so right… it’s that sense of ephemera and i remember being encouraged to make my own scrapbook from magazines as a child. heavens knows where that is!
Oh… Prue…
You gave me goosebumps. I wish I had inherited a scrapbook like yours. It’s so special. One can sit and imagine a young girl cutting and pasting in the old-fashioned way. Inserting things that meant something unique to her, or perhaps she knew that someday she’d be passing it down to a young relative who would treasure it. Thank you for sharing. I’m scrolling up to gaze at the illustrations again.
Barbara, this was a young boy who made his own scrapbook… Dad was always meticulously interested in history and perhaps he knew he would pass this on one day.
I love the history of it all. Like Barbara said, imagining some one carefully cutting clipping and pasting them; realizing these clippings were current at the time; imagining that person in his/her environment surrounded by things we now consider historical; wondering what that person was thinking when making the scrapbook, etc. It’s all fascinating.
I’m looking at them again too.
The funny thing is that many of the brands are so very English… there were pictures of Queen Mary and King George V and coaches and state occasions and a general deference to Australia’s connection with Britain. Along with a young boy’s fascination with trains, boats and early planes. And uniforms!
I ADORE Victorian scraps and memorabilia! There’s nothing like it. The pictures are so detailed and beautiful. Yes, please share your other one!
I will, Nikalee… probably in the next ten days. I seem to be on an olde book theme with the blog at the moment!