The Season for Love: A selection of choice valentines
Until 27 February 2010
This February, the Bodleian Library showcases
thirty seven items which illustrate how St. Valentine's Day was marked
in the nineteenth century. The display of valentines from the John
Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera aims both to show a wide range of
nineteenth-century valentines and to illustrate their complex
manufacturing process.
The valentines come in many forms, from exquisite creations of lace
paper, silk, scraps, tinselling and artificial flowers accompanied by
elaborate poetry to humble woodcuts with prosaic and occasionally
insulting verses. Some valentines were home-made tokens of love, but
others were produced by many hands in manufactories where skill and care
were allied to business acumen.
Although dating from the end of the eighteenth century, the printed
valentine is essentially a nineteenth-century phenomenon. Valentines
were eagerly awaited on 14 February both before, but especially after,
the introduction of the Uniform Penny Post in 1840. At the height of
their popularity, around 450,000 valentines had passed through the
London Post Office alone, as estimated by the Postmaster-General in his
1863 annual report.
Alongside a wide range of valentines, also on display are publishers'
and tinsellers' stockbooks, games of love, and even a pincushion heart.
Julie Anne Lambert, member of the Ephemera Society and Librarian of the John Johnson Collection, Bodleian
Library said: 'Ephemera give fascinating insights into the lives of
our predecessors and are increasingly recognised as essential primary
source for scholarly research. The current selection of valentines on
display at the Bodleian is a good example of the rich source of
information that ephemera can offer to social historians and
researchers.'
Admission Free
- Proscholium
- Bodleian Library
- Broad Street
- Oxford OX1 3BG
- United Kingdom
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- www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/johnson
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