Victorian Things

Items

• Charlotte Brontë’s Dress
  Charlotte Brontë wore this dress on her honeymoon to County Clare, Ireland. The dress consists of a bodice and a skirt, each made of lavender-coloured, striped, medium-weight silk. The bodice is adorned with tan-coloured silk velvet cuffs and collar, and edged with ten small triangles trimmed with silk fringe. The full-length skirt, attached to a waistband, is gathered across the centre back, while the skirt front is flat with small pleats at either side. A small bustle would have been worn underneath. Both the bodice and skirt are close fitting around the waist and fully lined with cream-coloured cotton. The bodice fastens down the centre front with fourteen metal hooks and eyes, and the skirt fastens with two large metal hooks and eyes on the right hand side. The photos showing the interior of the dress reveal alterations and some of the damage to the interior caused by stress on the fabric.
• George Eliot’s copy of Wordsworth’s “The Prelude”
  The cover of George Eliot’s copy of Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” is a rich, brick-red colour, imprinted around the edge with an intricate border of repeating geometric shapes that surrounds an embossed stamp, perhaps that of the volume’s printer. Within the intricate border, the binding has a grainy appearance, while the rest of the surface appears smoother. The cover is slightly warped, and the edges look somewhat discoloured and bent, suggesting that the volume was well used. Page 302 of the book features a header that identifies this page as a part of the “Conclusion” to “Book XIV” of “The Prelude.” Below this header are the last five printed lines of a poem and some handwritten text sketched in graphite pencil that reads: Read second time (aloud to Polly) at Niton, reclining on the cliff or in the long grass, July 1867. An earlier page from the volume includes more text at the top of the page, written in graphite pencil in a different hand. It reads: Begun with J. at Wildbad in our walk on a Sunday morning. July 1880. Finished Aug. 23. Below these handwritten lines are two lines of a poem with the title “Book First” and underneath, “Introduction – Childhood and School-time.” The book is currently housed in the Beinecke Library at Yale University.
• George MacDonald's Copy of "Aids to Reflection"
  These images come from a copy of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s "Aids to Reflection" that belonged to Victorian author George MacDonald. One image shows the volume’s title page. This page is yellowed by time and contains a handwritten inscription in black ink in the top right corner to Louisa Powell, along with the date, “Nov. 5. 1847.” Below this inscription and the printed title is a sonnet written in the same script as the name and date. The first few letters of each line of the sonnet are obscured by the crease of the page. Other images show the black-and-white bookplate, bearing the name of “Greville Matheson MacDonald” and set against colourful marbled paper. The illustration on the bookplate depicts two figures, a muscular young man sitting atop a cavernous entryway shrouded in darkness, and another man, stooped with age, carrying a cane, and walking across the threshold of the same entrance. The darkness of the entryway contrasts with light emitting from the young man. The lintel of the cave bears the text “Corage! God mend al!” while the left post bears an image of a hand holding up a cross and the Latin text “per mare per terras domum tu erras” (“through sea and through land, you wander homeward”). At the bottom left-hand corner of the doorway is a Latin epsilon followed by the text “x Libris.” The book is currently held at the Armstrong Browning Library and Museum at Baylor University as part of their George MacDonald collection. The inscription (as transcribed by Dr. Denae Dyck and Dr. Melinda Creech) reads as follows: [?Whether] this day on earth shall often be, [?I h]ave no wish that I can make for thee. [?Nor] will I wish thee ever cloudless years. [?Why] wish thee that which cannot be, I know [?That] as the sun must shine, so clouds must grow. [?And] as our being is, so are our tears: [?And] one who hath given thanks for sorrow’s hour [?May] never pray thou shouldst not know its power; [?Ye]t there is one thing I can wish for thee – [?That] the unbounded promise may be thine [?When] all things in one Providence combine [?So]rrows and joys in glorious unity – [?But] bright or dark, unknown or understood, [?All] things work together for thy good.
• Mrs. Alexander's Mark
  This page is from "Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign: A Book of Appreciations," published in London by Hurst and Blackett in 1897. It features standard black letter text on white paper. In addition to the body text, the page features three women’s names. First, “Mrs. Norton,” the subject of this chapter, runs across the top of the page. Second, the signature of “Annie Hector” appears directly under the body text at the centre of the page, underscored by a jagged flourish. Lastly, the name “Mrs. Alexander” appears inside both quotation marks and parentheses. Though the last name is in capital letters, its font is noticeably smaller than the two other names and somewhat smaller than the body text. The page number appears in parentheses at the bottom of the page. The body text of the page reads: labour. In her day, the workers were few, and the employers less difficult to please. But these comparisons are not only odious, but fruitless. The crowd, the competitions, the desperate struggle for life, exists, increases, and we cannot alter it. We can but train for the contest as best we may, and say with the lovely and sorely tried subject of this sketch, as she writes in her poem to her absent boys: “Though my lot be hard and lonely, Yet I hope – I hope through all.” The copy of the book featured here is housed at the University of Toronto’s Robarts Library.
• Kate Greenaway's Design for Nursery Wallpaper
  This sample of nursery wallpaper features illustrations by the artist Kate Greenaway of children engaged in various seasonal activities. Some of the children pick apples and berries, while others walk in rain or snow. The children are dressed in the style of the Regency period, and, even while at play, their expressions remain stoic. The illustrations are set against a cream-coloured backdrop adorned with pink flowers and bows. Though perhaps faded by time, the pastel colours likely always appeared subdued. The name of the month in which the scene takes place appears under each illustration along with the artist’s initials, “KG,” in smaller print. The text around the border of the wallpaper repeats three phrases: “Reproduced by Special Permission from Drawings by Kate Greenaway,” “English Made 2258,” and, surrounding an image of a crown, “Trade Mark.” The wallpaper sample is currently housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum.