Adventures in the Archives: Two Literary Critics in Pursuit of a Victorian Subject

Abstract

The album is huge. Depending on which librarian brings it to the circulation desk, you might be offered a cart to carry it to your seat in the British Library reading room, or you might have to tote it yourself. its vertical length is at least two feet, its width nearly as large. The covers are a dusty red-brown, faded and scratched, and the binding is broken so that the album must be tied with a flat cord to keep it from falling open when lifted. inside, musty pages of heavy paper require you to stretch out your whole arm to turn them. neatly affixed to the pages in chronological order are a variety of items in card stock: calling cards with the names of English dukes and duch esses in elaborate scripted fonts; handwritten menus for French meals served in grand country houses; seating charts for dinners large and small; printed bills of fare for restaurant banquets. The pages, despite their slight yellowing and a faint but percep tible smell, have an aura of faded opulence. Some of the menus are charmingly illustrated: in the four corners of one are the heads of three dogs and one fox, adorably drawn as if by Tasha Tudor; another is framed by gamboling cherubs eating, drinking from pitchers, ringing a dinner bell, and having a smoke; many feature floral borders. Ten years ago, the first time we saw the album, the cards and sheets of stationery were pristine, the pages of the album properly bound. Today many of the pages have come loose, and someone (surely not us?)