Come Home at Once
Registered by 
GoryDetails
of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 10/14/2021
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
GoryDetails of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 10/14/2021 This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
I got this ex-library hardcover from Better World Books. It features selections from the author's collection of Edwardian-era postcards, with a fascinating variety of photos (from humorous illustrations to stately homes to actual family photographs) and messages. The messages range from terse notes to impressively lengthy missives, crammed into the available space via tiny writing and/or actual codes - one was even written in Egyptian hieroglyphs! One was written in boustrophedon form in columns, tiny letters reading down one column, up the next, and so forth - a clever way to get a lot of info in a small space and to make it less likely that people handling the card could make out the message without taking a lot of time at it.
The author's introduction explains that in the heyday of the English postal service, letters and postcards could be delivered in major cities up to six times a day, and many of these postcards show that they're being used very much the way we use text messages now: to adjust a meeting time, respond to an invitation, request a change in an order... There are more personal messages too, some quite touching ("Come home at once, all is forgiven"), some ambiguous ("I wonder if the sergeant knows"), and the startling "Cheer up, you'll soon be dead!!" - no idea if that was a personal joke among friends or an actual threat. There are charming domestic notes (someone writing to his mother to ask her to send clean trousers as he's spilled oil all over his current pair), wish-you-were-here-type tourist missives, and the poignant "Dear Maggie, Not a line from you. What have I done."
Other postcard-related books I've released include Boring Postcards and the fascinating Robert Olen Butler anthology Had a Good Time, where the author uses actual postcards to inspire his short stories.
The author's introduction explains that in the heyday of the English postal service, letters and postcards could be delivered in major cities up to six times a day, and many of these postcards show that they're being used very much the way we use text messages now: to adjust a meeting time, respond to an invitation, request a change in an order... There are more personal messages too, some quite touching ("Come home at once, all is forgiven"), some ambiguous ("I wonder if the sergeant knows"), and the startling "Cheer up, you'll soon be dead!!" - no idea if that was a personal joke among friends or an actual threat. There are charming domestic notes (someone writing to his mother to ask her to send clean trousers as he's spilled oil all over his current pair), wish-you-were-here-type tourist missives, and the poignant "Dear Maggie, Not a line from you. What have I done."
Other postcard-related books I've released include Boring Postcards and the fascinating Robert Olen Butler anthology Had a Good Time, where the author uses actual postcards to inspire his short stories.
Journal Entry 2 by GoryDetails at Little Free Library, Celestial Way in Pepperell, Massachusetts USA on Sunday, November 28, 2021
GoryDetails at Little Free Library, Celestial Way in Pepperell, Massachusetts USA on Sunday, November 28, 2021
Released 2 yrs ago (11/28/2021 UTC) at Little Free Library, Celestial Way in Pepperell, Massachusetts USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Guidelines for safely visiting and stocking Little Free Libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the LFL site here.I left this book in the Little Free Library on this grey day; hope someone enjoys it!
[See other recent releases in MA here.]
*** Released for the 2021 Thanksgiving challenge. ***
*** Released for the 2021 e-less challenge. ***
