CAPTAIN CUTTLE'S MAILBAG

Sub-titled 'History, Folklore and Victorian Pedantry' from the pages of 'Notes & Queries', a weekly magazine founded in London in 1849. It was a 'medium of inter-communication for literary men, artists, antiquaries, genealogists etc.' and its motto was 'when found, make a note of', a saying of Captain Cuttle, the hook-handed old salt of Dickens's Dombey & Son. Subscribers sent in notes on curious facts, others arcane queries to be answered, and the book anthologises the most interesting exchanges from the First Series 1849-55. Ordered by subject with judicious footnotes, there are delightfully pedantic remarks from daily life and amusements, the doings of fairies, revolting folk remedies, poetry good and bad, the oddities of natural history. Included is a selection of advertisements for the magazine such as products as Grosjean's Celebrated Trowsers and Rimmel's Toilet Vinegar (good for several purposes) and the Reverend Edmund Saul Dixon's treatise on 'Ornamental and Domestic Poultry'. There are church matters, law and order, wills and epitaphs, tales of the supernatural, popular zoology, superstitions, local customs. Under Language and Literature books and booksellers, words and their use and personal names; under Scientific Investigations technology and innovation of the time, medicine and physiology and physics problems. 'Every book that is worth reading, except, perhaps, a work of fiction, requires an Index; and the more books there are in the world the more requisite it becomes.' 'The discovery of drowned bodies by loading a loaf with mercury, and putting it afloat on a stream, or by carting it into the river, as the Indians do...' A German bookseller advertises his second-hand catalogue of 'Erotica Facetiae Satyrae, Curiosa, Sexuale Vavria' in various languages and Kerr and Strang Perfumers and Wig Makers advertise Perukes with 'Partings and crowns so natural as to defy detection'. 'Hairdressing a pitiful and unmanly employment' and the habit of profane swearing by the English are all up for discussion. No subject was too odd or obscure! 270 delightful pages, illus.