[ Childhood in Victorian Jersey. ] Album containing a set of humorous captioned illustrations by a middle-class Jersey girl, depicting musical events, a trip to Le Gouffre, etc; poems (one on the Jersey Archery Club); and book lists.

75pp., 12mo. Internally in good condition, on lightly aged paper with 1860 watermark, and some leaves torn out. In worn red leather half-binding, marbled boards, with damage and loss to spine and front free endpaper torn away. The illustrations cover 19pp in the middle of the volume. Those on 15pp are in black ink, with the rest in pencil, one of them coloured. The butt of many of the jokes is music teacher 'Mr [Jack] Hardie'. The first drawing is a double-page one, depicting sixteen named individuals at 'Mr Hardie's music class, in which he takes great pains to teach a set of idiots to stretch their windpipes'. It shows Hardie at a music stand, directing a group of nine women ('We are a very good lot of girls, as you will see from our photos') and six men. The next two pages contains a sequence of seven illustrations showing Hardie at his 'monkey tricks', the result of an ear infection. Two pages regarding a 'spree' by two ladies at the Gouffre, one illustration showing them in a carriage drawn by their horse 'Prinnie'. The speech of one of the ladies is typical of the tone. She says: 'Oh! What a spree we shall have ducky, lets be off now, I'm quite ready. Lets us steal a couple cigars, for I should like a puff awfully, where shall we go? Oh! Three cheers, what an awfully jolly dashing banging lark we we [sic] have.' There is also a picture of six men (named Manning, Best, Le Mesurier, Way, Cochran and Simonds) singing with 'our Organist', captioned, 'These gentlemen sing in our choir. They are considered the most handsome set of men in our beloved Isle; The grimaces our organist makes when he sings, are simply sublime, one would imagine from the turned up eyes, that he sees something celestial'. There is also a depiction of 'Mr. & Mrs. Hardie's arrival in Jersey'. The last illustration, in coloured pencils, shows a woman (complaining about 'those wretched handkerchiefs') jumping over a red rope held by two other women, one of whom tells her: 'You are showing your legs Auntie'. The first 41pp. carry manuscript poems, the first 21pp. of which (possibly transcribed from a series in a magazine, but untraced) end with a 'Notice', beginning 'Will shortly appear, neatly bound, "The Hand-book for all" | Which will give a short description of the very fishy Jersey Society, the goings on of certain young ladies, "would be swell marriages," the midnight Pic-nics, &c [...]'. The first poem of all runs to 6pp., and is titled 'The Jersey Archery Club | "By A. Archer" | Who shot at a frog.' It includes: 'A rather small field, that was railed in all round | This was the Jersey Archery Ground. | The members were "Ladies," & "Gents" all the go, | At least, I'm quite certain they thought themselves so. | Well, in this field there stood | A small house of wood, | Where targets were kept, & sometimes the bows, | For an intimate friend of Mamma says she knows | That a fair-haired young Sub, |Bye the bye, that's the rub, | How on earth do they pay for their wine & their grub? | That a fair haired young Sub was shut up for an hour | With Mrs. De Q.....lle in this wooden bower.' The second poem concerns '"The Cock & Hen Club" | By "Cock-a-doodle-do."' The third is '"The Fish fags' feast" | By Marling Spike.' Other poems include Charles Swain's 'Blind Boy Dying', Tennyson's 'The Ringlet', dated 12 May 1866 (which is after the date of publication), and 'The May Queen', dated 3 December 1866, and lastly Edward Capern's 'My Song' from 'Wayside Warbles'. The last 15pp. carry, first, a three-page 'List of Songs', beginning with Wrighton's 'She sang amonng the flowers' and ending with Ascher's 'Alice, Where art thou?' Also a nine-page reading list, beginning with Abel Drake's Wife - By John Saunders' and ending with 'Poplar House' ('From Young Ladies Journal'). Items are noted to be 'Very Pretty', 'Lovely' and 'Not Pretty', as well as 'V. P.' and 'V. V. P.' There is also a list of Walter Scott's novels.