Victor Hugo in Guernsey, by Henri Boland
From Boland's Les Iles de la Manche, 1904, pp. 145-6, including a note attached to the pages by Edith Carey. [By Dinah Bott]
19th century
A Farmer's Vacation, 1873
Guernsey, from an article in the influential American publication, Scribner's Monthly Magazine, September 1873; the article is one of a series eventually brought together as a book, A Farmer's Vacation, by George Wearing, published in the same year. Interest in the exportation of Guernsey cattle to North America and their management was bringing significant numbers of US farmers or their agents to Guernsey in this period. Wearing had first visited Jersey, to compare their agricultural procedures. Below is the Couture Water Lane in St Peter Port, admired by the author.
Early children's books
The Priaulx Library has amongst its collection of rare items several books intended for children.
L'Invention: fastest ship of her day
From an unknown newspaper [Guernsey Press?] of January 10th, 1939, in Carol Toms' scrapbook I., 'Famous L'Invention of Guernsey.' 'Fastest ship of her day, probably the first four master to carry yards on all her masts, the famous Guernsey ship L'Invention is picturised in the Guernsey Museum and a similar picture was used as Christmas cards by 'The Cachalot's' Club,' of Southampton.'
Guernsey Folk Lore
Guernsey Folk Lore, by Edgar MacCulloch, ed. Edith Carey, 1906: London: Elliot Stock, Guernsey: F. Clarke, States Arcade.
Guernsey people
By Frank Feather Dally. Guernsey folk love a good funeral.
Eels
'Longevity of freshwater eels' from The Guernsey Press, 20 January 1912.
Dame Drillot
Mary, shown in the illustration in front of the Drillot's farmhouse, meets her future grandmother-in-law, a Guernsey farmer's widow, Marion Drillot; Marion's costume is described in detail. By Frances Carey Brock, from her moralistic but entertaining novel, Clear shining after rain: a Guernsey story, in the Library collection, published in 1871.
Guernsey in America, 1924
From the Guernsey Free Churchman, December 1924 and January 1925.
Shell-collecting, 1833
From the Strangers' Guide to Guernsey and Jersey, Guernsey: Barbet, 1833, pp. 39 ff. 'But it will answer no good purpose for the shell collector in Herm, to employ the language of science, in his research for shells; he must employ popular terms, inasmuch as the good people of Herm are utterly ignorant of the phraseology of the conchologist, and are in the habit of calling things by such names as strike their senses. They have their silver, pink, purple, yellow, rose, and blue shells. There are fine subjects on what the inhabitants call the 'best shell banks,' but which the native collectors pass over, because they do not consider them as shells. For instance, at times here, are very rich corals and corallines, cast up by the action of the sea, only to be discovered by those who are judges of the nature of their research.'