A Richer Dust: Echoes from An Edwardian Album by Colin Gordon hits the £1 shelf in my shop.
Book Club Associates, 1978, Hardback in dust wrapper.
Illustrated by way of: Black & White Photographs; Genealogical Tables;
From the cover: The extraordinary story recounted in this book opens at a market junk-stall in Yorkshire with the discovery, quite by chance, of a family collection of several hundred Victorian and Edwardian photographic negatives. The pictures, with their magical glimpses of badminton, picnics, Japanese teas, fancy dress pageants and leisured summer days, provide a fascinating record of the leisured life of one family for over forty years from the year of Queen Victorias Jubilee.
The pictures, however, do not stand alone, and in a lively text Colin Gordon relates his remarkable find and subsequent detective work to discover more about the photographer and his family. A slip of paper found with the negatives reading, simply, Atkinson Huby is the first clue in a trail of detection which unearths the saga of a self-made Victorian family, blossoming into real prosperity in Edwardian times and collapsing during the Depression.
The story, which takes us from Yorkshire to the West Country and abroad, emerges from an uncanny series of discoveries such as documents from the familys distant past buried in cupboards and cellars, and a silver medal which reflects the genteel atmosphere of an annual meeting of well-to-do photographers.
Finally, the story is told by those people who appeared as children in the photographs seventy years ago, who were friends and playmates of the Atkinsons or who served them at home. Although flamboyant and transient, the family world, shown here in words and pictures, echoes down to the present and suggests the life to be found in even the stiffest poses of all family albums.
Very Good in Good Dust Wrapper. Dust wrapper has been sealed in mylar which has become a little scuffed.
Brown boards with Gilt titling to the Spine.
190 pages. 10″ x 7½”.
This book will be listed, sooner or later, for £6.50 on my delightful website… (added to my Social History category.) but get 50% off buying from my blog… below…
More Books Like This Available!
BookLovers of Bath 