1847 Victorian Fortune Telling Book - Oracles from the Poets by Caroline Gilman
Author: Caroline Gilman
Title: Oracles from the Poets: A Fanciful Diversion for the Drawing-Room.
Publisher: New York & London: Wiley and Putnam, 1847. Early Edition (first published in 1844).
Language: Text in English.
Size: 7.5 x 4.5 inches.
Pages: 242 pages.
Binding: Very good original publisher's brown cloth binding, elaborately decorated in gilt on both boards and spine, all edges gilt. Light rubbing and minor wear to extremities. A remarkably attractive example of an early Victorian gift-book binding. Protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content. Endpapers lightly soiled as shown, with scattered foxing and occasional age toning. Pages remain generally clean, bright, and well-preserved. Complete and sound.
Estimate: (USD 250-350)
The book: A charming and increasingly scarce nineteenth-century literary amusement, Oracles from the Poets was conceived as an elegant parlour game in which participants sought answers to questions concerning character, affection, destiny, residence, fortune, and personal preferences through carefully selected passages of poetry. The work contains fourteen categories of questions, each accompanied by sixty poetic responses drawn from an impressive range of English literary masters. Intended for drawing-room entertainment, the volume reflects the Victorian fascination with literature, sentiment, fortune telling, and social recreation.
The author: Caroline Howard Gilman (1794–1888) was a prominent American author, editor, and educator whose literary career spanned poetry, fiction, essays, and children's literature. Best remembered today for her contributions to nineteenth-century American letters and domestic literature, Gilman compiled this delightful volume as both an intellectual diversion and a celebration of the English poetic tradition. Her selections encompass writers from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Byron, Burns, Coleridge, Cowper, Goldsmith, Scott, and many others, transforming the book into both a parlour game and a compact anthology of classic poetry.
A handsome and uncommon mid-nineteenth-century volume that offers a fascinating glimpse into the literary tastes and social customs of the Victorian era.