By Adrienne Rusinko
Did you forget a Valentine’s Day gift? Quick, grab one of our February stickers! It’ll last longer than a bouquet! A limited run of stickers are now available at Special Collections Firestone and Special Collections Mudd.
The Everlasting Circle of Fate, 5035 Eng 18, Cotsen Children’s Library
Published in London circa 1825, The Everlasting Circle of Fate: A New and Ingenious Mode of Telling Fortunes includes several methods of telling fortunes, such as reading nails and cards, as well as instructions for spells, incantations, and ceremonies to prophesize information about your future lover. These three girls are performing a ritual entitled “To see a future husband.” The instructions are as follows:
On Midsummer-eve, just after sun-set, three, five, or seven young woman are to go into a garden, in which there is no other person, and each to gather a sprig of red sage, and then, going into a room by themselves, set a stool in the middle of the room, and on it a clean bason full of rose-water, in which the sprigs of sage are to be put, and, tying a line across the room, on one side of the stool, each woman is to hang on it a clean shift, turned the wrong side outwards; then all are to sit down in a row, on top opposite side of the stool, as far distant as the room will admit, not speaking a single word the whole time, whatever they see, and in a few minutes after twelve, each ones future husband will take her sprig out of the rose-water, and sprinkle her shift with it.
(Please note that Special Collections cannot vouch for the accuracy of spousal predictions using this ritual.)
American girl’s book: or, Occupation for play hours, Hamilton 292s, Graphic Arts
These decorative hearts come from the 1831 American Girl’s Book, a guide to leisure activities for young girls. The amusements include games, such as card games and dominoes, riddles (for example: What is that which lives only in winter; would die in the summer; and grows with its root upwards?1), and crafts for items like dolls and needle books.
This bunch of hearts is a pincushion craft, made by cutting stiff paper into heart shapes, covering them with silks of various red shades, and sewing two of them together with a ribbon at the top. The pins are to be stuck around the edge where two hearts meet. The text notes that “these bunches of hearts look very pretty when hung on a toilet-glass.”
- An icicle. ↩︎
Рояль В Детской (Roi︠a︡lʹ v detskoĭ), 103359 NR CyrillicQ, Cotsen Children’s Library
A Piano in the Children’s Room, also published under the title 8 Scenes of Russian Childhood, is a children’s songbook of piano music featuring illustrations by Petr Miturich, published in Saint Petersburg in 1920. This shaggy beast is a stuffed bear (which our blog followers might recognize from a previous Wordless Wednesday selection), and sits adjacent to a composition entitled “Бука”. There is no direct English translation of this word, but it roughly signifies what we might call a “grumpalump”. Author and composer Arthur Lourié, born Naum Izrailevich Louria, sought political asylum in Berlin in 1922 before moving to Paris in 1924. He immigrated to the US at the start of the German occupation of France, where he eventually moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where he lived out the remainder of his life.
Decalcomania is a limited monthly release of stickers made available at Special Collections Firestone, Special Collections Mudd, and the PUL Makerspace. All images are selected from materials held by Special Collections. Check out the Special Collections website for information about visiting our reading rooms.
Did we run out of your favorite sticker? Do you want to make your own? Head over to the PUL Makerspace! Design your own or reprint a Decalcomania sticker using the cutting machines.
Digital images of some of the materials in Special Collections can be found in the catalog and finding aids. Our blogs and Digital PUL have collection highlights.
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