Abstract
[...]the Oxford English Dictionary records the first use of the term “scrapbook” in 1825, just as popular print culture was opening up into its broad Victorian dimensions. [...]I examine a particularly remarkable scrapbook from mid-century that provides an enticing view of the broad range of periodicals and books middle-class women read—and how they used these disparate materials to imbue their leisure time with meaning. [...]most of the scraps in an anonymous scrapbook from John Rylands Library, dated ca. 1832, do not include authors, titles, or source publications (fig. 1). [...]we can only surmise what meanings the scrapbook creator had in mind. [...]these questions are familiar to all of us who study Victorian periodicals. Because we lack the metacommentary behind the construction of most scrapbooks and periodicals, we must read them as we read literary texts—with attentiveness to both form and context.