[1897–1898 Extensively Illustrated Album kept by Florence Mary Fardon].

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Beautifully and extensively illustrated friendship album kept by Englishwoman Florence Mary Fardon. The mostly poetical entires in the album are augmented with over 30 original, hand-drawn or painted illustrations plus one photograph and a piece of seaweed.

Here there are original watercolors, gouaches, pen and ink drawings, and grisailles plus an artfully composed photograph and a delicate spray of seaweed: “Oh! call us not weeds, we are ocean’s gay flowers.”

The color illustrations include botanical drawings, floral vignettes, and land and seascapes. Other drawings include a decorated initial, cartoon-like drawings of puppies and bunnies, and a moody urban street view.

In addition to the expected British poets—Byron, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Carlyle, Tennyson, there is a fair representation of Americans: James Russell Lowell and Longfellow, plus a quotation from Emerson.

The album’s keeper, Florence Mary Fardon, may be the daughter of Charles and Charlotte Fardon. Florence Mary was born in 1873 in Coventry, Warwickshire and is seen in the record as an elastic weaver.¹

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