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March 28, 2024, 10:03:53 AM

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William Hone's Every-Day Book (1825-6)

Started by Smeraldina Rima, June 27, 2020, 10:02:44 AM

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I came across this book when reading around John Clare and thought it might be something other people would enjoy if they weren't already familiar with it.

Kyle Grimes' online edition: https://honearchive.org/etexts/edb/home.html

QuoteThe content of the Every-Day Book is rather difficult to categorize. Partly an almanac, the book offers commentary and readings appropriate for each day of the year—there are listings of Saints' Days, for example, complete with selected descriptions of the "lives of the saints" and Hone's typically critical commentary on the lore of the "Romish church"; there is a "floral calendar" describing the flowers dedicated to particular days and also including some discussion of gardening practices appropriate to each season; there are frequent "Chronology" sections describing noteworthy occurrences that happened on such-and-such a date in history; etc. In addition, the form—perhaps formlessness—of the book allows Hone to insert all sorts of other diverse materials, including descriptions of popular customs, London street life, domestic practices, and biographical sketches, as well as various accounts and anecdotes drawn from the diverse stores of antiquarian lore and literature that Hone had discovered in his decades of research in the British Library and in his work in the antiquarian book trade. The result, of course, is a radically miscellaneous collection of "useful knowledge" for, as the title page announces, "daily use and diversion."

The entry for June 24 about midsummer customs and superstitions involving bonfires, flowers and doors might be a good place to start:
https://honearchive.org/etexts/edb/day-pages/175-june24.html

Cursus

Thanks for starting this topic. The Every-Day Book is well worth dipping into, as are its two successors, The Table Book and Year Book.

I like Hone's earlier political satires too:


Thanks for pointing out those successors.