Come Home At Once

Represented by:
Susan Smith
Category:
Non-fiction
Publisher:
Bantam
Publication date:
November 2014
Foreign rights controlled by:
MBA
For the past ten years, Guy Atkins has been hooked on collecting Edwardian postcard messages. In this book of 100 intriguing cards, he shares the highlights of a unique collection. At half the price of sending a letter, and with same-day delivery in urban areas, between 1902 and 1914 Britain became obsessed with the postcard: by the outbreak of the First World War the Post Office was delivering close to a billion cards a year. Guy’s postcards all come from this Golden Age and offer tantalizing insights into a century-old conversations. While some messages shock (“I thought you would like a postcard of where I am being cured of my stammer-ing” written on the back of a card featuring a rather dour country house) others are just downright bizarre – such as the card where the sender has simply written “Salmon!!!!!!!” From messages written in (often naively simple) code to pleas for spare trousers to be sent, each card presents a mystery and forces us to rethink the humble postcard, its origins, and the people who sent them.