HOW TO TELL YOUR NEW YEAR FORTUNE THE EDWARDIAN WAY
HOW TO TELL YOUR NEW YEAR FORTUNE THE EDWARDIAN WAY
WHETHER SNUGGLED UP AT HOME OR OUT PARTYING WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS, THE DAWN OF THE NEW YEAR IS SOMETHING TO TOAST TO. BUT NOT SO LONG AGO, THE PEOPLE OF BRITAIN WERE COMMEMORATING THE START OF THE FORTHCOMING 12 MONTHS IN A VERY DIFFERENT WAY – WITH BOOKS.
In the early 20th century, Edwardian Britain was gripped by a reading craze. On the playground at school, on a tea break down the mines, or in the drawing room of a mansion, men, women and children of all classes and ages were rarely without a book.
The idea of giving a book as a gift became popularised in the Victorian era. Books were bought for others to celebrate birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, and, of course, Christmas. In fact, by the end of the 19th century, books had come to be so expected at Christmas that one Times reporter claimed, “Christmas would not be recognised without them.”
Books at Christmas is not something unique to British culture. Icelanders have long given books to each other on Christmas Eve and stayed up all night reading them.The custom is so deeply ingrained in Icelandic culture that it causes an annual jólabókaflóðið (“Christmas book flood”), as countless copies of around 700 different titles are published in just over four months.
But it is the way that Edwardian Britons used these books that is quite unusual. As mass consumerism and the formation of a commodity culture grew, the Victorian practice gradually spread to the new year. By 1901, no Edwardian stepped into the new year without a book. But the reason for this was not down to a tradition of gift-giving. Rather, it was guided by superstition. The Edwardians believed that bad luck would fall upon any family who did not have a book in hand when the clock struck midnight on 31st December.
PREDICTING THE FUTURE
Books were said to foretell a family’s fortune for the year. So, on New Year’s Day, families would gather around the fireplace and practice bibliomancy. This involved opening the new book on a random page and reading the passage to predict what would happen in the coming year.