
Let’s start this look at Sailor’s Valentines with a poem;The distant climes may us divideto think on you shall be my prideThe Winds and Waves may prove unkindIn me no change you’ll ever find.A magic spell will bind us fastAnd make me love you to the lastLet Cupid then your heart inclineto take me for your Valentine!

Jane Austen’s brothers, Francis and Charles, often sailed in the East Indies. Is it possible that one of them might have brought back a ‘Sailor’s Valentine’ for his sweetheart or wife? It is thought that by 1820, the craze for these treasures had reached a peak that would last through the Victorian era.
