Sailor’s Valentines: A gift of Love

Let’s start this look at Sailor’s Valentines with a poem;

The distant climes may us divide

to think on you shall be my pride

The Winds and Waves may prove unkind

In me no change you’ll ever find.

A magic spell will bind us fast

And make me love you to the last

Let Cupid then your heart incline

to take me for your Valentine!

12-32 — Sailor’s Valentine – “A Present/Think of Me”, shell, cedar, glass, metal, cotton, tintype, ca. 1895. Courtesy of Strong Museum.

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.