Dickens's Houses

I have posted here about Charles Dickens's personal mail box at Gad's Hill Place. This room and the author's desk also appeared in the video. So it was a nice surprise when I received this postcard some days later, sent by Laura (the UK).

On the back:

Luke Fildes, the illustrator to Dickens's last unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood, produced a drawing of Dickens's study at Gad's Hill Place shortly after the Author's death. It appeared as an engraving in the 1870 Christmas number of The Graphic, together with a lament that readers could no longer expect Christmas messages from Dickens.

It arrived along with another postcard featuring Charles Dickens Museum (48 Doughty St., London). It was the author's home from 1837 until the late 1839. It opened as a Museum by the Dickens Fellowship in 1925.

Even if it wasn't Dickens's house, it is a perfect postcard!

Update: I have just received this bookmark!

Postcards from Algeria

In the past, I used to have a pen pal from Algeria. We never were very regular penpals, neither the best friends. However, we exchanged interesting letters, postcards and pictures during some years.

Wahiba's letters became more and more sparse until she disappeared. That happens with penpals now and again, doesn't it?

I have just realised that I have never published mail from Algeria on this blog. Well, here you have some postcards. She usually did not use stamps.

Look up in the Urban Dictionary

Some definitions from the Urban Dictionary quite... different:

mail

A bay area California term used to describe money.

"get your fetti, your scrilla, your scratch and your mail...holla at me boys cause I got game to sell"

by B Smizz June 01, 2005

post

To stay where you are put. To hang out somewhere.

Hey Rob, I'm jsut going to post here tonight.

by Jaret Johnson July 13, 2004

posting

chillin' or relaxin' in one place

yo word is dat, he postin' at hiz momma'z crib

by fuck who eva' wantz to know my name July 22, 2003

post office

Term describing a room, bar, club etc:, that has all men in it. 

A room full of men.

1. I went to the bar down the street to try to hook up, but it was a post office so I left. 
2. This club is a post office, lets split.

by randy December 14, 2004

snail tweet

A conventional postcard. As with Twitter, there is limited space for conveying the message.

You should see the snail tweet I got from Mary, while she was over in New Zealand. The scenery is gorgeous. She says she doesn't want to come home.

by cwhaley April 24, 2009

suburban mail box

a very pale person,who may be exposed to sunlight as much or more as the tipical human,and will not have any traces of ever being in the sunlight.

swimmers in the summer will get tan from swimming outside,when a suburban mail box will appear as white as mayo.

by mike(pib)morrow June 09, 2009

So Many Stamps

Letter send by Emily (the UK). Don't you adore postcards with so many stamps? And the big one is perfect! I have added it to this post.

Envelope Poems

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was an American poet. She lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. Most of her friendship was therefore carried out by correspondence.

After her death, Lavinia (Dickinson's younger sister) kept her promise and burned most of the poet's correspondence. Luckily, she had left no instructions about her 40 notebooks filled with poems. So most of Dickinson's work was published posthumously.

In the mid-1990s, while examining Dickinson material, the literary historian Marta L. Werner came across a small collage cut from recycled envelopes and covered with Dickinson's handwriting. After a search for similar items, she found dozens of semi-intact envelopes, fragments and scraps that showed sentences or entire poems pencil-written by Dickinson. So a good way to reuse the plain envelopes we get!

All the 52 envelope poems have been gathered into a book: Emily Dickinson: The Gorgous Nothings, published by New Directions and Christine Burgin.

More information in this article.

More Sweet Aerograms

Sent by Laura (the UK).

Life on a Mountain

Collage sent to Henni (Finland) as my contribution to the Mail a Smile monthly challenge. February's theme was Life on a Mountain.

100 Years of Parcels

Egg shipping box (source)

The site of the Smithsonian Postal Museum (Washington, USA) offers a lot of interesting contents for mail lovers. Even for those who are not able to visit the Museum, we can still enjoy its virtual exhibitions.

If you have some spare time and like postal history, I recommend you Welcome to the Railway Mail Service (by Miriam Pysno & Katherine Fetter) and 100 Years of Parcels, Packages, and Packets, Oh My! (by Nancy A. Pope).

Parallels

Envelope sent to Alexander Limarev (Russia) for the mail art project Parallels. Made of a page of a magazine.

I was surprised that he did not published the envelope in which I had put some effort. He just posted  the boring index card I had used to write a quick note! (?! - Also the title is his).

Certainly, you never know how artists can (mis)understand your works...

Once upon a Time

Postcard sent by Heleen (the Netherlands). It shows some cows in the meadows of Valkenburg, in that old time when most of cows could enjoy real fresh grass and daylight...

This postcard has been sent twice. First time when postage within the Netherlands costed 2 guilder cents and then two months ago, when it costed 64 euro cents. It took four weeks to reach my mail box. I bet it was quicker the first time!

The first date is not appreciated any more. I love the combination of the two postmarks, penmanships and stamps. It makes a long story for a single postcard...

Skägget i brevlådan

Skägget i brevlådan – Caught with your beard in the mail box (Swedish)

Meaning: “To be caught with your pants down.”

(Found here, along with some others funny and surprising Scandinavian idioms)

Dodo

Postcard sent to Heleen (the Netherlands), for her mail art project Weird Existing Animals. Yes, I know that dodos aren't exactly existing...

Are We Asking for Too Much?

«The lost letters make me as angry as they make you. I don't think I'm asking for too much to life: I write a letter, I put it inside an envelope and it reaches its destination.»

In a received letter

I'm Lucky (4 & 5)

I have been lucky again and I won one and two giveaways, from two blogs that I am happy to recommend to all snail mail and mail art lovers: Rose Tinted Crafting and Writing my way around the globe.

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I'm lucky (3)
I'm lucky (2)
I'm lucky (1)

Happy Chinese New Year - II

As Valentine's Day, I don't celebrate the Chinese New Year. But there is almost nothing you can't celebrate a little through mail... So I made a postcard for Heleen's project Weird Existing Animals. Don't worry, my sheep is vegetarian friendly!

I also drew a mail sheep on the envelope. This is the final version, what the recipient have received and posted:

And I included a postcard with some real Estonian sheep: