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Brought to you by Penguin

The hidden fabric of a Victorian womans life from family and friends to industry and Empire told through her unique textile scrapbook

In 1838 a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day Collecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments she carefully annotated each one creating a unique record of her life and times Her name was Mrs Anne Sykes

Nearly two hundred years later the diary fell into the hands of Kate Strasdin a fashion historian and museum curator Strasdin spent the next six years unravelling the secrets contained within the albums pages

Piece by piece she charts Annes journey from the mills of Lancashire to the port of Singapore before tracing her return to England in later years Fragments of cloth become windows into Victorian life pirates in Borneo the complicated etiquette of mourning poisonous dyes the British Empire in full swing rioting over working conditions and the terrible human cost of Britains cotton industry

This is life writing that celebrates ordinary people the hidden figures the participants in everyday life Through the evidence of waistcoats ball gowns and mourning outfits Strasdin lays bare the whole of human experience in the most intimate of mediums the clothes we choose to wear

An extraordinarily rich record of middleclass Victorian life a fascinating book Guardian

The story of a singular woman Kate Strasdins forensic detective work has finally let Mrs Sykes and her book speak again JUDITH FLANDERS

2023 Kate Strasdin P2023 Penguin Audio