ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with tracing what culturally specific meanings were ascribed to the valentine in the Victorian period, the sending of which was a popular custom–in 1883 2,768,000 valentines were purportedly sent in Britain. Valentines might seem innocuous enough, as manufactured and embellished objects designed to convey a particular sentiment to the recipient, and so operating within a system of commodification in which the valentine card emerges as a commercial product. Many of the traditions reminded society that some valentines might be expected to conclude in marriage. The proliferation, by the end of the century, of mass-produced, commercial valentine cards increasingly raised concerns about the loss of sincerity, authenticity, and self-expression in a culture of consumer capitalism. The dimly remembered scraps of history that Charles Lamb draws on can also be read into the paper scraps of the valentine itself. Lamb's essay goes on to ruminate on the appropriation of the heart, as illustrative of romantic love.
