ABSTRACT
The early twentieth-century picture postcard was a highly popular way of combining cheap, speedy short messages with an image. In comparison with the preceding communicative technologies, its impact was perceived as revolutionary. Between the era of the heyday of the Edwardian picture postcard (roughly coinciding with the reign of Edward VII, 1901–1910) and the advent of digital technologies, no such rapid, cheap communications of comparative multimodality existed.
Two investigations into specific postcards are presented, demonstrating everyday writing practices and popular culture in the lives of family and friends when apart, even very temporarily. The Edwardian era in the UK was one of extreme inequalities and rapid social change; picture postcards appeared to embody the dynamism of the times.
The methods of the project are introduced in alignment with the book’s two aims. The first is to explore writing of the Edwardian picture postcard as a social practice, and through taking diverse approaches to analysis, including as inspired by posthumanism. Thus, the second aim is to exemplify, and indeed develop, methods of Literacy Studies.
