Art & Photography

The Priaulx Library has many photographs and cartes de visite by Arsène Garnier, including many of Victor Hugo and his family. This is part of the Victor Hugo and Guernsey project. The carte de visite above is a studio self-portrait from the Library collection, with Garnier's signature red outline and text.

This invaluable publication is available for consultation at the Library. A list of its photographic illustrations from vols. XXI-XXIV 1965-1968. Please ask for further information. The items may no longer be with the same owners or guardians.

This invaluable publication is available for consultation at the Library. A list of its photographic illustrations from vols. XXV-XXIX, 1969-1972. Please ask for further information. The items may no longer be with the same owners or guardians.

A new digital project based upon the book, Victor Hugo's Guernsey Neighbours, by Gregory Stevens Cox, MBE, MA (Oxon), Ph.D. The publication of the book was timed to coincide with the Victor Hugo in Guernsey Festival which took place in Guernsey in May, 2016. From this festival was born The Victor Hugo in Guernsey Society. The Festival celebrated the 150th anniversary of the publication of Victor Hugo's great novel, Les Travailleurs de la mer, or Toilers of the sea, which with its references to actual people and localities demonstrates a detailed knowledge of and interest in the island, and an understanding and empathy for Guernsey's culture and inhabitants, unparalleled until the publication of G B Edwards' Ebenezer Le Page in 1981. Hugo was not only influenced by Guernsey in writing this novel, however, but absorbed everything around him in his new home, and the legacy of Guernsey can be detected in every aspect of his life and work. The intention of this project, hosted by the Priaulx Library, is that it should collect and examine that island influence, and we welcome any contribution.

From Old Guernsey Exhibition and Fair Souvenir Guide and Programme, St Martin's Parish Hall, Guernsey: T B Banks & Co., 1908, p. 29. The painting of the Queen Charlotte Inn above, a detail of a larger view of Cow Lane, dates from c. 1800; it exists only as a photograph, as its whereabouts since WWII are at present unknown. The colour image is a detail of a painting by Captain C Montague Jones, possibly based up on it, painted 50 years or so later. The original of the Jones watercolour is in the Guille-Allès Library, Guernsey.

Guernsey Market Place [in 1809], with key. 1809 [1822]. 'Grand, grand old picture.' If you wish to reproduce any of these images, please contact a Librarian.

Matthias Finucane, Métivier's 'cheerful son of Erin, bon enfant.' Above: detail from Market Place, Guernsey: Reverend Martineau.

Index of named persons in photographs used to illustrate the following books: Donkey's ears ago, The donkey's back, and Donkey's ears apart. These books, which are in copyright, may be viewed by visitors to the Library. With thanks to Olwyn Shorey.

'You knew old Harry Turner from Mill Street, a funny little man. This is him and his 'Old Guernsey woman.' He has just died. This is him and his effigy of an old Guernsey woman, and his dog Fido.'

A list of the photographs in Carel Toms' book, Guernsey's forgotten past, published in 1992. Many of these photographs are in the Library's Carel Toms Collection; please contact the Library for further information.