The Alderney cow
From Supplement to the Penny Magazine, September 1837, p. 383, republished from Volume V of the Guernsey and Jersey Magazine of 1831, with other descriptions of the Alderney cow from various sources.
Adulteration of wine, 1825
More Guernsey skulduggery, from the Economist and General Adviser, 1825.
A Guernseyman is duped, 1590
A cheeky tale, suspiciously similar to Boccaccio's Decameron, from The Stranger's Guide to Guernsey and Jersey, 1833, pp. 128 ff., written by Dr Thomas Bellamy. 'In an old book, now out of print and very scarce, published in 1590, entitled Morgan's Feats of the Cardinals, is the following ludicrous account of the midnight ramble of a gentleman, sent from the island of Guernsey to Naples, in Italy, to buy horses.' The detail is from the frontispiece of the Library's 1566 edition of the Chroniques et Annales de France, Vol. I.
A Farmer's Vacation, 1873: Sark
From George Wearing's A Farmer's Vacation, 1873, pp. 231 ff. The photographs are from the Library collection; that of the Seigneurie in Sark is by Thomas Singleton and dates from c. 1875; above is Baker's Valley in around 1880. 'The population of the island is less than six hundred souls, and of these over ten per cent are confirmed drunkards.'
Victor Hugo in Guernsey, by Henri Boland
From Boland's Les Iles de la Manche, 1904, pp. 145-6, including a note attached to the pages by Edith Carey. [By Dinah Bott]
Castle Cornet threatens Napoleon
From Collins' Stranger's Guide to Guernsey, 1833, p. 66.
A Farmer's Vacation, 1873: Guernsey dairy farming
From Scribner's Monthly Magazine, X (5) September 1873, later collated and published as A Farmer's Vacation.
A Farmer's Vacation, 1873
Guernsey, from an article in the influential American publication, Scribner's Monthly Magazine, September 1873; the article is one of a series eventually brought together as a book, A Farmer's Vacation, by George Wearing, published in the same year. Interest in the exportation of Guernsey cattle to North America and their management was bringing significant numbers of US farmers or their agents to Guernsey in this period. Wearing had first visited Jersey, to compare their agricultural procedures. Below is the Couture Water Lane in St Peter Port, admired by the author.
The Moie de Mouton and the unfortunate sheep of Sark, 1854
The Moie de Mouton cave, by a credulous R. Ellis, from the book Rambles among the Channel Islands, by a naturalist, 1854.
The Creux Mahie, October 1888
The largest cave in Guernsey, once a major tourist attraction. From the Monthly Illustrated Journal, (Guernsey Magazine), October 1888, p. 85; and the cave in 1951, when a party of three including a press photographer go in search of bats there. The illustration is a detail looking out of the Creux Mahie from a small 19th century visitor's guide to the cave.
Herm
From Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, 1831.
Charlie Chaplin
From the Guernsey Press of May 11th, 1939; 'Heard in the Bordage' by Stargazer.