to be agog at these personal ads from 1896?

[SurelyYoureJokingMrFeynman]

From the The Morning Post. I'm dying to know what happens next!

Digitised version, LeftyLucy. I was looking at the Births, Marriages and Deaths in the adjacent column.

This was in the days, of course, where the entire front page was small ads: news started inside.

Fantastic!! I cant imagine having to be dependant on getting a newspaper on the correct day (so every day/week) in order to get such vital messages.

"French and Russian system of espionage". I wonder what that was, opposed to the British system of espionage?

Remember when newspapers used to have pages and pages of messages on Valentine's Day? Maybe they still do?

British spy with magnifying glass

French/Russian spy looking furtive and sinister

British system of espionage is getting your spies Oxbridge educted, sending them off to spy, then finding out 20 years later they've been selling the state secrets to the Russians the whole time, before they flee to live with Oleg in a dacha outside Moscow.

Russian system is the reverse. French system uses women, rather than men to seduce Your spies, and so is a l,ot less successful.

JUSTIN CHEVASSE, Private Investigator for the Aristocracy: Divorce; French and Russian system of espionage; secrecy guaranteed; specially retained by many high-class firms. Telegrams, "Chevasse, London."—13A, York-buildings, Adelphi, W.C.

Justin was an extremely good looking man in his late thirties. He was Oxford educated and as a son of Lord Pokerlover had connections to creme de la creme of society but little means. He was asked one day by his friend, Lord Othellion to find out if his very attractive wife was having an affair and after two weeks of meticulous work he had evidence of Lady Dessie having an affair with an opera singer.
Justin realized how good he was at it and decided to regain family fortune lost to his father's obsession with poker by becoming a private detective for hire. Thanks to his father he had knowledge and good contacts among the shady underworld of Victorian London which he used to his benefit.
He was very successful and would have been able to retire comfortably after 20 years in the business if it weren't for Lady Doolittle-Havealot who shot him dead after she had been presented evidence of her cheating and sent to live on an abandoned estate of her furious husband.
His last words were: Oh fucking hell.

I know someone who had an advert written for you: "To the blonde girl in a Motorhead shirt riding the A train last Tuesday morning..." Something like that. I don't think she ever followed it up.

Jack Reacher can only be reached by classified advert in The Stars and Stripes.

very slow Twitter

What a great thread. I have wasted literally months of my life reading stuff like this since it became available online. Fascinating. Very slow Twitter indeed.

Private Eye still has some personals, I was reminded of the Eye Need column by the ads above. Always wonder if they work.

Ooooooh! Have you got a link to where you found these (if online)?

I work in a church hall sometimes their lending library I read the Lady their personal ads are hilarious . Lots of Gentlemen looking for ladies for long country walks and intimate suppers

Morning Post, Wednesday 29 April 1896 at the ridiculously addictive British Newspaper Archive.

What's more, until 23 Apr you can get a month's subscription for £1 with the code DEAL2. [evil]

Just don't forget to uncheck the autorenew, or it'll have yer money as well as yer life...

Thank you, surelyyoure.

I'll be taking that offer up!

In case you're interested why I wanted them, it's for a GCSE course in English language. Students have to compare 19th C non-fiction to 21st C non-fiction. This would make an excellent resource for introduction lessons!

Does anyone remember the book (and subsequent film) called Castaway written by Lucy Irvine? She answered an ad, which was in Time Out magazine, placed by Gerald Kingsland which said 'Writer seeks "wife" for a year on tropical island.'

Oh my goodness, yes, they'll be superb resources for GCSE.

And the topics you find are amazing.

War coverage, and complaints about the expense of war - but it's the Crimean War. Or Egypt. Or the Retreat from Kabul.

The latest scientific developments - telegraphy and photography.

Complaints about trade regulations and protection of different interests - eg the London sugar refiners whose interests conflict with those of the slave-using plantation owners in 1833. "Lord Althorp acknowledged, and was aware of the distress that prevailed in Tower Hamlets".

Yy, LeftyLucy, it's incredible what's online.

I randomly came across an 1834 coroner's expenses claim, with entries like "At Ormskirk of John Molyneux who died by the Visitation of God."

Oh gawd, I didn't know there was an MN history club! More potential wasted hours ...

Yes Fru……her book Runaway (her life before Castaway) is one of my all time favourites. Also the one she wrote when she went to live on an island with her son (I think that was her last book) . She did a novel too.. I'm a big fan of hers.

Bumping my old thread, as it seems personal adverts have a longer history than I realised.

Newspapers don't yet have personal columns in 1752, so someone's gone to the trouble of buying ad space in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal for this:

London, Jun. 15, 1752
Whereas a Letter from T. W. directed to Meffieurs Amyand, Uhthoff, and Rucker, dated the Twelfth of December laft, from Falmouth, came to Hand Yefterday, with the Poft-Mark of Plymouth upon it: If the Writer of the said Letter will return, and make what Satisfaction he propofes, he may not only depend upon his being unmolefted, but be received with all poffible Kindnefs.