By Marilyn May
Milford History
A “ghost autograph” from the early 20th century. The autograph says “High Chief Red Fox.” Photo by Marilyn May.
Who doesn’t love a ghost story? This one starts with a book where all the pages are blank.
“The Ghost of My Friends” is an autograph book that leaves a lasting, haunting impression on those who signed it, and on those who see it.
Signing such a book was a big fad in England and Northeast America around the early 20th century. It was “arranged” by Cecil Henritta Henland and used primarily as a parlor game at social gatherings. The first known book was printed in London in 1905. To set the tone, she added a line from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream: “The best in this kind are but shadows.”
These original books are rare, but one surfaced at the Milford Historical Society recently where inventories have been going on for almost a year.
There’s really no mystery to finding the “ghost” of your friend. The blank pages were made of blotting paper with a bit of a glaze so that the ink ran a little. You select one page in the book and fold it in half by bringing the outside edge of the page to line up with the binding and make a sharp fold vertically down the paper. Turn the book sideways and write your signature in cursive along the line where the paper has just been creased.
In the 1900s, names were written using very full fountain pens (or slow-drying Indian ink) that allowed the ink to bleed and avoid soaking in.
Now for the fun part. After you have signed it and the ink is still wet, fold the paper back again along the crease you have made, and rub your fingers up and down the crease. Opening it you will see that your signature has bled onto both sides of the paper. It’s a surprise to see what your signature looks like now. When the ink dries, you have the cursive, well-inked swirls of an autograph with a very unusual look.
How or why this became a fad for a while no one knows. It is probably because it was novel, easy, fun, and a great parlor game. Anyone could – and can – do it.
Little is known about Henland, who also wrote The Mind of a Friend and The Book of Butterflies.
It seems that, forever, people have wanted to collect traditional autographs. Celebrities were tired of doing traditional autographs, but this type of autograph was a new idea that intrigued them. Winston Churchill, actress Sarah Bernhardt, American bass singer and Civil Rights activist Paul Robson, and Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba all left us their signature ink blots. So did Mark Twain, who wrote that the finished ink smears look like skeletons. Indeed, many autographs came out looking like smudges transformed into elegant, somewhat devilish inkblots. Twain wrote a letter in 1905 to his daughter, Clara, describing the ghost autograph fad and sending her one.
Now it’s your turn. Fans of The Ghost of My Friends and Reflections of my Friends have made and sell replications of the book.
Marilyn May is a lifelong resident of Milford and is on the board of the Milford Historical Society.