# The Art of the Diddle: “Autography” 02

The collecting of autographs has been a great rage among people of fashion for some years past in England; and even among the learned it seems to have succeeded to the old passion of book collecting. There are few women of ton in London who have not their autograph-books to produce for the amusement of their visiters. The fondness for these trifles seems to be extending to this country; and we know of several ladies who are forming collections.

— Anonymous, New York Mirror (New York, NY), vol. 20, no. 1, January 1, 1842, p. 3, cited https://www.eapoe.org/papers/misc1827/nym42011.htm, accessed 2 November 2021.