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Of British-English origin, the noun scrapbook primarily designates a blank book in which pictures, newspaper cuttings, and the like are pasted for preservation.
This noun is composed of:
– the noun scrap, designating a small detached piece;
– the noun book, designating a portable volume consisting of pages bound together.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the noun scrapbook that I have found:
1-: From the following advertisement, in Sales by Auction, published in The Times (London, England) of Tuesday 18th March 1817 [page 4, column 4]:
Late Mr. Lambert’s Drawings, Books of Prints, &c.—By Mr. CHRISTIE, at his Great Room, Pall-mall, on Monday, the 24th inst. and two following days, precisely at one, by order of the Executors of the late T. Lewis, Esq. deceased.
The very valuable COLLECTION of DRAWINGS, by celebrated old Masters, and some fine Specimens of Wilson, Gainsborough, Cozens, Marlow, Hearne, and other English artists; engravings by and after Callot, Poussin, Rubens, Willes, Dietrich, Woollett, Strange, and Hogarth; books of prints, antiquities, architecture, scrap books, and portfolios of the late Chas. Lambert, Esq. deceased; also a copy of Strutt’s Dictionary of Engravers, with about 3,000 prints, collected by the late Capt. Hunt, a well-known illustrator. May be viewed on Friday and Saturday preceding.
2-: From a letter to the Editor, by ‘Torticulus’, published in La Belle Assemblée (London, England) of March 1818 [page 126, column 1]:
I am well educated, have taste and fancy: I am a bit of a poet; and I take extracts from all the best works, so that I have a most voluminous scrap-book to amuse myself and my wife during the long evenings of winter, when we may chance to be alone.
3-: From the following advertisement, in Sales by Auction, published in The Morning Chronicle (London, England) of Thursday 14th May 1818 [page 4, column 5]:
Shortly, by Mr. CHRISTIE, at his Great Room, Pall-mall, by order of the Executrix,
The very valuable and truly CHOICE COLLECTION of LOOSE ENGRAVINGS and BOOKS of PRINTS of the late R. Gillam, Esq. late of the British Institution, deceased; consisting of an exceedingly fine assemblage of etchings by Rembrandt, including most of the early varieties, and choice impressions of the works of almost all the Dutch Masters, Claude and Vanden Enden; impressions of V. Dyck’s Heads; Portraits by Edelinck, &c.; Engravings by De Boissieu, Wille, Strange, Woollett, Brown, R. Morghen; the Choisseuil and Poullain Cabinet Dictionaries of Engravers, by Bartsch, Basan and others; priced Catalogues of Collections of Prints, Portfolios Russia bound, Scrap-books, &c. Catalogues are preparing.
4-: From Flindell’s Western Luminary and Family Newspaper (Exeter, Devon, England) of Tuesday 17th August 1819 [page 5, column 1]—the meaning of Jenny Miller is unclear:
On the present rage of the Ladies for filling Scrap Books.
Hail, Scrapiana, noble art!
Which use with pleasure doth impart:
For shortly now each scrap-book filler,
Will e’en become a Jenny Miller.
5-: From an obituary of the English genre painter Edward Bird (1772-1819), who spent most of his working life in Bristol—obituary dated Bristol, Wednesday 3rd November 1819, by ‘G. C.’, published in Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal (Bristol, England) of Saturday 6th November 1819 [page 3, column 4]:
Nobody was more liberal of his sketches, and for some years he was the centre of a society assembled to make drawings in the evening before supper, where the greater number of members were amateurs, and the result of their labours went into the scrap-book of the party whose turn it became to hold the meeting at his own house: on these occasions his contributions were often the most valuable, and an infinite number of his designs are thus scattered about Bristol, among his oldest acquaintance.
6-: From the following advertisement, published in The Morning Herald (London, England) of Saturday 26th May 1821 [page 2, column 2]:
FLIGHTS OF FANCY.
This day is published, price 7s. 6d. in Colours,
No. 1. (to be continued,)FLIGHTS of FANCY, a Series of Illustrations from familiar Phrases, exhibiting Life and Character, and adapted for the amusement of the Scrap-Book.
By an AMATEUR.
London: Published by S. and J. Fuller, at their Temple of Fancy, 34, Rathbone-place; where are also published those interesting Panoramas of—Going to Epsom Races, and the Panorama of Human Life; the Grimacia, or Transformations of Faces, &c. &c.
The noun scrapbook soon came to be also used as the title of a printed book of miscellaneous contents. The earliest occurrence of this use that I have found is from the following title: The Scrap Book; Containing a collection of amusing and striking pieces in prose and verse, with an introduction, and occasional remarks and contributions (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1821), by the Scottish author, journalist and newspaper editor John McDiarmid (1789-1852). (The Introduction to this book is dated Dumfries, Scotland, Saturday 30th December 1820.)
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