“The Weird Message from the Past”: Material Epistemologies of Past, Present, and Future in the Nineteenth Century

This essay investigates preservation as both subject and aim of the periodical Nineteenth Century. In four articles published between 1877-1890, material remains, such as the Elgin Marbles, a dog’s footprint, and maps of London, are offered as traces that must be preserved to ensure the endurance of the past into the present and of the present into the future. Informed by archaeology, these artifacts present the interpretation of material remains as a defining task of the Victorian age. An artifact at the core of the investigation is the Nineteenth Century itself, preserved in binding, microfilm and digital code.