Mrs. Merryman's Collection

More oddball post. This time a strange book of postal curiosities from a bygone age entitled "Mrs. Merryman's Collection". It's a perplexingly idiosyncratic book which gathers together postcards of the curious,the phantasmagorical and the decidedly odd. "Mrs. Merryman's Collection" beautifully presents an eclectic array of oddly surreal postcards which were inherited by the author, Anne Sophie Merryman when her grandmother died in 1980. Her grandmother, Anne Marie Merryman, must have been a rather unconventional lady indeed if this peculiar collection of picture postcards is anything to go by. Many of the postcards will leave viewers perplexed and astounded that even the most outlandish mail vendor could publish such strange and arcane images. There's an ear in a jar, a levitating chair, a smoke cloud, a curious mountain of coral and even a ventriloquist's dummy. Odd stuff indeed. The story behind these postcards is even odder, as it interweaves the lives of a grandmother and granddaughter who never met in life but became acquainted with each other through the chance discovery of a small wooden box of postcards.This book stands as a peculiarly odd testament of one woman's obsession to create a quixotic and dreamlike world of shifting shadows and haunted mirrors.It's all a little unnerving,slightly bonkers and will leave you with the feeling that you've just had a sideways glimpse into a netherworld of strangely hidden narratives and ambiguous shrouded communications.There are secret worlds between these pages.

Mrs. Merryman's Collection by Anne Sophie Merryman is published by MACK Books.