Displayed for the first time to the public in 1917, the mummified heart was once the property of Edward Lovett, an eccentric British erudite and wealthy chief cashier in the bank of the City of London who, in his spare time, was the most relentless archivist of his era. A member of the Folklore Society since 1900, Lovett had one very unusual obsession: once off work, he would spend his free time strolling through the slums of Edwardian London to collect evidence of magic and medicinal practices, vernacular beliefs that the century of industrialization and rational sciences hadn’t eliminated. From his urban explorations, conversation with street sellers, sailors, and working classes witches, Lovett accumulated an astonishing array of charms, an incredible collection of odds and ends that proved superstitions were an invisible, yet persistent, practice, even in modern England.Read more about the magic relics of modern England here !
