It's a bit difficult to know what to include in a category for Victorian "hobbies" and what to leave out. The article "Hobbies: Their Effect on Our Health" seems to regard almost any sort of personal activity as a "hobby," including fishing, cycling and raising purebed dogs. While that may be true, we prefer to divide things up a little more precisely. Or rather, we have gathered in this section activities that are clearly "hobbies" but that cannot easily be placed in some other category (such as collecting or photography). Certainly "arts and crafts" count for many of us today as a hobby - but there are so many articles on various arts and crafts in Victorian magazines that these have their own section on this site.

How to Make and Manage an Aquarium (Peterson's, 1858)

The Seaweed Album (St. Nicholas, 1875)

How to create an album of pressed seaweed. (You can actually find these on eBay now and then!)

On Keeping a Commonplace Book (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1876)

A common-place book is "a good-sized volume wherein any extract which specially takes your fancy can be either copied or pasted, according to circumstances... It is will astonishing what a valuable collection of extracts, hints, inventions, epigrams, and quotations of all kinds a person may gather in a very few years."

Hobbies: Their Effect on Our Health (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1878)

Besides being good for us overall, apparently hobbies keep us from "evil habits."

Our Aquarium at the Seaside (Girl's Own Paper, 1880)

How to set up an indoor aquarium to observe specimens from the sea-shore.

How to Keep a Journal, by James Mason (Girl's Own Paper, 1881)

How to Keep a Commonplace Book, by James Mason (Girl's Own Paper, 1882)

What is a commonplace book? A place to "put in exactly what suits us -- just those things we wish to remember and want to refer to again... A commonplace book is an index to our intellectual life..."

Knots and Splices (Collier's Cyclopedia, 1882)

The Mysteries of Change [Bell]-Ringing (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1882)

Diaries and Journals, by Arthur Penn (Century Magazine, 1883A)

How to keep a journal, including what to "put down" and what not to.

Family Records, by Arthur Penn (Century Magazine, 1883A)

Suggestions on setting up family photo albums.

How to Make and Fill a Scrap-Album (Little Folks, 1883)

On Brasses and Brass Rubbing, by Gertrude Harraden (Girl's Own Paper, 1893, 1894, 1895)

Bell-Ringing for Girls (Girl's Own Paper, 1896)

Bells, Ringers, and Ringing, by Rev. H. Earle Bulwer (Windsor, 1897A)

How to Utilize Old Magazines, by Herman Justi (Century Magazine, 1897A)

Tips on taking selected articles from favorite old magazines and having them rebound into new volumes.

See also

• Photography

• Collecting & Collections

• Arts and Crafts