The confession album, or confession book,[1] was a kind of autograph book popular in late-nineteenth-century Britain. Instead of leaving free room for invented or remembered poetry, it provided a formulaic catechism. The genre died out towards the end of the century, with occasional brief revivals in the twentieth century. The same kind of form is now found in the Dutch vriendenboek ("friends book"), and German Freundschaftsbuch ("friendship book"), used by small children; and the questions that the confession album contained live on in the Proust Questionnaire often used for celebrity interviews.
- ^ So called by e. g. A. A. Milne, Not that it Matters , London: Methuen (1921), 79; Once a Week , London: Methuen (1922), 180.