Trolling is nothing new. More than 150 years ago, Victorian 'trolls' were using the fledgling postal system to insult people with so-called 'Vinegar Valentine' cards. These anonymous greeting cards, illustrated with caricatures and snarky poetry, were a major phenomenon as the ability to communicate regardless of distance became more accessible.

Surviving examples of vinegar valentines are scarce. For obvious reasons, recipients did not keep them. Today, they are items of curiosity and prices range from £50 to £600 on AbeBooks.co.uk for these hard-to-find items of true ephemera. White Fox Rare Books in Vermont is one noted seller that offers these cards.

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It appears vinegar valentines originated in the United States around 1840 and were used for around 100 years. They were being mass produced by the second half of the 19th century and were also widely used in Britain.

You Waste Labor

on Your Waist You have no other beauty,

So you hope the men to please

By giving to your homely waist

A most outrageous squeeze.

This is the way you pinch it,

Till you're nearly cut in half,

But in spite of all your efforts

Men only at you laugh.

Annebella Pollen, principal lecturer in history of art and design at the University of Brighton in the UK, is an expert on these insulting cards.

"Senders would buy them from stationers' shops," explained Pollen. "These could be widely found in urban areas by the mid to late 19th century, selling a range of graphic paper products, from decorative prints to news sheets. These capitalized on the massive expansion of popular print culture in the period. My research has shown that the insulting valentines tended to be stocked in so-called 'lower class' stationers, on the 'wrong' (i.e. cheaper) side of town."

It's not clear why they died out. Perhaps card manufacturers realized that love was a bigger industry than hate.

They were not actually cards that open but usually a single sheet of paper or a postcard, sometimes colourful, sometimes plain. The artwork and verse typically mocked some characteristic of the recipient. Gluttons, drinkers, hen-pecked husbands, braggarts, windbags, spinsters, sharp-tongued wives, unfaithful lovers, cowards, lazy colleagues, uncaring bosses, ugly people, fat and thin people, vain people, and stupid people - they were all fair game to folks who posted vinegar valentines. They could be delivered to enemies, or people who had treated you badly, or someone you thought needed to be brought down a notch or two. The tone of verse ranged from gentle to downright vicious and abusive.