When dusting out corners, we often find things once thought useful, but perhaps not useful enough to keep on display or ready to hand. If we dust in a time and place distant from that in which they were once used, we may be surprised by their vitality, which may also lead us to ask why we swept them into that corner in the first place. The articles in this book look at old letters, a popular song, a hit comedy, an overlooked opera, three Swedish composers of the period, and illustrations in a popular book. They are intended to surprise us with the residual vitality of what one can find in those dusty corners. The choice of one place and time to sweep within this book is purely practical and not exclusive; there remain many other dusty corners to be swept.