The Victorian Easter Bunny
“In Germany the children believe that the Easter hare places eggs and other presents in the baskets they leave outside the nursery on the eve of Easter.” The Cornishman, 1892.
(Image via New York Public Library)
Though the origin of Easter eggs and Easter bunnies can be traced back to ancient times, the Victorians did not begin to celebrate Easter in the way that we know now until the late 19th century. It was then that Easter bunnies became fashionable. Before the 1880s, however, it was in Germany—not in England or the United States—that children believed in the “Easter hare.” As American author Linda Beard states in her 1893 book How to Amuse Yourself and Others:
“In Germany, too, we should find that children believe as sincerely in the Easter hare as they do in Santa Claus in our country; and the saying, that ‘the hares lay the Easter eggs,’ is never doubted by the little ones.”
