If it's November, this must be Balmoral

Queen Victoria, footloose and fancy-free?

Well, yes. As Queen of the United Kingdom, Victoria either had use of or personally owned dozens of houses and palaces. While the official home of the kings and queens of the UK is Windsor Castle, Victoria spent her childhood at the royal palace of Kensington and the early years of her reign at Buckingham Palace, both in London. Wanting a summer getaway home for her growing family, she purchased an 1100-acre estate on the Isle of Wight, where she and Prince Albert built Osborne House (that's it at above right). But Osborne wasn’t the real getaway she’d hoped it would be, so she later purchased a large estate in the Scottish Highlands named Balmoral.

So what did QV do with all these houses?

Amazingly, she lived in them, traveling from house to house several times over the course of the year, much to the dismay of her servants and staff.

Here's how it generally went: Christmas and New Year’s were spent at Osborne; some time in January she would usually return to Windsor (shown at left) and remain there for February. March and April could be spent at Windsor or abroad, in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, or the south of France (the Queen liked to travel “incognito”, calling herself the Countess of Balmoral). Mid May generally saw a quick month-long jaunt to Balmoral, then back down to Windsor or Buckingham Palace if necessary for receiving debutantes at Drawing Rooms during the Season. Mid July saw her back to Osborne for the yachting season at Cowes, then late August sent her to Balmoral till mid-November for the shooting season. Mid-November meant a return to Windsor, then back to Osborne for Christmas and the start of the cycle once more.

Phew! If I’m exhausted just writing this, just imagine how her children, household and servants felt! The queen did not travel lightly; entire trains were required to ferry her and her household and luggage about the countryside. And even up in the remote Scottish Highlands at Balmoral (shown at right), she was still queen: a member of the cabinet always had to accompany her as a representative of the government (they squabbled endlessly about whose turn it was, as few enjoyed the Queen's frigid Scottish home); in addition, the prime minister in office frequently journeyed the roughly 500 miles to consult with her as well. In addition, the special red dispatch boxes containing reports and documents requiring her consideration were sent up daily from London.

Nineteenth Century Heroines: No Bones About It

It has been suggested (twice QnPoohBear, cough, cough) that we talk about some real life heroines in the nineteenth century, young ladies who distinguished themselves in the sciences, arts, or other areas. I can think of no one finer to inaugurate this series than Mary Anning.

Mary was born in 1799 in Lyme Regis on the Dorset coast of England. Her father Richard was a cabinetmaker by trade, but he loved to spend his free time collecting fossils and he took Mary and her older brother Joseph with him. The cliffs near Lyme Regis are riddled with remains from the Jurassic period; they’re also legendary for landslides and sink holes. Mary spent her youth clambering over these dangerous cliffs and collecting “curiosities” that her father sold to tourists in front of his shop on Bridge Street. Jane Austen even visited.

Sadly, Richard Anning died of consumption when Mary was only 11, and the family struggled to eke out a living by selling the fossils they found. That same year, Joseph uncovered a massive head of what he thought was a fossilized crocodile. Between tides and the weather, it was another year before the children could get back to it, and it was Mary who uncovered the entire skeleton: the first complete ichthyosaur!

Now, you’d think such a find would attract considerable attention, but Mary only earned £23 when she sold the fossil to the Lord of the Manor of Colway. He in turn exhibited it in William Bullock’s Museum of Natural History, and it wasn’t until 1814 that the Royal Society (the premiere scientific organization in England at the time) published a description in its Transactions (with little mention of Mary, thank you very much). The Annings were doing so poorly, in fact, that a professional fossil collector, Lieutenant-Colonel Birch, auctioned off his collection and donated the proceeds to them. The total amount raised was £400 (enough for a family of three to live on for a year or two).

By the time Mary was in her twenties, she was the head of the family’s fossil collecting business. In 1824, she discovered the skeleton of a plesiosaurus. She sold it for over £100 to the Duke of Buckingham himself. That discovery put her on the map, so to speak, but many scientists were skeptical that Mary was the person making these spectacular finds. For one, she was a woman, and for another, she had only attended school a short period in her life. Yet when they came to talk to her, they could only scratch their heads at her vast knowledge of the creatures she was uncovering. One of her visitors credited her skills to divine providence.

Even though Mary discovered a pterodactyl in 1828 and an even larger ichthyosaurus in 1832, it wasn’t until 1838 that the scientific community was willing to grant her any official standing. That year the British Association for the Advancement of Science awarded her an annuity. In 1846, she was made an honorary member of the Geological Society (honorary because women were not admitted until 1904). She died in March 1847 from breast cancer. Only after her death did the Royal Society acknowledge her, by donating a stained-glass window to her memory to the Parish Church at Lyme Regis.

It’s never easy being a nineteenth century heroine.

Fashion Forecast: 1810

What was the well-dressed young woman wearing in 1810?

Well, perhaps she was a dutiful daughter and willing to spend time with younger siblings. Here's a morning dress she might wear whilst doing so, from the August 1 edition of Ackermann's Repository:

After that, she might go out shopping or to pay calls, dressed in this Walking Dress (Ackermann's Repository, May 1):


or maybe in this "Morning Walking or Carriage Costume" (Ackermann, December 1):

This "Promenade or Opera Dress" (gotta love the multi-purposeness here!) is "A round robe of jaconet muslin, with high French ruff, and appliqued border of narrow lace round the feet. A cassoc coat or demi plisse or cerulean blue shot sarsnet, finished round the bosom with a basket border, extended on white satin, confined at the bottom of the waist with a silver or steel clasp, and to the bottom with three regular, divided silk cords and tassels. An Austrian tippet of white satin, with full floss binding, and tassels to correspond. Arcadian hat, composed of the same materials as the coat, and ornamented with full curled white feathers." (Ackermann, May 1):


Another evening or opera dress is here--note the dress on the right, which probably has removeable long sleeves (Ackermann, April 1):

I love the rich color and hat on this "Evening or Full Dress (Ackermann, February 1):

And of course, we must see a ball dress too, don't you think? The net and tassels on the overdress of this one from the March 1 edition of Ackermann's Repository are particularly whimsical:


1810 ended on a somber note with the death of King George III's youngest and favorite daughter, Princess Amelia. It's thought her death precipitated him into his final madness and paved the way for the Prince of Wales to become Prince Regent at last. Interestingly, when a family member of the monarch died, all society was expected to go into mourning. Here's an "Evening Mourning Dress" from the December 1 editions of Ackermann's Repository; note the symbolic funerary urn with a tiny portrait of the dead princess on it:

Books That Currently Go Bump in the Night

Thanks so much for your comments about Gothic novels! From Mysteries of Udolpho to Northanger Abbey, Frankenstein to Dracula, the nineteenth century was blessed with some awe-inspiring novels of terror, adventure, and romance.

And they inspired a whole slew of current novels too!

It’s no secret that Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice stands as the prototype for many a romantic hero. Now his story is being taken to a whole new level, blending with the terrifying, in no less than two novels! Mr. Darcy Vampyre by Amanda Grange was out this August from Sourcebooks. According to its publisher, the story “starts where Pride and Prejudice ends and introduces a dark family curse so perfectly that the result is a delightfully thrilling, spine-chilling, breathtaking read.” Sounds intriguing, eh? (Well, maybe to some of you. Full confession time—I overdosed on horror novels in the third grade, and I haven’t been able to force myself to read one since! I write YA, and I can’t convince myself to read Twilight.)

Regina Jeffer’s Vampire Darcy’s Desire, out from Ulysses Press just this month, also sees the dangerous Mr. Darcy as a vampire. The teaser is “Two lovers trying to overcome that which separates them: their pride, their prejudice, Darcy's vampirism and the evil workings of master vampire George Wickham.” Hm, maybe I might bite, er try this one.

But wait, there’s more!

Jane Austen’s novels seem to scream paranormal to a whole bunch of folks. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, anyone? No? What about Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters? I haven’t read either, but supposedly they are wildly popular. Not sure they’re my cup of tea, er blood, er sea water.





Still want more? The end of December, Ballantine will release Michael Thomas Ford’s Jane Bites Back. The teaser? “Two hundred years after her death, Jane Austen is still surrounded by the literature she loves—but now it's because she's the owner of Flyleaf Books in a sleepy college town in Upstate New York. Every day she watches her novels fly off the shelves—along with dozens of unauthorized sequels, spin-offs, and adaptations. Jane may be undead, but her books have taken on a life of their own.

"To make matters worse, the manuscript she finished just before being turned into a vampire has been rejected by publishers—116 times. Jane longs to let the world know who she is, but when a sudden twist of fate thrusts her back into the spotlight, she must hide her real identity—and fend off a dark man from her past while juggling two modern suitors. Will the inimitable Jane Austen be able to keep her cool in this comedy of manners, or will she show everyone what a woman with a sharp wit and an even sharper set of fangs can do?” Okay, you may get me to read this one!

If you truly want the feelings of a nineteenth century novel, with the spice of the Gothic, I definitely recommend Carrie Bebris’ series. In these the married Darcys take on paranormal mysteries. With such lovely titles as Pride and Prescience, Suspense and Sensibility, North by Northanger, and The Matters at Mansfield, you know Carrie has some of Jane Austen’s wit along with her own imagination and impressive writing skills.

Have you seen others? Or is there a Jane Austen character you’d love to see taken to Gothic extremes? Let us know, and happy Halloween!

Books That Go Bump in the Night, Part 5

And then there are the books that giggle in the night.

Jane Austen must have enjoyed a good laugh. How else could she have created Mr. and Mrs. Bennett, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Marianne from Sense and Sensibility, and today's topic, Northanger Abbey?

Much of the divine Jane's early work was outright comedic, written to amuse her family; she especially seemed to have enjoyed parody, gently making fun of existing works and genres (her A History of England, a parody of Oliver Goldsmith's book of the same name and dedicated to her sister Cassandra, is pure silliness.) We've discussed the Gothic novel craze as a brief thing of the past, a temporary blip on the history of the English novel...but Jane experienced it in real time. And just as there are people who find today's vampire craze amusing, it's pretty clear that Jane got a chuckle from Gothic novels.

Northanger Abbey, though not published till after her death in 1818, is one of Jane's earliest major works: a first draft, entitled Susan, was probably written in 1798 or 1799. It's also the most explicitly literary of her major novels in that it's very much a book about books. The story begins with the introduction of the heroine: "No one who had seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be a heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman...and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense...and instead of dying in bringing [her] into the world, as anyone might expect, she still lived on...."

Jane is poking fun here at the convention in Gothic novels that the heroine be perfect and either orphaned or subject to the whims of a parent who has suffered a clouded past which will of course rebound upon his or her hapless child. The book continues in this vein with frequent authorial intrusions to point out how boring and normal Catherine and her life are...much to Catherine's dismay, for she is a devotee of books "provided they were all story and no reflection." Poor Catherine, with a head full of stories and a life full of commonplaces, for "There was not one lord in their neighbourhood; not even a baronet. There was not one family among their acquaintances who had reared and supported a boy accidentally found at their door; not one young man whose origin was unknown....But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way."

Of course Catherine does find a hero while visiting Bath. Handsome Henry Tilney and his sister invite her to visit their country home, Northanger Abbey, and Catherine is in raptures at the thought: will it be infested with the ghosts of murdered monks and inhabited by ancient retainers who know all the awful secrets of the family they serve? Jane has a field day with Catherine's visit: the Abbey is no crumbling, battlemented ruin but a comfortable, modern house; a dusty scroll hidden in a strange Japanese cabinet turns out to be an old laundry list. But then poor Catherine does indeed get a fright when the Tilneys' father, hitherto almost fawningly nice to her, suddenly turns cold and declares her visit at an end. Catherine learns that being the heroine in a dramatic story isn't as much fun as she thought it would be, but all ends happily: Henry Tilney follows her home and proposes, explaining that his rather money-grubbing father had thought her an heiress, but is told (falsely) that she was a penniless adventuress. Papa is brought round when he learns that Catherine has a respectable dowry, and all live happily ever after.

Northanger Abbey is probably the most light-hearted of Jane's books, with even its central love story being something of a joke (Henry Tilney takes no real notice of Catherine until he realizes she admires him enormously: "in finding him irresistable, becoming so herself." Read it, and laugh along with its author across the centuries.

Books That Go Bump in the Night, Part 4

She doesn’t look like a revolutionary, does she? Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin had a father who was a radical political philosopher and a mother who was one of England’s first feminists. Today, we would consider her homeschooled, but her “teachers” were the radical thinkers of the times, who flocked to her father’s drawing room. At sixteen she fell in love with the romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who was one of the flock. As he was married at the time, they ran away to Europe together. They later married when his first wife committed suicide.

In 1816, when she was 18 years old, Mary and Shelley spent the summer on Lake Geneva, Switzerland, with another famous poet and all around bad boy, George Lord Byron; his friend John William Polidori, a physician; and Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont. It proved to be an unusually wet summer, and the group spent a lot of time inside around the fire, often reading German ghost stories. Bryon challenged each to write their own ghost story. Polidori penned a short story called The Vampyre, which was immediately attributed to Byron. Mary took the challenge more seriously, however, and her novel, which she published anonymously in 1818, became one of the most iconic stories of all time.

Frankenstein.


It’s been called the first science fiction novel, as it deals with a scientist taking his science a bit too far and playing God to create a man. Mary claimed the story came to her in a vision. Many modern day critics, however, claim Mary wasn’t all that original. Some say she visited Castle Frankenstein on her way to Lake Geneva and read about scientific experiments there. Others claim the book’s hero was modeled a bit too closely on Percy Bysshe Shelley. If so, Mary must have been a bit miffed at him at the time, as the poor scientist is thoroughly tormented for his efforts. In fact, one could wonder whether Mary was rethinking some of her revolutionary ways by this quote from the novel:

“You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.”

Regardless, the book was a huge success. It was reprinted in 1823 and again in 1831, revised and expanded by an older, wiser Mary, who is finally listed as the author. It has gone on to inspire dozens of films and adaptations.

Not bad for a homeschooled revolutionary, eh?

Books That Go Bump in the Night, Part 3

A discussion of 19th century books that go bump in the night would certainly not be complete without a look at two of the warhorses of all scary stories, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Regina will take a look at the former on Friday, while today we will sink our teeth (sorry, just couldn't resist!) into Dracula.

Dracula just squeaks in as a 19th century book, being published in May of 1897. Its author, Bram Stoker, was the business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London and the right-hand man of the great actor Henry Irving, who owned the Lyceum. Managing the theatre and working for Irving led to a a great deal of travel for Stoker; this and his life-long interest in history and folklore were fodder for the short stories and books he wrote in his spare time, ranging from fairy tales for children and fantasy and horror novels to civil service manuals and travel memoirs (he became a friend of Teddy Roosevelt during visits to America and stayed twice at the White House).

Dracula is an epistolary novel, told via letters, journal entries, and faux newspaper clippings, which adds a creepy sense of reality to it. Also eerily familiar is the vein of forbidden sensuality that runs through it; today's vampire stories aren't breaking new ground there! Reviews of the book on its initial release were very good (the British Weekly said, "One of the most interesting and exciting of recent novels is Mr. Bram Stoker's 'Dracula. ' It deals with the ancient mediaeval vampire legend, and in no work of English work of fiction has this legend been so brilliantly treated."), though a few found the conquering of a supernatural creature with the tools of "modern" science to be jarring (The Spectator said, "The up-to-dateness of the book--the phonograph diaries, typewriters, and so on--hardly fits in with the mediaeval methods which ultimately secure the victory for Count Dracula's foes").

Dracula, however, wasn't the first popular vampire story of the 19th century. Twenty-five years before Dracula's release, Stoker's fellow Irishman, author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, published his novella Carmilla, the story of a young English girl nearly taken by a beautiful girl vampire staying with her and her father in a castle in Austria. And more recently, Bram Stoker's great-nephew has co-written a sequel entitled Dracula, The Undead that was just released this year.

Are you a Dracula fan? How do you think today's popular vampire fiction stacks up against it?