NineteenTeen

Guest Blogger Judith Laik: Shooting and Coursing Dogs of the Nineteenth Century

2012-01-27T02:00:00.000-05:00

Today we continue our series with Regency author and dog expert Judith Laik on dogs of the nineteenth century. If you have an opportunity to watch the Westminster Kennel Club dog show in February, you might see Judith’s daughter. Jennifer Laik’s CH Colebrae After Midnight could win the Best of Variety Rough category and be the Collie representative in the Herding Group!

Using dogs to search for and retrieve game birds was another popular form of hunting during the nineteenth century. Only aristocrats and landed gentry had the right to the game in the forests, and those with land suitable for shooting on their estates guarded their lands, and the wildlife to be found on them, zealously.

Many types of birds were considered good fare for the tables of the rich, and dogs were developed to specialize in particular kinds, eventually becoming different breeds. Spaniels were developed early, by the late 1600s, and then further evolved into land and water spaniels. The land spaniels “flushed,” or frightened, game birds such as partridge and pheasant out of dense brush so the hunters could shoot them “on the wing.” Water spaniels breeds were used to retrieve waterfowl from ponds and streams. Pointers and setters helped to find the game by pointing at them. The stood in a steady pose, nose toward the birds, one front paw lifted, and their tail straight out. Their steadiness on point was a chief attribute they were bred for.

Unlike the scent hounds such as Foxhounds and Beagles, which smelled the ground to discover their prey, the “sporting” breeds scented the air to find game. Many of the sporting breeds today look very much like they did in the nineteenth century. The exception is the retriever breeds, which were a work in progress during most of the century.

However, if the dogs were used to help hunt waterfowl, even if they weren’t called retrievers, going after downed birds in the water and bringing them back to their masters was a key part of their job. The water spaniels, such as the Irish Water Spaniel, as well as early retriever specimens, were used for this type of hunting.

Shooting could be done by a solitary man with a dog, or, as one often reads in novels, a shooting party, usually houseguests at a country estate, goes out together, each man with his own gun and with several dogs accompanying the party.

And although an active, athletic dog such as the sporting dogs needed a great deal of exercise and therefore weren’t as likely to be kept as a household companion, their close bond with their owners still defined many of these dogs. Much more than in fox hunting, a dog and its master were a closely bonded pair, knowing almost by intuition what the other was communicating.

A third type of hunting, which was not as popular by the nineteenth century but still did take place, was coursing. In coursing, various breeds of hounds were used to chase down game animals. The hunter might be on foot or horseback, depending on the quarry. In earlier times, when wolves still existed in Britain and deer were more plentiful, hounds which “sighted” the objects of the hunt, chased, and brought the animals down were familiar assistants to the aristocracy, and even to monarchs. Queen Elizabeth I was known to be an avid huntswoman. But those days were mostly past by the nineteenth century. Still, dogs such as Harriers and Beagles were often used to hunt hares and other game.

Harriers and Beagles strongly resemble their larger Foxhound cousins, and, like them, are ground scenters. Most of the breeds historically used for coursing were sighthounds, hunting their prey by sight, such as the Irish Wolfhound and Scottish Deerhound. These ancient breeds, because of the decimation of their genetically programmed prey and hard times in their countries of origin, had become quite rare during the nineteenth century. Ownership of a Scottish Deerhound by Queen Victoria helped rescue the breed. Victoria’s attachment to several breeds helped assure their popularity with the general public. And that’s the subject for another article!

Guest Blogger Judith Laik: Hunting and Shooting Sports in the Nineteenth Century

2012-01-24T05:33:00.004-05:00

This week we're welcoming back Regency author and dog expert Judith Laik, whom you will recall started a series on Dogs of the Nineteenth Century back in December.

Hunting and shooting were popular pastimes for (mostly) men in the 19th century. These sports took place after the London “season” ended, when the upper classes went to their country estates.

Fox Hunting
“Hunting” referred exclusively to fox hunting. To my mind, no other sport symbolizes Great Britain so completely. Hunting season took place after the harvest was in and the fields lay empty, later in the autumn and during the winter until spring. Hunting-mad people of all ages kicked their heels with impatience through the late spring, summer and early fall months until at last hunting season arrived again. I confess my sympathies are with the poor, beleaguered fox, but the wily animals very often came out on top, escaping and “going to ground” – into their burrows. Although I’m sure many of the hunters were disappointed if their foray didn’t result in a kill, for most of them pursuing the fox was only an excuse for an exciting cross-country ride.

Taking part in a hunt was a heart-pumping thrill for a young man. The early morning gathering in the crisp autumn or winter air, the ritualistic customs of the hunt. Waiting for the hounds to catch a scent, the impatient stamping of the high-bred horses; the hounds’ baying as they set off on the chase; the splendor of the red-coated riders as they followed, over fences, across fields and streams.

The actual hunting of foxes is now illegal in Great Britain, but throughout the nineteenth century it was a quintessential aspect of the social life of the aristocracy and gentry. There were a few women who hunted, more so as the century progressed.

If you’d like to read more about fox hunting, here are three interesting websites. The first link is to some essays by Anthony Trollope, a 19th century novelist. The second one defines foxhunting terms, and the third one has a very evocative slide show with fox hunting images and sounds.

http://user.xmission.com/~drudy/fox/trollope.html
http://www.spiletta.com/UTHOF/hippology/foxhunt.html
http://www.mfha.org/
Our topic is dogs, however, so let’s talk about Foxhounds. They are an exception to what I said last month that people didn’t keep records and pedigrees on the various breeds. The AKC entry on English Foxhounds says the Masters of Foxhounds Association kept impeccable records of their breeding from before 1800. These hounds were bred for their scenting ability, voice, and stamina on the chase. Foxhounds are pack animals, and seldom lived as human companions, although you’ll read the occasional novel where a hunting-mad squire (usually a bachelor or widower) gives his hounds the run of his manor, and I’m sure there must have been people who formed closer bonds with their Foxhounds. But most of these dogs were kept in kennels, looked after by the Masters of the Foxhounds (for the larger packs, a number of kennel helpers would assist the Master.)

Thank you, Judith! Be sure to stop by on Friday, when Judith will discuss game shooting (and retrievers), and the ancient sport of coursing.

Grand Tour, Part 3: On to Paris!

2012-01-20T17:33:00.006-05:00

Ah, when last we discussed our adventures on the Grand Tour, we had embarked on a ship crossing the Channel and were heading for Calais. The voyage was uneventful, except for the one member of our company who was hideously seasick, poor dear!

Luckily, the tide was high when we reached Calais, so we were able to sail right up to the quay. That was a blessing. At low water, smaller boats must be rowed out to the ships, and it’s always tricky getting a lady in full skirts over the side of the sailing ship and safely aboard the boats. Then too, once the smaller boats reach the shallows, there’s the question of getting from them to the shore. I’ve heard tales where men had to carry the ladies. And we are not talking gentlemen or gently!

We, on the other hand, can merely cross the gangplank onto the dock. However, the French do not seem content to allow us to do so alone. Dozens of men come aboard wishing to help us disembark, carrying our trunks and even our parasols! They are a rough bunch, but they seem civil enough and conduct us right up to the Monsieur le Commissaire, who will escort us to the customs-house. There we exchange our passports for French ones, and if we do not produce them quickly enough there is a great deal of hand-waving and exclamations in rapid French.

Everyone collected? Excellent! We had planned to spend the night in Calais, so off to our hotel, one that caters to visiting Englishmen and women, the Meurice. Our trunks will be examined at the customs-house and released, once we have paid a host of fees, including money for the captain, sailors, the commissioner, and the gentlemen who carried everything from the ship for us. My, but traveling can get expensive!

After a good night’s sleep on the sheets we brought ourselves, we hire a post-chaise for the ride to Paris. We could have taken the Diligence. It has an office very near the Meurice. But the large, lumbering coaches that carry people all over France are so much more uncomfortable than the English stagecoaches that we took pity on our still green friend and hired a carriage instead.

Mrs. Starke, from the written guide we’ve brought with us, advises us to take the road from Calais through Beauvais to Paris, as it is smoother, less hilly, and shorter. The road winds through fields of grain, and trees line the avenue as if you were going somewhere much finer than the local villages. We pass a mound, which our guides tell us once housed the camp of Julius Caesar. Roman medals and other artifacts have been found in the area.

And there’s a lovely convent, with its white walls. So French! No, wait. Is that smoke coming from the chimney? So many chimneys? It seems France has seen fit to transform many of its convents into factories, a fact that seems more sad than progressive as we head on.

And there, on the horizon, Montmartre! We’re almost to Paris!

Victoria’s Children, part 9: Beatrice—Dutiful Daughter or Half-crazed Visigoth?

2012-01-17T05:21:00.001-05:00

Ha--I knew that would get your attention! And I’m not exaggerating too much, as you’ll see shortly. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…

Poor Victoria. The queen actually hadn’t wanted such a large family; but medical knowledge being what it was in the mid-19th century, her doctors gave her less-than-accurate advice on family planning. So it was more or less business as usual when her ninth and last child was born April 14, 1857…except that it wasn’t. She had discovered the blessings of chloroform with the birth of her previous child, Leopold, and was determined to utilize it again…which she did, to the continued grumbling of much of the medical establishment of the day.

Her pain-free birth may or may not have had something to do with it, but little Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodore soon became a favorite with her parents, now that their elder children were marrying (Vicky married when Baby, as she was nicknamed, was nine months old). She was a pretty, lively child, and the Queen even overcame her usual dislike of infants in Beatrice’s case.

That pretty liveliness, however, was not destined to remain. The deaths of both the Queen’s mother and husband in 1861 plunged the Queen into gloom, and levity was not welcomed in her household. Gradually, Beatrice’s bright personality and intelligence were worn down, until by her teens, she had become very shy and almost tongue-tied in public and her natural grace dulled. Victoria’s older daughters had, one by one, escaped into marriage, but if the Queen had any say in the matter, Beatrice would not: she would remain at her mother’s side, serving as her personal secretary and companion for the rest of her life.

And so matters continued until 1884. Though Victoria assured everyone that Beatrice was quite content to remain “the daughter of the house”, there had been thoughts of marrying her off, possibly to Louis of Hesse, her late sister’s Alice’s widower. Finding a groom for Beatrice did not appear to be an easy prospect: she was chunky, awkward and gauche in public, and just not very attractive. But at a family wedding in that fateful year, Beatrice fell in love. Her choice was Prince Henry of Battenburg, a minor German princeling. In many ways, he was the perfect choice: he was more or less penniless and landless, and could therefore quite easily move to England and become Beatrice’s husband, rather than her leaving England to become his wife. So after six months of the Silent Treatment (quite literally!) on the Queen’s part, promises were extracted from Henry (nicknamed “Liko”) and Beatrice that they would always live with her, and the pair were allowed to marry in 1885.

Remain with the Queen they did: even after the arrival of four children (Alexander in 1886, Victoria Eugenie—called Ena— in 1887, Leopold in 1889, and Maurice in 1891—the Queen’s 40th and final grandchild) the family followed the Queen on her yearly peregrinations among her residences, while Beatrice continued as her mother’s right hand. The lively “Battenbunnies” helped keep the Queen young for a time; not since the Prince Consort’s death had there been such sunshine in her life. But clouds would soon re-gather: though Beatrice adored him, her Liko eventually chafed under his enforced status as house-husband, and in 1895 got permission to join the British Army to fight in Africa in the Ashanti wars. To everyone’s horror, he contracted malaria and died while en route home.

Poor Beatrice was, of course, devastated, but her aging mother needed her more than ever, not to mention her young family. Though not a very maternal or demonstrative mother, she was, above all, dutiful, and so life continued until 1901..and the real center of Beatrice’s life, her mother, died.

You have to feel sorry for her—for the Queen had occupied almost all of her attention, all her life. And in death, she continued to do so, for Beatrice was named one of the executors of her will and, more importantly, had been requested by the Queen to edit her papers, most notably the diaries she’d kept since 1831 and her private letters. And here’s where the Visigoth part comes in, for edit Beatrice did: by the time she was done copying out what seemed appropriate to her to keep, Beatrice deleted fully two-thirds of the Queen’s diaries and letters...and burned the originals, to the horror of King George and Queen Mary and to generations of historians ever since. Imagine what was lost to history!

The rest of Beatrice’s life remained uneventful, though dramas occurred—the disastrous marriage of her daughter Ena to the last king of Spain and the death of her son Maurice in World War I. She unveiled monuments to her mother’s memory and dabbled in good works (though not to the degree that her sisters Lenchen and Louise did), and lived until 1944…and thus ended an era.

Coming soon, we'll take a look at some of the more interesting of the Queen's forty grandchildren...stay tuned!

More on The Agency: A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee

2012-01-13T00:10:00.001-05:00

Great insights, my dears! I do hope some more of you join in. May I freshen your tea? Plump the pillow behind you?

I too enjoyed this book, particularly the chemistry between Mary and James. I was sad to hear he was heading off to India at the end, but it seems maybe something will change his mind. Hm.

And I look forward to reading the subsequent books to see how Mary resolves her conflicts with her heritage. I didn’t know a lot about Chinese immigrants in the nineteenth century, so I did a little poking around (ah, research, thy sultry call never faileth!). While Chinese people had visited England since the 1600s, the first significant number of immigrants settled in the early nineteenth century, particularly in London’s Limehouse Reach along the Thames. They were largely sailors, and many worked for the East India Company. One of their number, who went by the Anglicized name of John Anthony, took on the role of ambassador between the immigrants and the Company and amassed a fortune in the process. He was the first Chinese man to be naturalized as a British citizen, supposedly through an Act of Parliament. Another Chinese man was graduated from Edinburgh University with an MD in 1855. The first Chinese minister to Britain arrived in 1877.

So if the Chinese were wealthy and educated, why did Mary cringe at admitting her background? Perhaps these chilling words from The Nineteenth Century: A Monthly Review, Volume 4: July through December, 1878, edited by Sir James Knowles, will show the depth of the prejudice against the Chinese:

“The Chinese are, by common ascent of all Western nations, pronounced to be an eccentric and impractical race. . . . Summarize the charges brought against Chinese immigrants by those most nearly interested, namely, British Colonists and United States citizens and these may be stated as follows: --they are pronounced to be the scum of the population of the worst districts of China; they migrate without their families, and the few women they import are shipped under a system of slavery for the vilest purposes; they introduce their own bizarre habits and ideas, and studiously eschew all sociability with colonists of other races; they outrage public opinion by hideous immoralities; they ignore or defy judicial and municipal institutions; they form secret and treasonable associations amongst themselves; they manage to afford, by their low and miserable style of living, to undersell and under work white men as mechanics, labourers, and servants; they fail to take root in the soil, making it their aim always to carry home their gains to the old country.”

What ugly rhetoric! The article does attempt to rebuke these attitudes or suggest ways to counter them. Note that the same volume has an article on why the women’s movement might bring about the downfall of society.

Either way, you go, Mary!

Another question for you to ponder: Why do you think the leaders of the Agency chose Mary? What skills would you need to be a good spy in the nineteenth century? Do you think you would make a good addition to the Agency?

Young Bluestockings Book Club reads The Agency: A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee

2012-01-10T07:11:00.008-05:00

Welcome to the first Young Bluestockings Book Club meeting of 2012! Dedicated to all things high-minded (usually), improving (frequently), and fun (always, we hope!), the Young Bluestockings Book Club meets to discuss books of interest to readers of NineteenTeen: books related to 19th century teens and their life. Please make yourselves comfortable—yes, I know, that horsehair-upholstered sofa is terribly slippery—refresh your teacup, and let’s get started!

First, a note—there will be spoilers in this post, so if you haven’t read the book yet and don’t want any surprises ruined…YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! :)

Ahem…now, here we go!

First, a brief re-cap of this meeting's book, The Agency: A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee: 12-year-old street orphan Mary Quinn is rescued from imminent execution by a mysterious woman who offers not only life, but a place at Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls, a charitable institution that will give her the education to lead a useful life. Fast-forward five years, and Mary is now a junior teacher at the Academy, and has gone from being suspicious of the school to dedicated. So when two of her fellow teachers reveal the secret at the school’s heart—that it is a front and training ground for an ultra-secret, all-female intelligence service called The Agency—she jumps at the chance to join.

Mary’s first assignment is as a paid companion to the daughter of a wealthy east Asia merchant, Henry Thorold, who is suspected of dealing in stolen priceless Indian artifacts and tax evasion. The assignment is not always easy for a girl of Mary’s peppery temperament: her charge, Angelica, is a spoiled beauty who does her best to make Mary’s life a misery, and under the placid surface of the household, intrigue bubbles and swirls. Mary’s own feelings are complicated by a certain James Easton, whose brother George is one of Angelica’s suitors and who has his own reasons for wanting to know more about Mr. Thorold’s activities. And Mary has a secret of her own that not even her employers at the Agency know about—a secret she fears will alienate her from them and from the world, and which has a curious—and tragic—connection to the case she’s investigating.

Rather than listening to us spout, we want to hear from you: what did you think about the book? Here are a few questions to get you going:

Although the central premise of an all-women spy ring in 1850s England is, of course, extraordinarily unlikely, were you able to suspend disbelief enough to go along with the story?

Everyone seems to have a secret in the Thorold household...which secret did you find most intriguing and unexpected?

Mary has already stated that she has no interest in marriage...but then she finds herself drawn to James Easton. Do you think she'll change her mind about marriage, or do you think that her relationship with James will take a different tack? What do you think of young Mr. Easton?

Mary is intent on concealing her multi-ethnic birth, even from her trusted colleagues at the Agency. Do you think she'd over-reacting? D0 you suspect (as I do) that it will eventually turn into a source of strength for her?

All right, Young Bluestockings...discuss! And please don't limit yourself to these suggested talking points--bring up whatever you'd like!

P.S. As a history geekish side-note, the problem of the horrible stench from the Thames was an ongoing problem in the middle years of the century—in fact, at one point, in the summer of 1858 (as detailed in the book) the odor was so bad that it nearly forced Parliament (which sits right on the river) to close and earned the title of “The Great Stink.” The problem was the explosive growth of the city of London: the huge influx of people meant a huge influx of garbage and human waste, and the old disposal method—letting it all drain into the river and get swept out to sea on the tides—was no longer sufficient. Don’t forget, too, that the germ theory of disease had not yet been postulated, and Londoners were sure that the stench from the river caused the cholera outbreaks that had become commonplace. Over the next several years, the London sewer system was overhauled and improved, removing the stink and halting the cholera outbreaks by decontaminating the local water supply.

Public Spectacles, Amusements, and Objects Deserving Notice, January

2012-01-06T12:11:00.005-05:00

I have been known upon occasion to make a public spectacle of myself, most notably when my alter ego Sir Reginald Scott, Regency dandy and impoverished baronet seeking a wealthy wife, makes an appearance. However, I thought you might find it amusing and deserving of your notice if my first Friday posts this year consisted of all the interesting things a young lady or gentleman might have taken part in during the nineteenth century in London for that month.

So, let’s say you are a young gentleman out to impress a lady or a young lady looking for entertainment. The Season hasn’t started yet; London is rather thin for company. What could you do there in January in the nineteenth century?

Ah, there’s Twelfth Night celebrations throughout the day today (January 6). We’ve talked about family celebrations before. But there were more public activities as well. For instance, you could attend services at the Chapel Royal in St. James’s. The Bishop of London presided and presented an offering of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and the music was by some of the top performers of the day. (This according to The Picture of London.) In a time when music didn’t play all that large a part of religious celebrations, I’d be interested in knowing how they pulled that off. If your tastes run more to, well, tastes, you could wander the pastry shops this evening, where Twelfth Night Cakes would be illuminated for your viewing. I’m sure you’d want to take one home.

Later this month, around the 20th, lectures commence at the Royal Institution (see below) on such fascinating subjects as chemistry and galvanism, and you can also find lectures on medicine, surgery, and botany at the various hospitals and homes of medical men. Of course, a few fashion-conscience mamas may discourage their daughters from taking part in the former (only bluestockings allowed!), and the more faint-hearted may take exception to the grisly accounts in the latter!

Now, if you’re in the mood for something more adventurous, January appears to be the traditional time for the start of masquerades. Some were held at the Opera House or the Argyll Rooms. Keep an eye on the newspapers for advertisements, and remember that anyone who could pay the price could be admitted, so these could get a bit dangerous. If you haven’t time to construct your own costume, you can hire one from a masquerade warehouse.

But of course you don’t have to wait for the newspapers to announce the most exciting event of January. We have that right here! Come back next week when the Young Bluestockings discuss Y.S. Lee’s A Spy in the House!

Not the Nineteenth Century?!

2012-01-03T05:15:00.000-05:00

Dear Nineteenteen Readers,

I have a confession to make.

I’ve been seeing another century.

It isn’t that I don’t love the nineteenth century truly and deeply. And it isn’t that I don’t intend to continue to read and research about it and plan future books in it (I have a new idea for another Regency-set YA that I love, but need to do some research on it first. Poor me, huh?) But lately, I must confess that…well, I’ve been writing a book set in another century. Just barely, mind you—this story is set in 1901, which really, just barely qualifies as not the nineteenth century. I mean, Queen Victoria lived until 1901—doesn’t that count for something?

And…er, well, maybe I shouldn’t say this…but this story isn’t set in England. Not one little bit of it. There aren’t even any British characters in it, though a French grandmother and an obnoxious young vicomte do make appearances. No, it’s totally set in America—remember that trip to Newport, Rhode Island Regina and I posted about last summer?--oh my goodness, please sit down! Do you want me to pat you on the back? May I get you a glass of water?

There, that’s better. I've made a clean breast of it, and hopefully we can all come to terms with it. So of course, I'll just have to share with you some of the wonderful bits of research I’ve come across in the writing of this book (which, by the way, is about two-thirds done—and no, my agent hasn’t yet started looking for a publisher for it yet). So look for the occasional non-nineteenth century, non-English post from me over the next few months, because some of this stuff is just too good to keep to myself.

But meanwhile, we'll still be firmly planted in the nineteenth century next week when Regina and I open the first Young Bluestockings meeting of the year with a look at The Agency: A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee. Have you had a chance to read it yet? We hope so, and hope also that you'll be ready to talk about it. See you then, and Happy 2012 to you all!

A Very Happy Christmas to You!

2011-12-23T12:31:00.004-05:00

Happy Christmas, my dears! As Marissa and I often do this time of year, we’ll be taking next week off to spend time with our families. Don’t forget to look for A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee so you can read it with us after the holidays. The Young Bluestockings will be discussing it beginning Tuesday, January 10.

In the meantime, we have a couple Christmas presents for you. The first is that I have 10 copies of my February book, The Rogue’s Reform, up for grabs. There is a small catch. I will send a copy to the first 10 people who e-mail me via my website and can promise to post a review of the book in two places (such as Goodreads, your own blog, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble) by February 14. Tell me where and when, and be among the first 10 people to e-mail me, and a free signed copy will be winging its way to you, over a month before it hits stores. I deeply regret that because of cost issues, I have to limit this offer to those in the U.S.

Secondly, what would a happy Christmas be without a nineteenth century video! This year, we’re delighted to offer a great piece showcasing actual nineteenth century dresses in a French exhibit, Napoleon and the Empire of Fashion. I put the accompanying book on my Christmas list, so I hope Santa thinks I’ve been a good girl this year!

From Marissa and I, a very merry Christmas and a peaceful and prosperous New Year to you all!

Hallelujah!

2011-12-20T12:07:00.005-05:00

A few weeks ago I got to do something I’ve always wanted to do: attend a live performance of Handel’s Messiah, performed by Boston’s famed Handel and Haydn Society in Symphony Hall. I was so not disappointed: it was gorgeous, moving, and a total, total delight!

But being the history geek I am, I was almost as struck by the fascinating history of this piece of music. For one thing, this year marked the Society’s 158th annual performance; since 1854 it’s been a part of Christmas in Boston...that's a lot of performances! The Handel and Haydn Society also gave the first American performances of Messiah, with selections performed at its very first concert in December 1815 and the oratorio performed in its entirety in 1818.

The story of Messiah is equally interesting. George Frederick Handel wrote the music for it in just 24 days, after being sent the libretto by his friend and previous collaborator, Charles Jennens. It premiered in Dublin in 1742, and so anticipated was the concert that an ad in one of the city’s newspapers requested that ladies planning on attending the concert not wear hoops, so that more seating could be fit into the concert hall!

Though the London debut was not greeted with as much enthusiasm, within a few years it had achieved the status it now occupies in vocal music. Early on, many objected to an oratorio which contained passages from the Bible being performed in secular playhouses by professional singers, who were regarded along with actors and dancers as being of suspect morality; amusingly, one alto so moved a concert-goer that he shouted, "For this thy sins be forgiven!" after her solo.

There is also a story that the tradition of audiences standing during the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus dates to a performance given for King George II, who was so moved by it that he sprang to his feet (or maybe he’d just dozed off and was startled by the chorus’ exuberant opening). Of course, if the King was standing, everyone else had to stand too, and thus was a tradition born…except that there are no contemporary accounts confirming this story, and the first mentions of audiences standing date from the 1780s. Nevertheless, it’s a fun story!

I’m sure many of you have seen this before, but it seems an appropriate way to end this post. I hope you enjoy this brief musical interlude in the midst of this busy pre-Christmas week!

　
P.S. To follow up on Regina's reminder about our beloved Miss Austen’s birthday, check this out: has a new portrait of the author been discovered? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16027710

Guest Blogger Judith Laik: Dogs as Companions in the 19th Century, Part 2

2011-12-16T06:05:00.003-05:00

We're welcoming back Judith Laik, Regency author and historic dog breed researcher extraordinaire, with the second half of her article on Companion Dogs of the 19th century:

Over the course of the century a great leap took place in the history of dog breeds. Before that, and even during the early years of the century, there was no standardization of the various breeds, no central registries which kept track of the ancestry of dogs, and no shows where dogs were judged according to their adherence to a breed standard.

On the face of it, this fact may not seem of much importance, but it’s really huge. Behind all of today’s breeds there is a mixture of several breeds. (People who breed today’s “designer dogs” seem to think they have a new idea, but it’s not so!) Dog owners didn’t care much about how dogs looked; they bred them for specific purposes, whether to guard their owner’s property, to herd the livestock, to help with hunting, or to be a companion. Dogs were chosen for their abilities, not their appearance.

They started to display the distinctive conformation of their breed when trial and error showed that certain skeletal structures, head types, ear formations, etc., were the most efficient for the work which that breed was supposed to do.

However, this means we might not recognize some of the breeds we know today if we saw their early 19th century counterparts. And many other breeds popular today didn’t yet exist in the earlier years of the century.

An outstanding resource for anyone interested in learning about the various dog breeds is the website of the American Kennel Club. (http://www.akc.org/) All the recognized breeds of the AKC – 175 of them currently – plus an additional 62 breeds they are keeping track of for possible future recognition are listed. Each breed entry has a link to the website of a national organization devoted to that breed, and from there, you can usually find still more sites with photos and information, on breed characteristics, history, and so forth.

What’s your favorite dog character in a book? Mine is “Fitz” from Barbara Metzger’s A Loyal Companion, although I always enjoy reading about dogs in novels.

Thank you for blogging at Nineteenteen! Judith will be back in January with more information on 19th century dogs and their owners.

Two other thoughts to leave with you this Friday: 1) today is Jane Austen's birthday! The dear girl is 236, and her wonderful prose hasn't aged a day! 2) today through Sunday, Regina will be joining other Love Inspired authors on Goodreads to share tidbits on how Jane would have spent Christmas. Stop by the Love Inspired Historical Discussion Group and say hi! You might win a book!

Guest Blogger Judith Laik: Dogs as Companions in the 19th Century, Part 1

2011-12-13T06:07:00.000-05:00

This week we're welcoming author Judith Laik to blog on Nineteenteen! Judith writes fiction and non-fiction, and is equally beguiled by the Regency period and dogs. Her research on dogs spans several decades and was originally sparked by her mother’s purchase of a Collie when she was ten. Learning that the breed originated in Scotland led her to a lifelong love of the British Isles. She currently lives on a mini-farm in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, daughter, three horses, two cats, approximately a dozen Collies, and one Scottish Deerhound that doubles as a sofa cover.

Dogs have been the close companions and helpmeets of humans for many thousands of years, so it’s not surprising that people in 19th century England enjoyed the company of their canines.

In the countryside, dogs that helped with hunting, herding, and guarding held sway. But in the city the upper classes usually owned smaller “toy” dogs. You could see young ladies walking their Poodles and Pugs in the squares around their town houses, or taking them along when they promenaded in Hyde Park in their carriages. That's Lady Maria Conyngham in the picture above, painted c. 1824-25 with her spaniel by Sir Thomas Lawrence

The toy breeds have been bred for hundreds of years solely to be pets and companions for the upper classes. Some breeds have been championed by royalty. In the seventeenth century, the Stuart kings made the small toy spaniels, variously called English Toy Spaniels, King Charles Spaniels, and Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, popular. Pugs became popular when another seventeenth century monarch, William III of Orange, came to England to rule with his wife Mary.

Not as well known now, but popular then, were Italian Greyhounds, which looked very like their larger cousins, the Greyhounds, but in miniature. One might also find examples of the Bichon breeds (Maltese, Bolognese, Havanese, and Bichon Frisé), and Pomeranians, which were larger than the current tiny dogs of that breed. That's a Maltese at left, painted by an unknown British artist some time in the 19th century. Note the poodle-clipped forelegs!

Although the Terriers were usually hardworking farmers’ dogs rather than pampered pets, a number of them, with their appealing faces and happy, feisty personalities, found their way into the homes of the upper classes also.

What makes the bond between owner and dog isn’t determined by logic, and in the 19th century many different dogs were the beloved pets of famous people. Lord Byron owned – and had a memorial built to the memory of – a Newfoundland named Boatswain.

Another famous writer of the early nineteenth century, Sir Walter Scott, owned several Scottish Deerhounds, one of the largest breeds, and was particularly fond of one named Maida (who was a male despite the feminine-sounding name). Scott described the Deerhound as “the most perfect creature of Heaven.”

Queen Victoria, about whom I’ll write more in another article, owned and loved many breeds of dogs and has to be considered the ultimate 19th century dog lover.

Thanks, Judith! On Friday, we'll hear more about the dogs of the 19th century.

This and That and the Young Bluestockings Too!

2011-12-09T12:51:00.005-05:00

Sometimes, I simply have so much on my mind that I cannot settle on a topic for my Friday post. This is one of those Fridays. So, be prepared to be amazed, delighted, and enthralled (okay, perhaps merely better informed) by four different topics in one!

One

Next week is dog week on Nineteenteen! When I wanted to feature a dog that was both security guard and best friend in my November release, An Honorable Gentleman, I turned to a friend of Marissa’s and mine, sister author Judith Laik. Judith has raised show dogs, made quite a study of dogs in early nineteenth century England, and even taught classes to authors writing in that time period. So who better than to write a series of guest posts about man’s, and woman’s, best friend? Check in on Tuesday next week to learn more.

Two

Do you like to play dress up? (Imagine me raising my hand as high as Hermione Granger—me! Me!) You can indulge online. This Regency dress up doll comes with undergarments, outer garments, dresses, and accessories, and you can change her hair color and style too! One warning—it’s a bit addictive!

Three

Interested in seeing what a home might have looked like for Christmas in nineteenth century England? Check out Fairfax House in York, the original winter home of Viscount Fairfax. The site has a lot of lovely pictures, but just stay on the main page for a moment and watch the top slide show. I’m drooling!

Four

The Young Bluestockings ride again! Yes, thanks to popular demand (okay a suggestion during our birthday house party), we are bringing back the Young Bluestockings Book Club! The Young Bluestockings agree to read a YA book set in nineteenth century England then come together on one week to discuss our impressions. Our selection this time is The Agency: A Spy in the House by Y.S. Lee (another suggestion). So dash out and get a copy and come prepared to discuss on Tuesday, January 10, and Friday, January 13.

Happy Friday!

Fashion Forecast: 1824

2011-12-06T05:21:00.001-05:00

What was the well-dressed young lady wearing in 1824?

This year and next can almost be viewed as the calm before a sartorial storm: the fashions of the 1820s will become progressively more elaborate and exaggerated, until we hit the delightful absurdities of the 1830s. But for now…

If she were stepping out for a stroll, a fashionable young lady might wear this very natty fur-and-embroidery-trimmed Promenade Dress from January’s Ackermann’s Repository. The deep band of fur at the hem appears to be ermine. Note the waist creeping down from just under the bust to nearer the natural waist, the high neck with ruffles, and the adorable shell-shaped purse:

For a quiet morning at home, this is certainly a vibrant Morning Dress, in striped fabric with decorative applique at the hem and a deep frill of lace at the neck which must have been very highly starched to stand up that way! On a less fashion-focused note, did you see how the letter she’s reading was folded and sealed—we’re in the pre-envelope era here! (Ackermann’s Repository, March):

Feathers were definitely “in” for Court Dresses this year, as can be seen in this image from the June Lady’s Magazine—the poor dear’s head is nearly eclipsed by them! But the flower-trimmed pink satin train and the scalloped lace of the hem are charming, I think:
The detail on this Ball Dress from June’s Ackermann’s is lovely: note the ribbon applique on the sleeves and bodice, the ruching around the hem, and the pleated silk turban with tassels hanging coquettishly to one side…and best of all—she’s eating ice cream!
Also from June’s Lady’s Magazine is a dainty white satin Opera Dress trimmed with stuffed appliques at the hem and a pink satin cloak trimmed with swan’s down and gold tassels:
Here’s another print I wish I had the caption for: I’d love to know what the beautiful aquamarine fabric was made of. It looks to be subtly striped, with two heavy wadded decorative bands called rouleaux at the hem separated by a row of blossoms which also decorate the bodice and hem. An altogether charming Ball Dress from August’s Ackermann’s:
Here’s another elegant Promenade Dress that showcases several emerging fashion trends for this and the next few years: the sleeves caught in puffs down the length of the arm in a rather Renaissance-ish style, the larger hat with lappets left hanging free (see them also in the Opera Dress above) and the waist at the natural waistline (Ackermann’s Repository, October):
Here are those gathered and puffed sleeves again in an Evening Dress from November's Ackermann's, with a heavier wadded rouleau at the hem as well as daintier gold embroidery which can be seen as well around the low neckline. Notice her curls? You’ll be seeing lots of them over the rest of the 1820s, along with crimped waves reminiscent of a 30s Hollywood starlet. Smooth hair was definitely not in!
What do you think of 1824’s fashions?

The Grand Tour, Part 2: Sailing Away!

2011-12-02T14:28:00.007-05:00

My dears, we are about to embark on our Grand Tour! We are booked to take the Dover packet today across the Channel to Calais. From there, we’ll travel by carriage to Paris. When we’ve filled ourselves with French pastries, we will travel over the Alps to Italy and through the countryside to Venice, then down to Rome. After seeing the sights there, we will take ship for Sicily, then Malta, and then Athens. From Athens, we’ll return home by ship to England via Gibraltar. I do hope I can count you as a traveling companion!

However, one of our traveling companions is coming along in a very helpful book. I have with me the guidance of Mariana Starke, a well-traveled lady who is not at all stingy with her advice. Mrs. Starke as she was known (although she never married) lived in India with her mother and father when she was a child and resided for many years in Italy, traveling in France as well. Her books were the first truly practical travel guides for Europe, including things like how to obtain passports, how much to spend on food, and where to stay in various cities. She was the first to use a rating system (like the stars of the Michelin guides or the diamonds of AAA), consisting of a number of exclamation points.

Mrs. Starke’s advice on what to take with us in our travels is quite extensive, but I shall put what I deem the most important here:

Our own sheets, pillow, and blankets. She also advises that our sheets be made of sheepskin, and that we bring essential oil of lavender to sprinkle upon our beds each night to drive away bedbugs and fleas.

A mosquito net of thin gauze

A travelling-chamber lock to affix upon our doors

Pens, ink-powder, and wax wafers for letter writing

Double-soled shoes and boots to take the chill from marble and brick floors
A trunk covered with thick, painted sail cloth

Our passports

Letters of recommendation to all British ministers as well as highly respected persons in each of the cities to which we are travelling

Likewise letters of credit from our bank in London, so that we only have to carry a small bit of cash and won’t be more attractive targets to robbers

And a clever little device supposedly the size of a reticule called a soldier’s comfort. According to Mrs. Starke, it can serve as night-light, stove, and saucepan for cooking meats and vegetables.

All packed? Good! I’ve had your trunks sent ahead from the inn to the ship. We must stop by the Customs House in Dover and have them examine our passports. Goodness, but it’s a bit of a crush! With France being opened just recently after all the troubles with Napoleon, it seems everyone wants to be in Paris. There’s a retired general who will travel on the same ship with us, an ex-pat French aristocrat going back to see what might be left of his family, and several young gentlemen intent like us on seeing more of the world. The weather looks good for our passage, which should take about half a day, tide willing. I do hope no one gets seasick! The Channel is notorious for that.

Next stop, Calais, and then Paris!

Such Language! Part 9

2011-11-29T20:12:00.006-05:00

More linguistic shenanigans from the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue! I usually have fun coming up with silly sentences to use the words and phrases in it, but in some cases the definitions themselves are such fun or are so interesting that they need no help from me. Here’s a few of those:

Kimbaw: to trick, cheat, or cozen; also to beat or bully. To set one’s arms a-kimbaw, vulgarly pronounced a-kimbo, is to rest one’s hands on one’s hips, keeping the elbows square, and sticking out from the body, an insolent, bullying attitude.

Fieri Facias: A red-faced man is said to have been served with a writ of fieri facias.

Bag of Nails: He squints like a bag of nails; i.e. his eyes are directed as many ways as the points of a bag of nails.

Firing a gun: Introducing a story by head and shoulders. A man wanting to tell a particular story, said to the company, Hark! Did you not hear a gun?—but now that we are talking of a gun, I will tell you a story of one.

Gluepot: A parson: from joining men and women together in holy matrimony.

Flummery: Oatmeal and water boiled to a jelly; also, compliments, neither of which are over-nourishing.

Pitt’s Picture: A window stopped up [bricked over] from the inside, to save the window tax imposed in that gentleman’s administration.

Cherry-colored cat: A black cat, there being black cherries as well as red.

Boh: He cannot say Boh! to a goose; i.e. he is a cowardly or sheepish fellow. There is a story related of the celebrated Ben Jonson, who always dressed very plain; on being introduced to the presence of a nobleman, the peer, struck by his homely appearance and awkward manner, exclaimed, as if in doubt, “You, Ben Jonson! Why, you look as though you could not say boh to a goose!” “Boh!” replied the wit.

Happy Thanksgiving, Dear Readers!

2011-11-22T13:33:00.005-05:00

Although Thanksgiving was not a holiday that would have been celebrated by the 19th century British young ladies of our books, Regina and I certainly celebrate it…and one of the things we’re most thankful for is you, our readers. You’re truly what keeps us blogging every week…so thank you!

Now, just because Thanksgiving isn’t a 19th century British holiday doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate it in our own way…so Regina and I would like to offer you some recipes with a 19th century flavor that might do well at your own Thanksgiving feast.

This first one is from Beeton’s Book of Household Management, first published in England in 1861 by Mrs. Isabella Beeton. Remember that name…you’ll be hearing more about her in the coming weeks. This sounds like a terrific way to use up leftover Thanksgiving mashed potatoes:

Potato Rissoles

Mashed potatoes
Salt and pepper to taste
Minced parsley
Egg (number depends on how much mashed potatoes is available)
Bread crumbs (likewise)

Beat the egg in a shallow dish. Set bread crumbs aside in another shallowdish or plate. Add a seasoning of pepper and salt and a little minced parsley to the mashed potatoes. Roll the potatoes into small balls, dip them into the egg and then cover them in bread crumbs. Fry in hot oil or butter for about 10 minutes. Drain and dish them on a napkin, then serve. Note.-The flavour of these rissoles may be very much increased by adding finely-minced tongue or ham, or even chopped onions, when these are liked.

And here’s a recipe from Queen Victoria’s chief chef, Charles Francatelli:

French Beans with fine herbs

Pick over, trim, and wash string beans, and boil in lightly salted water until tender. Put two pats of butter into a stewpan with a tablespoonful of chopped parsley and also two shallots finely chopped, a little nutmeg, mignionette pepper [a mix of black and white pepper and coriander] and salt, and the juice of a lemon; simmer this over a stove-fire until melted, and then add the beans, tossing the whole together, and serve.

This last recipe isn’t 19th century, but it makes its appearance every year on my Thanksgiving table:

Pickled Ginger Cranberry Sauce (from Cooks Country Magazine, October/November 2008)

Pulse one 16 ounce can cranberry sauce (I prefer whole berry myself—gives a better texture), 2 tablespoons drained pickled ginger, and 1 teaspoon wasabi powder or dry mustard in foor processor until combined. Refrigerate, covered, for 30 minutes. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Have a pleasant Thanksgiving, full of good food and good company!

The Grand Tour, Part 1: Planning

2011-11-18T12:17:00.003-05:00

First, I’m very pleased to announce that Beebs won my second chance copy of An Honorable Gentleman. The Random Number Generator does not lie, even though its choice was oddly fitting since she also guessed right but lost out in the first chance! Beebs, contact me at reginascott@owt.com with your mailing address, and I’ll send it right out to you.

During our birthday house party, Lo suggested that we talk about activities on the Continent, such as the Grand Tour. As the Grand Tour was rather, well, grand, I’m planning for the topic to take a few posts to relay, and I’ll be sprinkling them in between now and spring.

To start out with, the Grand Tour came to be the term used for a trip a young man took to complete his education in the nineteenth century, sort of the senior road trip some take today. Only this trip took considerably more than roads to accomplish!

The general purpose of the Grand Tour was exposure. By traveling to foreign climes, the young man would see art, architecture, manners, customs, and cultures different from his own and come back better informed and better able to take part in his own society. The young men were generally gentry or aristocrats, and most often British, although youths from Northern European countries sometimes traveled as well, and there are accounts of Americans and South Americans joining the party.
On your trip, you were expected to view the other cultures, partake only to a certain extent that was proper, and somehow memorialize your impressions, whether through painting, writing a journal, or carting home representative books, artwork, or tokens that would then be displayed with pride the resulting years of your life.

So how did one go about preparing for a Grand Tour? I imagine there was a lot of dreaming involved, discussions with fathers, uncles, and older friends who had gone. Then, as you were finishing Oxford, say, and were between 17 and 20 years of ago, your family would look for a suitable guide to escort you. This guide would be a gentleman of some learning or pretension to the arts who could serve as companion, chaperone, and bodyguard. This paragon came to be called a bear-leader. Your parents paid the bear-leader to take you on your tour and ensure you had an educational, enjoyable, and not too enthusiastic time and that you came home safely, mind expanded, all limbs still intact. If you were wealthy enough, you had your own guide; otherwise you might share with one or two other young men.

The Grand Tour could take several months, or several years, depending on the itinerary and your family’s wealth and willingness to have you away from home. The most common itinerary included time in France (when Britain was not at war with it), Switzerland, and Italy (Rome, Venice, Naples), but might extend to the German States, Spain (when it was not at war), and Greece (if you weren’t afraid to brave the Ottoman Empire). As the nineteenth century wore on, and train travel became more available, more people began to take their own Grand Tours, whether young men from mercantile families or even well-chaperoned young ladies.

So, your families had the good sense to hire you two ladies with reasonable credentials and some experience with literature (cough, cough, Regina and Marissa). Think about where you’d like to go on your Grand Tour, ladies, and perhaps we can plot out an itinerary for the next few months.

Off Topic: Field Trip!

2011-11-14T22:15:00.015-05:00

I'm taking a break this Tuesday from our usual historical fare because I've got something wicked neat to show you...so if you don't mind...

The weekend before this past one the Doyle family took a road trip to western New York to visit Doyle Child #1 at his college on lovely Seneca Lake, one of the famed Finger Lakes. In addition to our usual activities when we're out there, like visiting wineries like Hermann J. Weimer and Red Tail Ridge--it's fascinating to see the hillsides covered with grapevines and have a chance to chat with the chief winemaker while he's sorting late-harvest riesling grapes for a special dessert wine...and buying the world’s best cider and juices at Red Jacket Orchard--we paid a visit to the town at the very bottom (southern) end of the lake, Watkins Glen, to visit the amazing Watkins Glen State Park.

Have I ever mentioned that we’re geology buffs? Well, Watkins Glen State Park was sheer heaven…but you don’t have to be interested in rocks to appreciate what a beautiful place it is!

So here's the background story. A pretty huge part of New York state was, for millions of years in the Paleozoic Era, at the bottom of the ocean. Which means that the rock that we see there now is made up of former ocean bottom sediment, layers of siltstone and shale and other sedimentary rocks hundreds of feet thick and hundreds of millions of years old. If you've ever driven down Interstate 90/the New York Throughway, you've seen it by the sides of the road and in the deep road cuts--it's pretty interesting rock!

Seneca and the other Finger Lakes of New York are more recent in origin--they were left behind after the retreat of the last glacier about ten thousand years ago. Now what does water generally do? Run downhill, of course. For the last ten thousand years, Glen Creek has been flowing downhill toward Seneca Lake, and in the process, it's worn down through all those ancient layers of shale and siltstone, to create the amazing gorge of Watkins Glen.

Even the parking lot is cool--the 200 ft. cliffs here gave us a hint of what was to come: And almost immediately, you meet the first waterfall. There are 19 of them all together: There were stairs...lots of stairs. But that was neat, because it meant that sometimes you were up high near the top of the gorge, and at others, down at water level, giving you both perspectives.

Walking behind waterfalls...very cool! Doyle Child #2 thought so, anyway:Eddies in the creek have carved circular potholes in the riverbed. That's looking straight down about 70 feet up on a bridge crossing the gorge: And it just gets cooler...
And cooler:
And cooler: And cooler still (that's another waterfall, Rainbow Falls, that you can walk behind--it flows right off the top of the gorge): We loved it and will certainly be going back in the spring--if you ever get a chance to visit, I highly recommend it! Now, how could I work this place into a story some day...?

Apologies and Second Chances

2011-11-13T17:16:00.003-05:00

I woke up in the middle of the night with the realization that I'd forgotten something important. I promised you a second chance to win a signed copy of An Honorable Gentleman! My apologies for completely overlooking that on Friday's post. Please put my lapse down to publication giddiness.

Anyone who comments on Friday's post or this one by midnight West Coast US time on Thursday, November 17, will be entered into a drawing for a copy. I will announce the winner next Friday, the 18th.

In the meantime, please enjoy the book's trailer. You're well aware of the story by now, but I hope you enjoy the pictures (many from old postcards of the Lake District) and the music.

Introducing Sir Trevor Fitzwilliam of Blackcliff

2011-11-11T12:16:00.006-05:00

Thank you all for your kind words! An Honorable Gentleman is actually my twentieth book, and the excitement of knowing it’s out in the wild, where anyone might pick it up and read it, is still heady. I appreciate those of you who hazarded a guess in the contest. The winner of the autographed copy is Rose De Guzman who correctly guessed (ahead of Beebs) that I had intended William IV, Duke of Clarence, to be the man who had fathered Sir Trevor. Rose, please send me your mailing info at reginascott@owt.com. Just think. If Trevor had been legitimate, he would have been King of England instead of Victoria! I wonder what the Trevorian era would have been like. :-)

So, in honor of the man who would never be king, today I’d like to ask my heroine, Gwendolyn Allbridge, to interview Sir Trevor for us. Gwen is the daughter of the estate steward at Blackcliff Hall, and she’s actually running the place.

Gwen: Sh! You aren’t supposed to tell my father or Sir Trevor. They think they’re in charge.

Nineteenteen: Ah, of course. Sorry. Ahem, Miss Allbridge, apprentice midwife and helpful young lady . . .

Gwen: Much better.

Nineteenteen: Is here today to introduce us to Sir Trevor Fitzwilliam of Blackcliff. Take it away, Gwen.

Gwen: Thank you. As you may know, Sir Trevor recently took on ownership of the Blackcliff estate when he was awarded his baronetcy for services to the Crown. Would you care to elaborate, Sir Trevor?

Trevor: It was an administrative matter. Nothing of consequence.

Gwen: Important enough to earn you a baronetcy and the finest estate in Cumberland.

Trevor: I’m afraid I must disagree, my dear, on several points. I solved a problem for a titled fellow, and he saw fit to recommend me to the king for elevation. And I’d hardly call Blackcliff the finest estate in Cumberland or any other part of England. The house and outbuildings are decaying, the mine that paid for them is closed up, and there’s not enough land to sustain any other sort of agriculture. In truth, it’s a sad disappointment.

Gwen: Well, it will be the finest, when you’re done improving it, I’m certain. And do not give me that eye, sir. I know you will be the salvation for this place. The villagers already look up to you.

Trevor: They look up to you, and I can see why. I’ve never met a woman with more energy and drive. You concoct potions that cure illnesses, you managed an army of volunteers to clean this cavernous house from the schoolroom to the scullery, and somehow you find time to cook for your father, sew your own clothes, and train your guard dog.

Gwen: Oh, yes, Dolly. Isn’t she a dear?

Trevor: She is the largest mastiff I’ve ever seen, and any man with an ounce of sense would run at first sight. I don’t know how you manage her or half the other things you do. Frankly, madam, you exhaust me.

Gwen, dimpling: Why, Sir Trevor, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.

Trevor: You have obviously been associating with the wrong sort of fellow. You make me wish . . .

Gwen, breathlessly: What?

Trevor, quietly: That I was an honorable gentleman.

Nineteenteen: Ahem, well, I think we'll all just slip out now.

Who's Your Daddy?

2011-11-08T11:29:00.004-05:00

Surprise! It’s Regina posting today. I’m being a blog hog this week because today marks the official release of An Honorable Gentleman. As we always do when Marissa or I have a new book out, we’re going to dedicate this week to celebrating. Today starts with a prize offering: a signed copy of An Honorable Gentleman. Read on, and I’ll tell you how you can be entered into the drawing.

You see, my hero in this book, Sir Trevor Fitzwilliam, has had a rough upbringing. His father and mother weren’t married to each other. Being raised without a dad can be tough on any kid, but in the early nineteenth century in England it was particularly hard. Back then, the rules of primogeniture, as they were called, still held firm. That meant, in most cases, the oldest legitimate boy of the family inherited everything. No splitting down the middle, no shares for younger brothers, and nothing for girls.

Oh, there were certainly exceptions. Fathers and mothers could leave certain pieces of property or small bequests to their children in their wills. The only legitimate child who was a daughter might receive enough to be considered an heiress. But the bulk of all titles and lands went to that oldest son, of the first marriage. No father could play favorites (“I like your brother Parsimmon better, so he gets to be the earl.”) or disown a son he found less than respectable (“You don’t deserve to be earl, so I’m giving it to your cousin Englebert.”)

Sometimes fathers would at least acknowledge the son they’d had out of wedlock, giving the child money for schooling or helping him become a secretary to a rising politician or land steward, something gentlemanly even if he wasn’t exactly a gentleman. Fathers might also help daughters born out of wedlock make suitable marriages, offering a dowry or connections. Other times, fathers never let on they even knew the girl or boy, leaving the girls to fend for themselves and the lads wondering how they might become honorable gentlemen.

That’s the case with Sir Trevor. His father won’t publically admit that Trevor is his son. In fact, the father’s name is never mentioned in the book. But I’ve put in some clues as to who his father MIGHT be.

So, here’s the deal. The first person who correctly guesses the real-life historical figure who might be Trevor’s father, without giving away how she/he figured it out, will win an autographed copy. Just post the name in your comment. I’ll reveal all on Friday, when I’ll give you another chance to win. Here are your clues:

Trevor’s last name is Fitzwilliam, which is not his father’s or mother’s last name.

His father was a Navy captain at one time.

His father is connected with the reigning family in 1815.

His father had a tendency to fall in love with actresses, from an early age.

Let the guessing begin.

And Then There's the King's Herbwoman

2011-11-04T10:46:00.004-04:00

Isn’t that a wonderful title for a position? I ran across it this week when I was looking for inspiration for this blog post. (Ah, research! Lovely, lovely research!) Brings to mind a mystical lady hunched over her cauldron, pinch of this, bit of that, Poof! But that’s not what an herbwoman did, particularly not the King’s Herbwoman.

When George IV was coronated on July 19, 1821, hundreds took part in the procession: Knights of the Garter, Knights of the Bath, the privy councillor, 52 barons, untold other title holders, and even the Honorable Band of Gentleman Pensioners. And who led this procession of dignitaries? Who was so important to actually go first? The heralds with their trumpets? The Home Guards?

No. The King’s Herbwoman and her teenage herbstrewers.

The post of King’s Herbwoman had been hereditary since it began during the the coronation of Charles I in 1625. At that time, people believed that scenting the air with herbs would prevent them from contracting the Plague and any number of other contagious diseases. In 1821, the post apparently belonged to a Mary Raymer, but there was a lot of campaigning by ladies of fashion to oust her for one of their own. The winner was 50-year-old Miss Fellowes, a statuesque brunette, the sister of the secretary to the Lord Chamberlain. Apparently Prinny had promised her the part some time ago. We shall not speculate on how that came about.

In any event, Miss Fellowes led the procession, sprinkling flowers from a small basket at her side, all along the way from Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey. According to accounts she was dressed in white satin with a scarlet mantle trimmed in gold lace. She wore a laurel and oak wreath on her head and a medallion and chain around her neck, the symbol of her office. She hand-picked her attendants: six young ladies, all around seventeen years of age, who were her herbstrewers. The misses Garth, Collier, Ramsbottom, Hill, Daniel, and Walker walked in pairs, each pair carrying a larger basket of flowers. This is one of their gowns, on display at the Royal Pavilion Art Gallery and Museum in Brighton. According to accounts, it’s ivory cotton gauze over silk. Missing is the high ruffed collar they all wore.

Can you imagine the excitement? You’re seventeen years old, and you get to lead the procession to the King’s coronation through the streets. Of all the young ladies making their debuts this Season, the King’s Herbwoman picks you. I think I shall swoon!

These young ladies, however, was among the last herbstrewers, and poor Mary Raymer never did get a chance to hold the post she’d inherited. William the IV limited the expenses at his coronation and did away with the office. It has never been revived.

Okay. That’s my goal. When it comes time for Charles or William to take the throne, I want to be his herbwoman. Anyone up for being an herbstrewer?

The Butler Did It

2011-11-01T05:44:00.001-04:00

This is another in our occasional series on servants young ladies of the upper classes would have encountered in the 19th century. We have already discussed ladies’ maids here and governesses here and here.

So what did the butler do?

Perhaps a better question might be, what didn’t the butler do?

In a 19th century household, the butler was often the chief of staff. In extremely grand and important families, especially where several houses were owned, there might be a house steward or comptroller whose job it was to supervise all household staff including hiring and firing and take care of all household accounting. But in an average wealthy or upper middle class household, the chief servant was probably the butler.

Looking back in history, the butler’s job revolved around the keeping of the household’s beverage supply and dishware, and in the 19th century, these would still be among his jobs. It was up to the butler to maintain the household wine cellars (including beer, ale, and other spirits, as well as the wine) and choose and serve wines for the family table…no small job, when you think about the quantities and sheer number of different wines that were served at meals as well as the fact that wine was purchased by the barrel or pipe and had to be decanted into bottles and properly recorded and stored in the correct part of the cellar for its type. Some butlers might actually be brewmasters as well, and brew the household’s beer, ale, or cider. Needless to say, alcoholism was considered to be an occupational hazard of butlery! The butler also oversaw the household plate: it was his job to keep any silver (or gold!) gleaming when in use, and safely stored under lock and key when it wasn’t.

The duties of a butler, as laid out in the fascinating book The Complete Servant, published in 1825 by Samuel and Sarah Adams, a married butler and housekeeper, were quite specific: he aided in the setting of tables, supervising the under-butler and footmen in laying out dishes and utensils, and remained in the dining room during meals with footman or two or three to assist in serving food and wine, direct clearing of the table between courses, and assist in any way needed. He also would bring tea trays in at tea time and hand round cups…and it was his job to make sure there were sufficient candles in each room where needed.

But the butler was also, as the Adamses state, “supposed….to represent his master”, which meant he also might be occupied in hiring and firing lower servants, keeping accounts and paying household bills apart from those which fell under the housekeeper’s purview, and generally keeping the household in order in addition to his wine and serving duties. Supervision of all male indoor servants (under-butlers, footmen, “boys”, and porters) was generally up to the butler, if the household did not have a comptroller. He was where the buck stopped; a good butler who could keep a household running smoothly would be treasured by his employers, and be more or less assured of a job for life, with a good pension when he retired. Butlers often rose through the ranks to achieve their positions: they started out at an early age "in service" first as boot boys or pages, then progressed to footman, then first footman or under-butler, where, if they wanted to, they could train specifically in a butler's duties.

Because of his responsible position, a butler could earn as much as ₤50-80 per year, according to The Complete Servant—not a bad salary in 1825. Just as ladies’ maids could supplement their salaries with the cast-off clothing of their mistresses, butlers could supplement theirs by selling candle ends (Yes, really! Beeswax candles were very expensive)…and a great many must have received nice tips from the wine-merchants and other tradesmen they dealt with.

So that's what the butler did.

***************************************
One thing the butler didn't do was draw a winner for a signed copy of Jennifer Bradbury's Wrapped from among last week's commenters...instead, that happy duty falls to me. And the winner is...Lynn Lovegreen! Lynn, please send me your mailing address via the contact form on my website so we can get your book sent out to you.

Guest post: Walk Like an Egyptian

2011-10-28T05:34:00.000-04:00

Today we're welcoming back Jen Bradbury, author of Wrapped, with a seasonally appropriate guest post.

In honor of the spooky season, Marissa and Regina invited me to share a bit about a key plot point in Wrapped: mummy unwrappings. To that end, here is what I know.

They happened.

That’s sort of it.

But I should back up a bit.

During the nineteenth century, Egypt mania took over the western world. Archaeologists and expeditions from all over Europe and the Americas converged on Egypt, seeking knowledge, treasure and, of course, mummies. The lost empire that raised the pyramids and apparently covered everything else in gold wormed its way into the collective imagination of the culture. Its influence could be seen in fashion, architecture, and literature. And when Napoleon took 40,000 troops into the Nile Delta in 1798, the move was motivated by political and personal ambitions. Even he was fascinated by the mystique of Egypt, fancying himself something of a pharaoh. As artifacts from Egypt began to make their way back to museums in Europe and beyond, public fascination and curiosity grew. But the centerpieces of these collections were always the mummies—objects that spoke to the scholarly and macabre interests of people simultaneously.

Somewhere along the way, individuals began acquiring mummies privately. Nell Gwynn, mistress of Charles the second, was thought to have owned a mummy given her by one of her admirers. The most famously cited piece of evidence for the parties themselves comes in the form of an invitation from 1850.

“Come to Lord Longsberry's at 2 p.m., Piccadilly, for the unwrapping of a mummy from Thebes. Champagne and canapés to follow.”

But despite knowing that they happened, there is some debate as to the context in which they did occur. According to legend (and as the above invite suggests), they became en vogue among the upper class for fun as they discovered trinkets tucked into the wrappings (like a piñata! Only deader!). Still others contend that unwrappings were conducted primarily in the spirit of scientific inquiry. As a writer of fiction, I love the ambiguity of it all, the room it gives me to embroider and create a story touching on so strange a practice. But not everyone shares my enthusiasm in that regard.

So why don’t we have better details and evidence about the practice of mummy unwrappings? We may never know, but I have my own pet theories. I suspect that those who participated in the practice maybe later realized it wasn’t the sort of thing they really wanted to brag about after all. Or perhaps, the curse of the mummy they disturbed caught up with them in the end, and they didn’t survive to tell the tale.

Is it bad that I hope it might have been the latter? ‘Tis the season, after all.

Thanks, Jen, and thank you for visiting Nineteenteen! Don't forget that all commenters this week through Halloween night will be entered in a drawing to win a signed copy of Wrapped!

This week's guest: Jen Bradbury and Wrapped!

2011-10-25T05:12:00.003-04:00

This week at Nineteenteen we're delighted to bring you Jen Bradbury, author of the Regency-set young adult adventure novel Wrapped!

Regina and I got to know Jen through the Class of 2K8 promotional group for debut authors, and when we found out she was working on a historical YA, we knew we'd have to bring her here to meet you. Since her book Wrapped has a slightly spooky, Halloween-ish theme to it--mummies!--we thought this would be the perfect week to invite her. Here's her official bio, and then we'll get on to our chat with Jen:

Jennifer Bradbury’s debut novel, Shift—which Kirkus Reviews starred, calling it “fresh, absorbing, compelling”—was picked as an ALA and a School Library Journal Best Book for Young Adults, was a YALSA pick, and made the Booklist Top 10 lists for both Crime Fiction for Youth and Sports Literature. Her most recent release, Wrapped, has been reviewed as “A winning combination of Egyptian mythology, English Regency, and just a hint of romance, this charming caper delivers both historical detail and boisterous entertainment.” A former English teacher and one-day Jeopardy! champ, she lives in Burlington, Washington, with her husband and two small children.

Nineteenteen: Welcome to Nineteenteen, Jen! Your first book, Shift, was a contemporary story set in the US featuring two boy main characters. So Wrapped is a bit of a departure from that…will you tell us how you came to write it? How was it a different experience from writing Shift?

Jen: It is a bit of a departure, I admit. But I'm very lucky to have a supportive agent, and extremely lucky to an an editor who understands and maybe even appreciates that I'm a bit all over the place with my interests. Wrapped actually came about when I was waiting on my first round of editorial feedback for Shift. I was so anxious about that process (and worrying if I could actually pull off what my editor wanted), that I had to figure out some sort of escape. So I dug up an old nugget of trivia that a professor shared in a lit class once about mummy unwrapping parties, and ran with it. The book required a lot more research (which was fun to get lost in as well), and gave me a chance to write in a voice that came a little more naturally to me.

Nineteenteen: Your heroine, Agnes Wilkins, turns out to be quite an intrepid character (which is all I can say without including spoilers!) Do you consider yourself adventurous? What’s the most swashbuckling thing you’ve ever done? And do you speak as many languages as she does?

Jen: Agnes is one of those girls I sort of wish I was, but yes, I am pretty adventurous. We used to do a lot of climbing and backpacking, and we once biked cross country (like the guys in Shift). I have the same longing to travel and see odd parts of the world that she does, but sadly, I've never found myself embroiled in an international conspiracy. And alas, I speak only a tiny bit of French, so I'm very jealous of dear Agnes in that regard.

Nineteenteen: Agnes is an avid reader of the novels of Jane Austen…so I’m going to guess that maybe you are too? What’s your favorite Jane book? And what were your favorite books when you were a teen?

Jen: I adore Jane Austen. Oddly enough I didn't read any of her novels until I was studying abroad in Cambridge in 1995. But I read them all that semester for a class, and loved them all. My favorite is still Persuasion. I just adore those characters and that particular love story. As far as favorite books when I was a teen, I mostly read what I was assigned for school, but I loved most of those. I still reread Jane Eyre pretty often, and Frankenstein was a favorite then and now. What I did read outside of class, oddly enough, was usually sci-fi or comic books.

Nineteenteen: Oh, Captain Wentworth's letter to Anne--"You pierce my soul"--has to be one of the most romantic moments in all of JA!

Of course, the “bad guy” in Wrapped is revealed at the end of the story, in best mystery fashion. Are you a mystery fan? Which characters to you have more fun writing—good guys, or bad guys?

Jen: I love mysteries! I forgot to mention the Sue Grafton alphabet mystery series in the question above. I devoured those in high school and still seek out the new ones when she publishes them. But more than being a mystery fan, I'm a lover of anything that makes me want to turn the pages quickly.

As far as who I have more fun writing, it mostly depends on the scene. But generally, the good guys interest me more.

Nineteenteen: Have you been to Egypt? Have ancient Egyptian culture and history always been of interest to you?

Jen: My little sister and I were obssessed with ancient Egypt when we were kids, and still are to some degree. I remember we read tons of Egyptian mythology when we were little, and were fascinated by the stories. While I have never been to Egypt, the sequel for Wrapped is set in Cairo shortly after the events of the first book, so I feel like I have an even better reason to go there someday. Maybe my little sister can make the journey with me.

Nineteenteen: Can we come too? How did you research the history for Wrapped? Did you have any funny research moments, or moments that sent a chill up your spine?

Jen: Generally, I start with an idea to hang it on--in this case it was that weird thing about mummy unwrapping parties. But from there I've got to figure out how to grow that idea into a book. For me, it all grows out of asking myself questions, teasing the story into some kind of shape, and then breaking into a really loose, rough outline. At that point, I stop and research more formally. And the biggest, most wonderful gift that emerged in the my research process ended up being the fact that Napoleon was as enamoured of Egyptian culture as you could hope for, and then the story took off in earnest.

Nineteenteen: What’s next for you…or for that matter, for Agnes? Will we be seeing a sequel to Wrapped, or other YA historical fiction from you?

Jen: I just finished the first pass at the line edits on my next book, another historical novel. It is set in the Punjab in 1947, just as partition of India and Pakistan were finalized. This one is pretty weighty compared to Agnes' adventure, but I'm very excited about it. After that, I've got a sequel to Wrapped, and we just sent my editor two more manuscripts--one contemporary and one historical.

Nineteenteen: Good luck with your Punjabi story, and we'll definitely be watching for more of Agnes. Where can readers learn more about you and your books online?

Jen: Visit me at my website http://www.jennifer-bradbury.com/. Sadly, I don't blog, or tweet, or even have a facebook page. I'm a mother of two small kids! Answering emails is a luxury!

Nineteenteen: Then we're very happy you were able to squeeze in a visit with us, Jen. :)

Stay tuned for Friday, when Jen will tell us a little more about mummy-unwrapping parties in the early 19th century...and be sure to leave a comment! All commenters this week through next Monday evening (that's Halloween!) will be entered in a drawing to win a signed copy of Wrapped.

This and That and a Here-and-Therian

2011-10-21T12:03:00.005-04:00

Forgive the fragmented post, my dears, but I had so many things I wanted to share, and none were really large enough to warrant a post on their own. So, here are five things to amuse you on a Friday:

One
Those of you who like sparklies may want to check out this post by historical author Tara Cohen about a nineteenth century set of jewels held by the Swedish Royal Treasury. Drool worthy!

Two
Some of you may remember our posts on nineteenth century country dances, such as this one by guest blogger Gail Eastwood. Now, thanks to RegencyDances.org, there’s a wonderful resource online for learning the steps. They’ve even provided animation so you can envision what the couples would be doing. Interesting and entertaining!

Three
During our birthday house party, Lo suggested that we host more current authors of YA set in the nineteenth century. We’re delighted that next week Jennifer Bradbury will be joining us to talk about her book, Wrapped. Hint: It’s a perfect lead in to Halloween!

Four
October 30 is the 200th anniversity of the publication of Sense and Sensibility and officially Talk Like Jane Austen Day. To celebrate, Marissa and I will be guest blogging at SOS Aloha. Stop by and say hi, or should I say, offer us your esteemed company, if you have a chance.

Five
A here-and-therian was a fellow who couldn’t commit to anything (a bit like this post), who traveled about with no set home or preferred to chase women rather than catch them; as in “I truly thought Englebert would propose this time, but he’s such a here-and-therian that I suppose I’ll never bring him up to snuff!”

Happy Friday!

A Delightful Surprise on a Monday

2011-10-18T10:37:00.004-04:00

I received a most exciting—and unexpected—package in the mail yesterday. When I opened it, I found these:

Yes, it’s the Advance Reader Edition (also known as Advance Reader Copy, ARC, or uncorrected proof) of Courtship and Curses! They were ready much earlier than I expected, since the book doesn’t actually hit shelves until early August of next year, and so don't contain all the final corrections of typos and so on…but what fun to see them!

Here’s a better view of the cover:And here’s the cover copy:
Sophie’s entrance into London society isn't what she thought it would be: Mama isn't there to guide her, Papa is buried in his work fighting Napoleon, and Sophie's newly-acquired limp keeps her from dancing at any of those glittering balls. If it weren't for her shopping escapades with her new French friend Amélie and a flirtation with the dashing Lord Woodbridge, she would think this season a complete disaster.

But when someone uses magic to attack Papa the night of Sophie’s first ball, her problems escalate, especially when it becomes clear that all the members of the War Cabinet are being targeted. Can she catch the culprit and keep her own magic powers hidden long enough to win herself a match?

Can you tell I’m just a little excited?

Shocking, Isn't It?

2011-10-14T12:11:00.007-04:00

I am not a party game kind of gal. It never even dawns on me to break out the cards when friends come over for dinner. But in the nineteenth century, as we’ve discussed, young ladies and gentlemen delighted in finding new games to play, whether with card games, guessing games like twenty-questions, or acting games like charades. Something we often take for granted today, however, was first popularized as a parlor game.

Electricity.

The science of electricity had been growing steadily since the 1600s, and the 1700s has seen advances in understanding how nerves use electricity to transmit instructions to the muscles and the first true battery to store electrical energy. But as the 1800s began, many people were still puzzled by the possible uses of electricity outside either a scientific experiment or something to do to amaze and entertain your friends.

The 1807 Practical Electricity and Galvanism by Jonathan Cuthbert, for example, laid out a series of experiments for understanding the science as well as having some fun. Some experiments were educational, such as creating a prime conductor out of household materials. Others were amusing, such as setting up a current to ring a set of bells. One I found, in an innocent-sounding book from 1831, Endless Amusement, was downright disturbing, explaining how to kill an animal for “fun” by electrocuting it. [Insert shudder.]

But one of the experiments, found in books about amusements dating from 1807 to 1889, was designed to be titilating. It was called the “electrical kiss.” In that game, a lady used an electrical conductor to give herself a charge (perhaps by using a static generator like the one here), then challenged a gentleman that he could not kiss her. The gentleman would approach and incline his head, the lady would be careful not to let their clothes touch, and a spark would fly from her lips to his, forcing him back before he could actually kiss her. (And the very concept sparked a few ideas for scenes between characters, let me tell you!)

Shocking, eh?

Victoria’s Children, Part 8: Leopold

2011-10-11T22:35:00.006-04:00

Queen Victoria’s eighth child and fourth son came into the world at Buckingham Palace on April 7, 1853. After seven children, the Queen knew what to expect in childbirth, and she wasn't looking forward to it. So when her personal physician, Sir James Clark, made a radical suggestion, she was all for it—and so the Queen of England became an early adopter of chloroform to help ease the pain of childbirth. She was so delighted with the results that she publicly endorsed the drug’s use, much to the ire of the medical establishment of the time, which felt that pain in childbirth was divinely ordained. Her Majesty thought otherwise.

So it was with relative ease that Prince Leopold George Duncan Albert arrived in the royal family…perhaps the last time anything associated with his life would be easy. He was not an attractive child; and coming after handsome and sunny-natured Arthur, the Queen’s favorite, made his unattractiveness seem even worse. Fortunately, the two brothers loved each other dearly, and would be close all their lives.

But how long would that life be, in Leopold’s case? For not long after his second birthday, disturbing hints that his health was not good began to occur. Though it would be a few years before Leopold’s diagnosis would be confirmed, that year marked the appearance of symptoms of his hemophilia. Unfortunately, Leopold did not like to be coddled: despite his fragility he was an active, adventurous boy, which of course led to accidents. Something as small as a bruised knee could lay him up for weeks of agony and bed-rest, which would make anyone fractious and difficult to deal with. Moreover, he was intelligent (probably the cleverest of the royal sons) and liked to argue—which did not endear him to his mother.

Victoria was determined to keep her son more or less wrapped in cotton wool—a condition which Leopold gamely fought all his life, trying as hard as he could not to be an invalid despite his condition (which included, in addition to the hemophilia, occasional epileptic seizures). With his brothers’ help he fought to be allowed to attend Oxford, and though he wasn’t allowed to complete a full course of studies there, enjoyed a fair sample of university life and made many friends—including a certain Miss Alice Liddell, better known to the world as the heroine of Alice in Wonderland. He became a favorite uncle to his sister Alice’s children, and even visited his favorite sister Louise to tour North America while her husband served as Viceroy of Canada.

Leopold and his mother continued to rub each other the wrong way, but it didn’t keep Victoria from employing him as a private secretary, her interface with her ministers. Though the work eventually came to interest Leopold and he became especially good friends with Benjamin Disraeli, he wanted more from life than to be constantly at his mother’s beck and call, and again with the help of his brothers and sisters, convinced Victoria that he should be allowed to marry and live his own life apart from her. After a good deal of consideration (and, alas, some refusals from eligible princesses) he became engaged to Princess Helen of Waldeck-Pyrmont. They were married in 1882, just after Leopold’s 29th birthday, and though they were barely acquainted, quickly became devoted to each other. They had a daughter, Alice, in 1883, who incidentally was the longest lived of Victoria's’grandchildren, dying in 1981.

In March 1884, Leopold was visiting the south of France as he often did to escape England’s cold, damp winters. A slip on the tiled floor of the villa where he was staying led to a painfully bruised knee and more bed-rest…but this time, Leopold did not recover. He died in the night, whether due to an unknown deep hemorrhage, too much morphine, or an attack of epilepsy. His dear Helen gave birth to their second child, a son, four months later, who inherited his father’s title of Duke of Albany.

Thank You Very Much, Mr. Robot

2011-10-07T11:43:00.005-04:00

We tend to think of robots as the stuff of science fiction, or, today, technology fact. You’ll even find a few stomping around the television channels this month, in honor of Halloween. But nineteenth century young ladies and gentlemen were no strangers to robots. They called them automata. Some of our Nineteenteen family (such as a young lady who’s written two books about a clockwork prince—cough, cough) have done extensive research on automata, so please chime in!

In some cases, automata were created as children’s toys, something to amuse the little ones. Watchmakers and music box makers hoping to make a little extra income put them together. Powered by wind-up clockwork, clowns did simple flips over ladders, birds sang from gilded cages. The masters of these trinkets lived in Germany and France, and the French Revolution took its toll on their customers. So, they turned to making ever more elaborate devices for grownup boys and girls, the royalty and nouveau riche of Europe.

Some of the automata developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth century are amazing! Gentlemen in gilded robes play flutes; copper ducks move about, swim in water, quack, and pretend to eat. The mechanical creatures wrote poetry, drew pictures, and waltzed together. One marvel, a present to Marie Antoinette, was a court lady who played the struck dulcimer, and her tiny head and eyes moved as she worked.

But just as Hollywood tends to make robots appear more intelligent and capable than they truly are, so too some automaton makers decided to show off their skills. A German gentleman created The Turk in 1770 to impress the Empress Maria Therese of Austria. The automaton was the size and shape of a man, sitting behind a chess set on top of a cabinet. You could take a seat opposite him and play a game. His arm moved pieces to counter yours, and if you tried to cheat, he would either wipe your pieces off the board or move the piece you’d cheated with back to its original place.

He tended to win, even supposedly beating Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon as the various owners took him on tours all over Europe, England, and America. Unfortunately, his abilities were all the product of a chess master hiding inside the gears. A sliding seat allowed the fellow to escape notice as the cabinet doors were opened. The truth was never fully revealed until after the machine’s destruction by fire, and some today still question the revelation.

Eat your hearts out, Disney Imagineers.

Fashion Forecast: 1823

2011-10-04T05:16:00.000-04:00

What was the well-dressed young lady wearing in 1823?

This must be one of the sprightliest Ball Gowns of the decade, from the trim on the bodice and puff sleeves (it looks rather like ribbon embroidery) to the sheer overskirt edged with appliqué over a pink petticoat, finished with a sash in back. Just delightful! (Ackermann’s Repository, January):For a more sedate evening outing, she might wear this glowing red Evening Dress, with two rows of different trims around the hem and scalloped petal decoration on the sleeves and bodice. Notice also the satin-lined cloak…and if you look very carefully, you might be able to see that her elbow-length gloves are ruffle-edged! A very handsome outfit, from February’s Ackermann’s: I don’t know what’s more interesting in this print from the June edition of Ackermann’s Repository—the Carriage Dress, in blue with caped shoulders and what looks like giant frogging all down the front (and a confection of a gauze cap) or the view of the interior of a carriage! Note her quizzing glass at the ready, to examine passers-by: Here’s another sweet Ball Dress, also from June’s Ackermann’s. The sleeves are an interesting style, with long points of lace—that and the almost medieval-looking tiara and the princess-seamed bodice seem definite signs of the growing Gothic influence that was creeping in everywhere, from houses to furniture and clothing. And what a charming pose!This Ball Dress from July’s Ackermann’s is proof positive that young ladies of fashion required lady’s maids: the decoration on the sleeves, down the front, and around the hem is made up of tiny pockets of white satin, into EACH of which a small China rose and cluster of leaves has been placed. I wonder if her maid went with her to balls, to replenish any roses that fell out during the dance sets? Notice again also the ruffled edge on her gloves….and the rather, um, novel headdress which reminds me of olives on toothpicks—a style that seemed to be big this year, as it appears in more than one Ackermann’s print from 1823: This Morning Dress from the September issue of Ackermann’s looks almost like a more restrained version of the Carriage Dress above…but what an amazingly trimmed bonnet lies on the table! Note also her hair, with a coronet of braids in back--again, the Gothic influence--married with flirty ringlets in front: I love these prints of Head Dresses that appear on occasion in Ackermann’s…particularly the curious turban-like hat at upper left and the elegant, mannish riding hat with lace veil at lower left (Ackermann’s Repository, November): I just love this last print, for several reasons. The Full Dress is very handsome, in a vibrant cherry-red with gold appliqué on the bodice, sleeves, and hem (and by the way, notice that waistlines have crept slightly downward this year). I wish I knew whether the dots on the fabric are embroidered on or woven in, though. Her accessories—the lace shawl, fanciful turban, and peacock feather fan—are striking and handsome. But the most amusing part is that the artist seems to have had a momentary lapse of attention and has given his poor model two right feet…either that, or her knees are remarkably flexible! (Ackermann's Repository, December)What do you think of 1823’s fashions?

Birds of a Feather Hate Fall

2011-09-30T12:47:00.003-04:00

Fall is officially here! And if you were a young gentleman in nineteenth century England, you knew exactly how you intended to spend it. Ladies might have their Seasons in London, with shopping and balls and similar folderol, but any young man worth his salt knew that September marked the heart of shooting season.

Yes, shooting season. A gentleman shot birds and hare, and hunted fox. And they could hardly wait for the Season to be over so they could start! The Game Act of 1831 allowed for some shooting starting on August 12 (or 13, if the 12th was a Sunday). But by the first of October, black grouse, red grouse, ducks, pheasant, partridge, bustard, and woodcock were all in season. (Bustard was a new one for me; I had to look it up. But then I learned why the name wasn’t familiar from my previous research. The last bustard in England was apparently killed in a shoot in 1832!)

During the early part of the century, it was common for a gentleman and a few friends to set off in the morning with a well-trained dog running alongside and see if they could hunt up a few pheasant or partridge to bring home for dinner. The crisp fall air, the manly companionship, guns that belched smoke and made a loud BANG—ah, what more could a fellow ask! As the century wore on, however, shooting parties grew in size and length. Friends traveled for miles to reach your grouse moor (an estate in Scotland) or country estate and might spend a fortnight with you, partying inside between rounds of shooting outside. Ladies even came out at luncheon for picnics while the men boasted of their achievements. Wealthy lords hired beaters to chase the game toward a row of their fellow guests holding guns and even draped nets in the air to keep the birds from getting away. After everyone had finished pulling the trigger, repeatedly, other hired help called pickers-up rushed out to clean up the carcasses.

The numbers shot were staggering. According to some accounts, a single marksman could bag as many as 2,500 birds in a fortnight’s shooting party. One enterprising gentleman is said to have shot more than 300,000 birds over his 33-year career. Small wonder there are no more bustards in England!

The gentlemen shooters must have realized they were having an impact as well, for more and more of them began actively stocking and breeding gamebirds like pheasants and duck on their estates. Estate managers made sure to keep wooded areas healthy for the birds, and gamekeepers went out of their way to exterminate any predators, like fox and magpies, that might harm the young birds. All this effort helped the shooting party maintain a hold on English society well into the twentieth century.

But if I was a bird, I’d hate fall!

Michaelmas

2011-09-26T23:01:00.009-04:00

If you’ve read much historical fiction set in Great Britain, you may have run across the word Michaelmas—there’s Michaelmas term at Oxford and Cambridge (and Eton, for that matter), and Michaelmas fairs, and Michaelmas geese…so just what is Michaelmas?

Michaelmas, celebrated on September 29, is the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel, Captain of the Heavenly Host, who in the New Testament was responsible for booting Lucifer out of Heaven. St. Michael is the patron saint of soldiers, for obvious reasons.

His feast day became significant for several reasons—St. Michael an important figure in the heavenly hierarchy of the old (Roman Catholic) faith that was observed in England till the Reformation. But timing is also important here: his feast day here at the end of September more or less coincides with the autumnal equinox, the end of summer and beginning of fall and the three-quarter point of the year, and so became a Quarter Day, when rents and other quarterly payments were due. In case you were wondering, the others were Christmas Day on December 25, Lady Day (also known as the Feast of the Annunciation) on March 25, and St. John’s Day on June 24.

Several other autumn-related phenomenon eventually took on the Michaelmas name. Geese were often fattened on the leftover stalks in the field after the grain had been harvested, then driven to fairs to be sold before winter set in, so a “stubble” goose was a common Michaelmas dish. It was also common for farm laborers to seek new masters at those same post-harvest autumn fairs. And the start of the autumn term in both school (Oxford and Cambridge, as mentioned above) and the court system borrowed their name from St. Michael’s feast day. Fall-blooming asters are sometimes known as Michaelmas daisies.

And then there are blackberries. According to legend, it is very unlucky to eat blackberries after Michaelmas Day, because when Lucifer was cast from heaven, he landed in a blackberry bush…and supposedly returns each year on his nemesis’s feast day to curse and spit upon them!

And just in case you thought we’d forgotten…the winner of a copy of M.J. Putney’s new release, Dark Passage, drawn from last week's commenters, is Mirka Breen! Mirka, please email me via the contact form on my website so I can get your mailing address. And thanks, everyone, for welcoming M.J. last week. We'll be having another author guest next month, so stayed tuned!

Nineteenteen Welcomes M.J. Putney!

2011-09-23T05:35:00.001-04:00

On Tuesday we got to chat with Lady Cynthia Stanton, from M.J. Putney's Dark Mirror series...today, we get to talk to M.J. herself!

Nineteenteen: Most of your books are set in the nineteenth century. What draws you to that era?

M.J. Putney: The early 19th century, which in England is usually called the Regency because a chunk of it was during the period when George III was bonkers and his son ruled in his place as the Prince Regent, is just a really, really interesting time. It’s the hinge between the old days and our modern society. Industrialization and democracy and social reform were starting to take off, there was a “good war” as Britain and others fought Napoleon Bonaparte’s absolutism, there was the romantic revolution in arts and letters—and women’s clothing was relatively comfortable.

NTT: How much research do you generally have to do before you start writing a particular book?

MJP: The amount of research varies a lot depending on the story. Having written 30+ historical novels, most of them in the Regency, I have a strong base of knowledge of the period, but there are always particular topics that require extra research.

My first YA, Dark Mirror, required enormous amounts of research—not the 19th century, but the WWII part of the book. In particularly, during the grand action finale at Dunkirk, there were masses of materials that I needed to research in order to have my characters fit in with the historical event as it happened.

In contrast, the second YA, Dark Passage, which just came out, required much less research because it’s built around my characters attempting to rescue a scientist from Nazi-occupied France. There were aspects of the story that required research, but the mission itself was fictional so it didn’t need the same kind of detail that Dark Mirror did.

NTT: You've won the Rita award, the highest honor in romantic fiction, twice, been nominated eight other times, and placed on the New York Times bestseller list for your adult historical romances. What encouraged you to try your hand at young adult fiction?

MJP: It’s all about the story. I love blending fantasy and magic with history, and YA is where I could tell these kinds of stories. Unlike my romances, where the growing relationship is the heart of the story, my YAs are stories of adventure and growth and history. There is some romance, but the romance isn’t the focus. Plus, I’m working with continuing characters rather than focusing on a new couple in each book. It’s and interesting challenge. The Muse likes to try her hand at new things!

NTT: What do you like about writing for teens? How does it differ from writing for adults?

MJP: I’ve always been interested in the psychology of my characters, and since teens are growing in so many ways, they’re intriguing to write about. Also, the focus of a YA is different from a romance—growth rather than courtship—and I like the change of pace.

NTT: Tell us a little about the premise for your Dark Mirror series.

MJP: The Dark Mirror series is alternate history—the world as we know it, but with magic added. With the added twist that magic is widely known and accepted, except among the aristocracy. The nobility despises magic, largely because they can’t control it, and aristocratic kids who show magical ability are sent to a kind of reform school to be “cured” of their unacceptable talents. So my main characters are magically talented teens who are exiled to Lackland Abbey to be cured—except that they realize that maybe they don’t want to be deprived of their power.

The students who secretly study magic call themselves Merlin’s Irregulars, and they pledge to use their powers to defend England if necessary—not an idle vow when Napoleon is sitting on the other side of the English Channel preparing for an invasion.

Then my main character, Lady Victoria Mansfield—Tory to her friends, accidentally passes through a time portal and land in England in World War II. She makes friends there—and it turns out that they could use some magic, too!

NTT: Why did you pick the Battle of Dunkirk as your first time travel point?

MJP: The story of Dunkirk has always fascinated me. A third of a million British and French soldiers had been cornered with their backs to the sea by the Nazi blitzkrieg—“lightning war.” If they had surrendered, Hitler would have been the master of all Europe.

Instead, there was this stunning evacuation that was not only the military and merchant might of a seafaring nation, but with countless volunteers risking their lives and their boats to bring their soldiers home. The “little ships” have become famous as an emblem or British courage and ingenuity.

It’s an incredible story and a tribute to British tenacity. But what made me want to write a story was when I read that the only reason the evacuation succeeded was because the English Channel, usually a turbulent and dangerous waterway, was unnaturally calm for ten whole days. I read that and thought, “Weather Mages!!!!” It was a story I just had to write.

NTT: What's happening in your new release with Tory and her band of mages?

MJP: In Dark Passage, Tory and the Irregulars join their 20th century friend Nick Rainford on a mission into Nazi occupied France to save a French scientist whose work is vitally important to the war effort. Plus, there are important changes in some romantic relationships.

NTT: What's next for you?

MJP: The third book, Dark Destiny, takes a couple of the 20th century characters back to 1804 to help their 19th century friends save England from invasion. With two wars to work with, there is no shortage of plot materials!

NTT: There certainly isn't! Thank you for talking with us, M.J., and for spending the week here at Nineteenteen--it's been a pleasure!

M.J. Putney's Dark Mirror and Dark Passage are available now from St. Martin's Press. You can learn more at http://www.mjputney.com/ ... and be sure to comment here--all commenters this week through Monday will be entered in a drawing to win a copy of Dark Passage! The winner will be announced next Tuesday.

Special Guest Blogger: Lady Cynthia Stanton and her Amanuensis, M.J. Putney

2011-09-20T05:30:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the first post of our new blogging year! This week we are thrilled and honored to be hosting beloved romance author (and New York Times bestseller) Mary Jo Putney, who to our pleasure has joined the ranks of Young Adult authors with her series on time-traveling Regency heroine Lady Victoria (Tory) Mansfield and her cohorts at Lackland Abbey, written as M.J. Putney. The series began with March's Dark Mirror and continued with last week's new release, Dark Passage, both from St. Martin's/Griffin.

Speaking with us today is Lady Cynthia Stanton, the daughter of a duke and a student at Lackland Abbey. Lady Cynthia, let us assure you first that the headmistress of your school does NOT read our blog, so anything you say here is confidential. We'd all love to hear more about you. You're considered one of the more elite students at the school, is that right?

Lady Cynthia: Indeed. As the daughter of a duke, I am the highest ranking girl at Lackland Abbey.

Nineteenteen: How did you come to join the school?

LC: Students at Lackland Abbey do not discuss such things. It is perhaps a fair statement that no one is exiled to the school without some dreadful incident that exposed their despicable magical abilities to public shame.

NTT: Is that what happened to you?

LC: You bloggish creatures have no manners! Suffice it to say that an attractive stable boy and an unexpected use of my weather controlling magic were involved. I shall say no more.

NTT: Do you truly want to be "cured?”

LC: That is a most…interesting question. All students arrive at Lackland wishing for nothing more that a quick cure and a return to their families to see if they can regain any if their former lives. But to be cured of magic takes time.

During that time, one might discover that the use of magic can be very…rewarding. Exhilarating. ‘Tis said that some students gather in the chalk tunnels below the abbey to practice magic. Embracing one’s power can lead to the recognition that perhaps the aristocracy’s hatred of magic is not necessarily a good thing.”

NTT: So you’ve decided to secretly practice your magical abilities?

LC: I did not say that! If you dare print such a thing in your peculiar little newssheet, you will be hearing from my solicitors!

NTT: Our apologies, Lady Cynthia. We understand you've had some trouble with the other young lady sharing your room.

LC: I was not best pleased when the school forced Lady Victoria Mansfield on me merely because I was the only girl who didn’t have a roommate. As the highest ranking girl in the school, I was entitled to have a room to myself!

Tory had the effrontery to remove my garments from the second wardrobe so she could use it herself! She could have managed perfectly well storing her garments in her trunk. And she has no sense of the dignity of her rank. She’ll talk to anyone as if they are her equals. Such behavior is contrary to good order.

NTT: And she had the audacity to steal your beau as well, isn't that right?

LC: I simply couldn’t believe it. Clearly the Marquess of Allarde and I were destined to be together. Not only is he heir to a dukedom, but he is tall, dark, and handsome, a perfect foil for me since I am tall and blonde and stunningly beautiful.

Allarde has a great deal of natural reserve and he was keeping a discreet distance from me, but I always assumed that when we left Lackland Abbey, he’d ask for my hand. Then Tory came along. She’s a little bit of a thing, dark and with slanted eyes and no more than passably pretty, but he took one look and was besotted. Granted, everyone likes Tory. Even I like her some of the time. I swore I’d never forgive her for interfering with destiny, though that was before Jack…

No. I shall say no more.

NTT: We can't help thinking, though, that your life has been more interesting since she came along.

LC: You say that as though an interesting life is a good thing!

NTT: Isn't it? You had quite an adventure a bit ago, something to do with World War II. How did you manage to travel from 19th century England to that time?

LC: We passed through a time portal below Lackland Abbey. It’s called Merlin’s Mirror and it’s very ancient. Tory guided us through. Her magical talents tend to be odd ones, like using the mirror. Not useful like my weather magery and illusion talents.

NTT: Do you have other plans to travel through time?

LC: No! Never! It’s the most horrible experience! I would have died when we returned if Elspeth wasn’t such a good healer.

We all hated traveling through the mirror. Yet—I suppose one should never say never….

Thank you, Lady Cynthia! If you'd like to learn more about Lady Cynthia and Lady Victoria Mansfield, a true heroine, be sure to read M.J. Putney's Dark Mirror (2011, St, Martin's Griffin). And don't miss her just-released sequel, Dark Passage! Stop by on Friday when we'll be chatting with M.J. ; all commenters this week will be entered in a drawing to win a copy!

The Party's Over...

2011-09-17T17:33:00.006-04:00

The trunks are packed and being loaded onto the post chaises, the vails* have been paid to the household staff, and the house party is at an end. We’re delighted that you joined us in celebrating our birthday at Nineteenteen, and hope that you enjoyed yourself too. As I said before, you are the reason we blog here—though we love to share what we’ve learned and entertain a little along the way, it wouldn’t be much use (or fun) if we didn’t have readers to share with…so once again, an enormous Thank You!

But wait! Before you drive off…the randomly-drawn winning commenter from yesterday is Beebs! Beebs, please contact Regina at reginascott@owt.com to arrange to receive your prize.

In the comments from yesterday, Lo mentioned wanting to hear more about other YA historical fiction set in the 19th century…well, it just so happens that we’d already scheduled just such a thing for next week! We hope you’ll join us in greeting New York Times best-selling romance author (and all-round lovely person) Mary Jo Putney, whose second YA historical fantasy, Dark Passage, was released just this week. It’s the second in her series (the first, Dark Mirror, came out earlier this year) featuring magic, time travel, history and (of course) romance. So please stop by on Tuesday, when Nineteenteen will be interviewing Mary Jo's Lady Cynthia Stanton (if Lady Cynthia will let us!)

And thank you all again, dear readers.

*It was the custom at house parties of the 18th and earlier 19th centuries for guests at country houses to tip, or give vails, at the end of their stays to the household’s servants. Unfortunately, having to tip everyone from the butler to the footmen and maids could get sufficiently expensive that people with more friends than money often refused invitations to house parties, because they couldn’t afford the vails!

Shall We Dance?

2011-09-16T12:44:00.005-04:00

What a delightful group you’ve been at our birthday house party! Good conversation, excellent suggestions, charming comments. The gentlemen have told me they are completely entranced. So, this sounds like a great time for a ball to me! Before we get started, let me also mention that the lovely El has won Lit Wit: 100 Trivia Cards to Boost Your Book Smarts by Richard Lederer. Please contact Marissa via her website and let her know where she should send it. And anyone who comments today will be entered to win a miniature reproduction of the 1817 Glengarry bonnet (by Pipkin and Bonnet) along with hat box and stand.

Now, our ball! Of course, one cannot spontaneously host a ball. We actually sent invitations to all our genteel neighbors in the area weeks ago, letting them know you’d be here with us and encouraging them to join us this evening. We hired musicians to play and brought in additional staff from the village to help with the cooking and cleaning and see to the needs of our guests. As I write, a footman is lowering the chandeliers in the ballroom to put in fresh candles, and our houskeeper is inspecting the dance floor to make sure it’s gleaming in expectation.

The gentlemen have already retired to their rooms to change into their evening clothes and freshen up. Perhaps you’d like to glance over the positions of dance so you’re ready for your partner.

And I can’t wait to see what you brought to wear to the ball! I’ve had a lovely gown made up in red, a bit daring, I know, but the off-white of so many of the gowns just doesn’t do my complexion any favors.

Ah, do you hear the musicians tuning up? Already the air is scented with perfume. Marissa and I welcome you to the ballroom and suggest a partner. We’re pairing up (I will of course partner Leopold on this first dance, but I’m sure he’d be happy to offer you his hand later). Goodness, but the set is crowded! Everyone looks so lovely! I can see you smiling from here. And away we go!

Do tell me your favorite dance so I can be sure to have the musicians play it. And please catch me between sets to suggest other ways we can make Nineteenteen the best it can be.

The Party Continues...

2011-09-15T15:28:00.015-04:00

Well, I’m delighted to see we have more commenters…but ladies—please! We must behave with decorum, or the dreaded chaperone might raise her ever-vigilant head!

However, between languishing looks and meaning-laden glances with those delightful gentlemen Regina has introduced into our bluestockingly midst, please continue to comment! We want to be able to bring you posts on topics of interest to you—otherwise, there isn’t much point, is there? So please…what would you like to see discussed on Nineteenteen in the coming year? Let us know…and commenters on today’s post will have a chance to win Lit Wit: 100 Trivia Cards to Boost Your Book Smarts by Richard Lederer.

And in the meanwhile, I’m sure our chaperone will smile upon this: our randomly-drawn winner commenter of yesterday is Clarissa! Clarissa, please email Regina at reginascott@owt.com to claim your prize: a pre-release copy of Regina’s November book, An Honorable Gentleman. Very cool to get a sneak peek!!

And now, I’ve a fancy to take a turn in the garden and admire the flowers. Anyone care to join me? English gardens are renowned the world over. The damp, generally mild climate makes it a haven for temperate plants, shrubs, and trees…and the second half of the 18th and all of the 19th centuries are surely the heyday of gardening on a grand scale at country houses, where a new philosophy of viewing the land around a house as almost another set of rooms was adopted.

Topiary! What's an English garden without it?

And a maze...the perfect place to evade chaperones when out strolling with a handsome young man!

Don't forget to let us know what you think!

More Visitors!

2011-09-14T11:26:00.008-04:00

So glad so many of you could make it to our house party! We had a hundred visitors to the blog yesterday, so I know there are more of you lurking out there. I’m certainly glad we have a lot of bedrooms in this pile!

It appears the library is the most popular among our guests, and why not! We share the love of reading, after all. Rachel even suggested we bring back the Young Bluestocking’s Book Club--excellent thought! And speaking of books, we're delighted to hand out our first prize to QNPoohBear: Jane Austen’s Guide to Dating. QNPoohBear, please contact Marissa via her website and let her know where you’d like it sent.

I do believe we should learn a lesson from QNPoohBear. Please comment. We’d love to hear how you like the house party, what you’d like to do, and how we could make Nineteen Teen even better in the coming year. If you have a suggestion for a book we could read for the Book Club, please toss that in as well. There will be more prizes Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so come back often and invite your friends along!

In the meantime, I felt it my duty as one of your hostesses to entice you out of the library. We have a number of other guests who are eager to make your acquaintance. I found this charming fellow looking positively lonely in the withdrawing room.

And this gentleman is hoping to find a lady interested in going for a ride in his phaeton. Do take a tiger along, though, to protect your reputation. I fear the gentleman is rather daring.

And this gentleman is keen to study the native flora and fauna in our park. I’m sure he’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter as you stroll through the countryside.

So, are you willing to give up the library?

Amended September 15 by Regina
My dears, during the night my dear friend Leopold arrived to join our house party. I'm taking him to the conservatory to introduce him to El to liven up her dreary day. Join us if you'd like!

Happy Birthday to Us, or A Country House (Birthday) Party

2011-09-12T15:25:00.014-04:00

Welcome to Nineteenteen’s fourth birthday party! Can you believe we’ve been at this for four years?

In order to celebrate and kick off our fifth year of blogging in style, we thought we’d throw a party…a virtual country house party, to be exact…and yes, you’re invited!

So what happens at a virtual country house party? Well, what would you like to do if you were really at one? Would you be playing the pianoforte in the music room and flirting with a handsome fellow guest? Strolling through the gardens and enjoying the fine September weather? Exploring the library to find forgotten treasures?

One thing we do hope you’ll do is chat with us. It’s our custom on our birthday to solicit input and ideas for future topics you’d like to learn about (or re-visit), so please, tell us what you think or what you like to read here. All commenters, whether offering input or telling us what you’re planning on doing at the party, will be entered in a drawing for a daily prize…so comment early and often!

And so…

First of all, welcome to our house! Isn’t it the perfect setting for a house party? Lawns for endless games of croquet followed by sumptuous teas, and lots of windows for curling up in with a good book if the weather should prove inclement.So your post-chaise has drawn up to the entrance, where Regina and I await you in the front hall. It’s a little dark and medieval so we won’t linger…Would you care to see your room? We’ll take you right up so that you can freshen up before tea, and then your maid can unpack your things. Will this room do? Or would you prefer something a little lighter and airier?Here’s the dining room. The dressing bell rings a half hour before dinner, so you have time to change into evening clothes:And here we are at last, in the drawing room for tea:We hope you’ll enjoy your stay…and now, let the party begin! What are you going to do first?

(And don’t forget to leave us your input on how we can continue to make Nineteenteen fresh and fun in the next year!)

It Takes an Army to Manage a House Party

2011-09-09T15:00:00.007-04:00

I seem to be bumping into servants a lot lately, at least in my entertainment choices. I finally had a chance to see a bit of Downton Abbey, which a number of friends had raved about (do not get me started on why we don’t have BBC America in my neck of the woods!). This series follows the lives of the servants assigned to a great house in the early part of the twentieth century. I also just finished reading Deeanne Gist’s Maid to Match, which stars a young lady hoping to be lady’s maid to one of the Vanderbilts in the late nineteenth century. One thing that really struck me from both of these well-researched stories is that I frequently underestimate how many servants were required for a house of any size. So, of course I went looking for more information. One estimate is that a wealthy family needed at least four servants per person. In other words, it took an army!

What would that look like if Marissa and I were living in a London townhouse together? (Never mind that we have families—we’ll pretend they are busy elsewhere for a week.) Going by the estimate above, two lovely ladies would need at least eight servants:

I’d need a lady’s maid to help dress and undress, but I’d be willing to share her with Marissa. :-)

We’d need a groom to tend our horses and escort us while riding. I’m tempted to include a coachman, but I don’t wish the neighbors to think us too high in the instep and I must admit to a fondness for handling the reins myself when we’re tooling about Hyde Park. Plus we can hire a carriage and driver when we need to go out to balls and such.

We have a townhouse, so no need for a groundskeeper, but we better have a man-of-all-work to keep up the back garden and maintain the house.

We’ll need a cook, of course,

And probably a scullery maid to help her.

We should probably have a footman to fetch and carry and look suitably impressive when we go out shopping,

And a maid to help clean up behind us.

Then of course we’d need a butler or housekeeper to keep things running smoothly.

I’m a bit amazed how easy it was to hit eight. And truthfully, one housemaid probably isn’t enough when you consider the dusting and cleaning that all had to be done by hand in homes where coal or wood was burned. And I haven’t added a laundress to clean our clothes or a personal secretary to help us with our writing (though in some cases the latter was considered an employee instead of a servant). And just think what would need to be added if we had a house in the country: definitely a coachman and gardeners, more grooms, more footmen, more maids (upstairs maids, downstairs maids, scullery maids), and a land steward, at a minimum!

And, my dears, Marissa and I will have need of all those servants, because next week, we’re hosting a house party, right here, to celebrate our blog birthday! So have your maids pack your things, hire a post-chaise if needed, and come join us. Your invitation is below. We hope to see you next Tuesday for a week of fun!

Such Language! Part 8

2011-09-06T21:47:00.002-04:00

Hello, dear readers—we’re back! And since it’s September and the start of a new school year, a vocabulary lesson seemed appropriate for the day…courtesy of that wonderful (if frequently risqué!) 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. Enjoy!

Bam: To tell a falsehood; also, to make fun of. (“Little Agatha was sure her older brother must be bamming her when he said it was hailing boiled sweets, but she ran to the window to see just in case.”)

Dew beaters: feet. (“Dearest Clara thought the idea of a picnic in the country just splendid, but after walking three miles uphill to the apple orchard with a heavy basket, her dew beaters felt otherwise.”)

Quiz: A strange-looking person. (“My cousin Ezekiel would be much less a quiz if he didn’t comb his hair from the back of his head and wear purple socks with his knee-breeches.”)

Rantipole: A rude, romping boy or girl (“Can you believe it? Hugh called me a rantipole, so of course I was forced to knock him down and put a handful of sand down his back.”)

Tongue enough for two sets of teeth: Description of a talkative person. (“Angelina is a sweet girl and very jolly, but her having tongue enough for two sets of teeth can be wearing on the ears.”)

Tuft-hunter: one who courts the acquaintance of nobility. (“Miss Pursnip is such a tuft-hunter that she carries a tiny copy of DeBrett’s Peerage in her reticule to record sightings of earls and viscounts as she walks in Green Park.”)

French cream: brandy: so called by the old tabbies and dowagers when drank in their tea. (“Aunt Mehitabel ask her bosom friend Lady Murgatroyd if she’d take some French cream in her tea, and now they’re trying to balance Mama’s best silver teaspoons on their noses.”)

That About Covers It

2011-08-19T12:41:00.006-04:00

Summer’s winding down, but Marissa and I are swamped with deadlines and family demands. We’ve written so much about nineteenth century vacation spots this summer that we’ve decided to take a little vacation ourselves! This will be the last post until after Labor Day. Expect to see Marissa back at her desk on September 6. And September is birthday month at Nineteenteen, so expect some fun surprises as well.

For now, I’d like to talk about covers. Covers? Yes, really, book covers. We’ve talked before about where a young lady in nineteenth century London would have gone to purchase a book and what that book would have looked like. If you bought the new title page and folios for Jane Austen’s latest (written then “by a Lady”), you’d take them to a bookbinder and have them set up with covers and spine. Then, of course, your choice was various colors of calf’s skin and other types of leather. Take, for example, the picture of this first edition, with tan covers, black leather insets on the spine, and gilded lettering.

I am fortunate to own one book, in two volumes, that dates from 1809: John Harriott’s Struggles Through Life. Though the cover has seen better days (hey, they’re over a 100!), you can see that it was once a nice brown leather with red insets on the spine.

Now, of course, our books have more options. Marissa’s hardbacks have wonderful paper covers of paintings of her twin heroines. Paperbacks have even more leeway, with the possibilities of step backs (a picture inside the cover as well as on the front), embossing, and cutouts. That means, however, that cover artists have to be employed to bring the essence of the novel to life on the cover.

Rarely is an author able to sit down with the artist and talk about the novel. At best (and Love Inspired in among the best, in my experience), you can provide examples: pictures of settings, perhaps even swatches of fabrics for gowns. Alas, authors are often word creatures; no matter our best intentions, what we describe often doesn’t translate well to the visual medium of a cover. (That’s part of the joy of reading—the story is transformed in each reader’s mind.) But sometimes, it all comes together.

You know I was pretty thrilled with the cover of my June release, The Irresistible Earl. I’m even more delighted with the one for November’s release, An Honorable Gentleman. In my fact sheet that goes to the artists, I said my hero looked a bit like Brandon Routh, and I suggested it might be nice to have him gazing out over his new estate in the Lake District. You saw some of its beauty in last week’s post. Here’s the result:

I think they captured it pretty well. A friend even went so far to say it was a pretty “hot” cover for an inspirational romance. :)

This month, however, I had a unique opportunity. I decided I wanted a new cover for my oldest book, The Unflappable Miss Fairchild, which is available as an e-book reprint through Belgrave House’s Regency Reads line. I convinced my publisher to let me take it to a new e-book cover designer, Iconic Shadows. One of the main photographers is an avid reader and a fan of my books, so I knew she “got” me and my stories. She interviewed me about my hero and heroine, settings of the book, the tone and feel, what I wanted the cover to achieve, and other aspects. Then she did a photo shoot. Here’s the result:

The heroine is spot on, the background perfect. I love the fresh, upbeat feel of it.

I must say, though, that I’m curious about how others will take these covers. After all, I know the story inside them; a reader picking them up (or perusing online) won’t have that knowledge. What do you think, about either cover? Would they encourage you to make a purchase? What do you like or dislike about them? What kinds of covers cause you to pick up an author you’ve never heard of before?

I’ll be about the next two weeks and will try to respond to any comments. Until September—happy reading!

The Ennui is Killing Me! (Nineteenteen archives)

2011-08-17T21:59:00.002-04:00

This entry first ran in November 2009...and it still makes me smile. Enjoy!!

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, a popular weekly magazine published in London between 1822 and 1847, ran the following short piece in its November 26, 1825 issue which got me giggling--I hope it will do the same to you!

The Journal of an Indolent Lady

"I know a young lady who has very pretty pretensions to idleness, but who has no objection to dancing the livelong night, and who would work at a ball-dress fifteen hours at a stretch, rather than not go to the assembly. Of this young lady’s life, the following specimen...may afford some idea, and it proves her to be a real amateur:

Rose at ten. Regretted not being able to lie an hour longer. Lamented the necessity of cleanliness. Dressing a great bore. Dogs in this respect happier than men. Watch-boxes still better.

Breakfasted till eleven. Sauntered for half an hour, and played with the cat. She scratched both my hands.

Half past eleven. Sunk in an arm-chair, with a novel, read the same page three times over, and fell asleep. Got up to walk to another chair, and was told I’d a hole in my stocking. I wonder why the maid does not mend them.

Twelve. Played half a lesson on the piano. What can Rossini mean by writing such difficult music?

One o’clock. Took up a needle and thread, and looked out of the window at the cattle feeding for three quarters of an hour. Cows lead happy lives. I wonder why man does not ruminate.

At two. Luncheon.

Three. Forced to walk out. I hate exercise. Was told my petticoat is longer than my gown; but what does that matter?

Half-past four. Very tired and hungry. Played again with the cat. Made Fidelle, the French poodle, fetch a stick three times out of the water. Fidelle tore my glove to pieces. I wish my brother had been by to take it from him.

Five. Played at scratch-cradle [cat's cradle], and then three games of Trou-madame [an early table game that was a cross between bar billiards and pinball] till dressing time. Can’t think why mamma does not allow me a maid to dress me. Scolded for throwing my hair papers about the room. What has the housemaid to do but gather them up? It’s monstrous tiresome to be scolded.

Six. Dinner. After coffee sat still doing nothing till bed time. Thought half-past ten would never come. Went to bed very tired. Doing nothing is extremely troublesome, and I hate it exceedingly.—But then what can one do?"

:)

Hermits Weren't the Only Ones in the Woods

2011-08-12T13:03:00.003-04:00

Contrived rustic landscapes were only one way nineteenth century young ladies and gentlemen discovered nature. The period saw a rise in the appreciation of natural beauty for beauty’s sake. Where once the pockets of wilderness around England had been seen by the fashionable as backward hamlets in their otherwise civilized isle, now they saw the lofty peaks, verdant valleys, and thundering freshets worthy to visit, to view, and to capture in word and drawing. And one of the most popular areas to appreciate nature, then and now, was the Lake District.

The Lake District boasts a collection of rocky mountains, deep clear lakes, and crystal streams found nowhere else in England. It had already achieved some popularity with the more outdoorsy types who enjoyed walking along the paths and shores. However, when the romantic poet William Wordsworth authored a Guide through the District of the Lakes (anonymously in 1810 and under his own name in 1820), even those usually content with indoor pursuits took notice.

Wordsworth had been born and went to school in the Lake District, and his time away from it only made him appreciate it further. He wrote some of his most famous poems while at Dove Cottage in Grasmere with his sister Dorothy and spent much of his married life in a house in Rydal. His love of the area glowed in his guide. Take this from early in the piece:

“When the sun is setting in summer far to the north-west, it is seen by the spectator on the shores or breast of Winandermere, resting among the summits of the loftiest mountains, some of which may be half or wholly hidden by clouds, or by the blaze of light which the orb diffuses around it; and the surface of the lake will reflect correspondent colors through every variety of beauty, and through all degrees of splendor.”

Kind of makes you want to go there, doesn’t it? His words certainly had that affect on the gentry and aristocracy of nineteenth century England, many of whom built summer homes along the lakes and streams.

Growing up as I did near the mountains and seas of the Pacific Northwest, I feel a particular affinity for the Lake District. My November releases as well as the first two books of the 2012 trilogy are set there. Stay tuned next week when I hope to be able to give you a sneak peak of my new cover. You can see whether you think the amazing artists at Love Inspired were, well, inspired by nature as much as Wordsworth and I were.

Lawn Ornaments, Garden Furniture, and Hermits

2011-08-09T18:56:00.007-04:00

As our 19th century young lady tourists meandered about the country, guidebooks in hand as they visited scenic vistas and stately homes surrounded by artfully planned “natural” landscapes, they might pause to admire a grotto here, a ruined temple there, an obelisk raised on an artificial hill…or they might stop to check out the resident hermit.

Yes, really.

Just as the wealthy landowners of the 18th century rebuilt their houses into magnificent country seats, so they hired landscape gardeners to design what was really an outdoor set of “rooms”. All those fake ruins and follies and grottoes and medieval herb gardens and Chinese bridges and sylvan groves and statue gardens were the outdoor equivalent of the libraries, music rooms, dining rooms, drawing rooms, and salons indoors—spaces made to impress, to inspire admiration. The outdoor features, beside being “picturesque”, also carried picturesque meanings: a ruined temple symbolized man’s creations overtaken by the forces of nature, for example. And if a ruined temple or nymph’s grotto was “interesting”, how much more so would be if it contained a resident?

But since authentic nymphs were not always easy to find, some wealthy landowners built hermitages—picturesque (of course) dwellings which would be occupied by hermits. And just as ruins had a meaning, so too did hermitages--they symbolized the idea of man's return to nature.

Hermitages ranged from the very rustic--a single room, perhaps made out of wattle and thatch woven into the roots of an overturned tree--to the rather grand--a temple or miniature cathedral (the image above is of the hermitage at Frogmore, from an 1823 issue of Ackermann's Repository). The hermits themselves differed as well. Some were men (sorry, no female hermits--just think of the scandal!) genuinely interested in living a secluded, humble life dedicated to work and prayer…while others were cheerful types willing to appear suitably ragged and “natural” in order to entertain his lordship’s guests out for a stroll in the grounds.

Some landowners had very specific ideas on how their hermits should behave, demanding their potential hermits sign contracts stating that they weren't to speak, or to cut their hair or toenails. Others were more relaxed and invited their resident hermits to mingle with guests as a form of rustic entertainment.

So what do you think? Is there a spare garden shed in your yard? Why not be 19th century and install a hermit in it?

Hobby Horse Hijinks

2011-08-05T13:30:00.007-04:00

A young gentleman of my family calls himself a skater. Oh, he doesn’t strap wheels to his feet; he stands on a board and glides along streets, leaping curbs, grinding down stair rails, and twisting around trash cans in mid-air. I think he and his friends would have had a good laugh at how nineteenth century young men got around town for a short time. I give you the hobby horse!

Looks a bit like a bicycle, doesn’t it? But there are no pedals. The hobby horse, invented in Germany in 1817, was made of iron and wood with a padded seat and sometimes a rest for your chest. The idea was that you straddled the horse and pushed with your heels on either side in a walking motion, setting it to rolling. Then you sat back or laid back and let it roll for a time before pushing it again. The running machine, as the baron called it, could reach speeds up to nine miles an hour on a good road. The baron envisioned them for military as well as civilian use.

A coach builder named Denis Johnson is credited with bringing the fad to England, where it was soon a hit. Johnson refined the design and marketed it to the elite. London dandies embraced the concept to such as extent that some people began to call the device the Dandy Horse. Johnson custom-built each one to the size and shape of its owner and painted it in whatever colored the owner fancied. He even made a version for the ladies, who apparently stood on a lower step and pushed off with one foot only, much like a scooter, then sat sidesaddle to roll. You could even rent them by the day or the hour to get around London. Prints and pamphlets advised on the proper way to ride the vehicles. Mr. Johnson went so far as to open a Pedestrian Hobbyhorse Riding School on the Strand, charging a shilling a lesson.

Like any young gentleman handed a new toy, the nineteenth century youth were excited to see how far they could take the things. All over Europe, towns held races. Legend has it that a hobbyhorse beat a coach and four from London to Brighton. Hyde Park became overcrowded with packs of the things whizzing along.

Unfortunately, they became such a menace in London that the magistrates had to ban them. By 1840, they had become a quaint memory.

I know a few shopkeepers who wouldn’t mind skateboards meeting the same fate.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Part 4: Fonthill Abbey

2011-08-02T18:12:00.014-04:00

As Regina mentioned in Part 3, a popular vacation pastime for 18th and early 19th century people was the visiting of the large country estates of the rich and famous. Though it seems odd to us today, back then it was considered perfectly permissible. A lot of those houses are still open for viewing today…but today we’re going to visit a popular stately home that alas no longer exists, yet was quite famous in its day for its sheer…well, over-the-top-ness.

The Beckford family of Wiltshire was a fabulously wealthy one, thanks to its extensive plantation holdings in the West Indies which gave it a preeminent place in the sugar import market. Young William, heir of the family, got nothing but the best growing up—piano lessons from the young Mozart, for example—so when he came of age in 1781, he threw himself a party that cost ₤40,000. Um, wow.

However, scandals within a very few years drove him from England and his popular place in society. Despite his vast wealth, his life was not a happy one. He lost his young wife in childbirth while in exile on the continent, and spent the next several years traveling, writing (among his works was a well-known Gothic novel, Vathek) and collecting art. In 1796, much to everyone’s surprise, he decided to return to England and build himself a new house to house his art collection…in the form of a Gothic cathedral. He had the former Beckford home, Fonthill Splendens, torn down, and hired the brilliant but troubled architect James Wyatt to build it for him.

What emerged was one of the largest private homes in England. Fonthill Abbey featured 50 foot high windows, three-hundred foot corridors, staircases of enormous height and width…and a 50 foot table in the dining room, which seemed odd as no one would visit or even speak to Beckford (remember that scandalous past?) Yet alongside this excess, most of the bedrooms were small, stark, and bare, and over a dozen of them didn’t even have windows. Up to five hundred men were at work on the enormous house at any given time, and due to Wyatt’s frequent absences (he was notoriously unreliable, and often disappeared for months at a time on alcoholic sprees), Beckford himself did much of the directing of the building and landscaping of his monstrous home.

The process did not run smoothly. The main tower, planned to be three hundred feet tall, collapsed twice before finally staying put. The house was finally completed in 1813…which year also saw Wyatt’s death in a carriage accident.

Beckford lived alone in the gloomy splendor of his house for the next ten years, only entertaining once when Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton spent Christmas with him. Unfortunately, the outrageous cost of his building (not only the Abbey itself but a twelve foot high wall extending for twelve miles around his lands) combined with a drop in the price of sugar and the loss of some of his Jamaican plantations led to his needing to sell his white elephant abbey…which he did in 1823, amazingly enough, for the tidy sum of ₤300,000.

The new owner of Fonthill Abbey, gunpowder magnate John Farquhar, rarely visited his new acquisition, but happened to be there at Christmas 1825 when, for the third and final time, the 300-foot tower of the Abbey collapsed, demolishing about a third of the house with it. Farquhar himself died the following year, having neglected to write a will, and none of the relations arguing over his fortune was interested in taking on Fonthill. It was torn down, and only the gatehouse and a small portion of the once enormous house remain.

And Beckford? He took his money and moved to Bath, erecting a shorter (only 120 feet tall) and much more solidly built tower in which to house some of his art treasures. Though Fonthill is long gone, you can still visit his Lansdown Tower today…just as inquiring young ladies might once have done.

Shelf Space

2011-07-29T12:15:00.010-04:00

Oh, those lovely dresses Marissa shows us! They make my little larcenous costumer’s heart go pitter-pat. I’m certain any number of nineteenth-century young ladies had a similar reaction when they saw the prints in their favorite women’s magazine. We’ve talked about some of the ways those dresses became reality. But once you had them, what did you do with them when you weren’t wearing them?

The closets we generally take for granted did not exist in the nineteenth century. Oh, there were rooms for storing things, and a wealthy lady might have a dressing room devoted to her gowns and accoutrements. But the hanger (wire or wooden) wasn’t in wide use until the twentieth century, and most closets were not designed to hold hanging clothing. Instead, you or your maid gently folded your gowns into a clothes press.

I must admit, I had these envisioned all wrong. Somehow I had in my mind what my family calls a hope chest—a large cedar box. I’d also thought they might look a bit like a wardrobe ala The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Thank goodness I’ve never written a scene with great detail on the things, because this week I discovered my error.

Here are some examples of clothes presses. This first one is of the low variety, made of mahogany, dating from the early nineteenth century. Inside the center panels are five sliding trays. You pull them out and lay on your dresses. The drawers are for your fripperies like fans, shawls, and gloves.

Then there’s the higher version, also from early in the century. This is also mahogany, with birds eye maple banding. Looks a bit like a wardrobe, doesn’t it?

However, instead of a space to hang things, you’ll find those pull out drawers again.

Some, however, were quite fanciful. Check out this one, inspired by Chinese influences.

Or this one, from 1840. The door panels are inlaid with ebony, and the drawers are lined with oak.

It also actually has places to hang clothes on either side, although they may have been added later, as they are separate pieces from the clothes press.

They are lovely pieces of furniture, but I can’t help wondering how many I would need. As I have confessed before, I am something of a clothes horse. Think my husband would mind building a dressing room to store all my clothes presses? Or maybe a small house?

Fashion Forecast: 1822

2011-07-26T18:17:00.014-04:00

What was the well-dressed young lady wearing in 1822?

1822 was a rather more interesting year, fashion-wise, than the quite dull 1821…but I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!

This Evening Dress sports spectacular puffed (and probably stuffed) applique trim around the hem as well as on the sleeves. Note the shawl, probably an import from India (Ackermann’s Repository, January): February’s Ackermann’s brings quite a spectacular selection of Head Dresses, including bonnets at upper left and lower right, a pair of elaborate turbans at upper right and middle, and heaven knows what at lower left—something between a toque and a turban, perhaps. Feathers were definitely in, don’t you think?I wish I had the original text on this Full Dress (Ackermann’s, February)—it isn’t listed as a mourning dress, so the color is unusual…but the lace appliques at hem and on the bodice and sleeves contrasts handsomely on the dark background. Note that waists are still very high this year: What a cozy Walking Dress! I love the ermine trim, military-looking frog fasteners down the front, and Elizabethan ruff collar (Ackermann’s, March): Yes, those enormous ermine muffs are still in fashion! The asymmetrical look seems to be gone this year after being popular in 1821, and several walking or Promenade Dresses (like this one) from this year feature the large bows down the front rather than to one side. Note also another handsome India shawl: Another totally fluffy Court Dress! This June number from Ackermann’s must have been challenging to wear: note the deep rows of puffed applique around the hem, with more of it all around the long court train! I wish I had the text for this dress too, as it would have been interesting to know whether the fabric was printed with little pink dots, or if it was a white overskirt with slashes to reveal a pink petticoat: Here’s a handsome Evening Dress, also from the June Ackermann’s—I like the blue appliques on the coffee-colored fabric, and the little military-style frogs on the bodice. Some quiet elegance, after that Court Dress! Speaking of elegance, this Morning Dress from the October Ackermann’s is also worthy of note: there’s quite a bit of lace and eyelet on the hem, bodice, and sleeves here. Note the lower waist, unusual this year, neatly belted in pink, and the frill there as well: The 1820s ushered in the start of the craze for all things Scottish, led by the King himself, that would be taken to extreme lengths by Queen Victoria in the 1850s and beyond…here’s a tartan Evening Dress, with elaborately appliqued sleeves and a slightly more restrained hem: How’s this for the ultimate winter Promenade Dress? I love the mulberry-colored velvet with cord appliques at the wrist and shoulder, trimmed with chinchilla bands around the hem and a matching chinchilla tippet and muff (Ackermann's, December):

What do you think of 1822’s fashions?

What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Part 3: Checking Out the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

2011-07-22T12:22:00.010-04:00

Well, obviously one of the things I did was forget about our drawing! I blame it on all the fun I had with Marissa in Newport and on Cape Cod. :-) The winner of the Irresistible Earl prize package is Janine Mimi! Janine, please contact me via my website with your address, and I’ll send it right out to you! Thank you all for your comments! Please keep in touch. Marissa and I miss you when you’re too quiet.

Anyone ever bought a map to the homes of the stars in Hollywood? Or driven by the biggest house in town just to dream? In the same way that Marissa and I ogled the Newport Mansions of America’s Gilded Age, so young nineteenth century lads and lasses traveled during the summer to visit Great Houses of the wealthy and titled. You may recall that in Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet travels with her aunt and uncle to visit the north of England and ends up touring Pemberley, the home of Fitzwilliam Darcy. Some think the inspiration for Pemberley was Chatsworth, home of the Dukes of Devonshire. In the nineteenth century, the house was open for people to tour, and once a month the staff even served dinner to all who were there.

Chatsworth is a stunning home, remodeled and contoured over several centuries even by the nineteenth century. It boasted a conservatory made from wood, iron, and glass that covered nearly an acre and was filled with exotic specimens from as far away as the Americas and the Orient, contoured gardens designed by the famous landscape architect Capability Brown and improved upon by Joseph Paxton, and a statue gallery with works from Greece and Rome. It was also filled with priceless artwork, pottery, and other collections. So, allow me to give you your own mini-tour:

The sculpture gallery

A dining room

The formal gardens

However, one of the other attractions for a good part of the nineteenth century was Chatsworth’s owner. William Cavendish, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, was called the Bachelor Duke. He rose to his title at the tender age of 21 and was handsome, charming, and generous. I can’t help but wonder how many young ladies wandered through his home hoping for more than a glimpse of the eligible gentleman. Their hopes were dashed for two reasons: the duke owned seven other stately homes and a thriving political career, so wasn't often in residence, and he never married. Some say he was in love with Caro Lamb, Lord Byron's infamous mistress. On his death, his estate passed to a cousin.

Ah, the lifestyles of the rich and famous!

Victoria’s Children, Part 7: Arthur

2011-07-19T17:08:00.012-04:00

It’s often said that the middle children in families tend to get lost in…well, the middle. But Prince Arthur, seventh of Victoria’s nine children, somehow managed to avoid that fate. In fact, the Queen frequently called him her favorite child (that's her with baby Arthur at right.)

So what earned Arthur his Most Favored Child status?

Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert was born on May 1, 1850, at Buckingham Palace. As he shared his birthday with Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, who by now had reached mythic status as the victor of the Battle of Waterloo, the Duke was asked to be one of his godfathers and lent the new royal baby his name (that's the old Iron Duke giving his namesake a first birthday present below). The Queen seemed to dote on this well-behaved, easy-going child from the start. She “adored little Arthur from the day of his birth”--unusual, for she was not fond of infants; he was her “precious love” who “has never given us a day’s sorrow or trouble” and was “dearer than any of the others put together” (phew!) Young Arthur seems to have shown up well compared to his two older brothers, Bertie and Alfred, which might be the source of his mother’s doting upon him: raised as an only child (her half-brother was much older) she’d had no experience with the occasional boisterousness of some boys…and Bertie and Affie could be boisterous!

Arthur was tutored at home—no school for Victoria’s children, thank you very much—and seemed to have borne well his mother’s restrictions and demands (no fraternizing with Eton boys while at Windsor, rooms must be kept no warmer than 60°). He was delighted to take up the career in the Army that had been chosen for him from early childhood (another tie to his godfatherly namesake) and entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1866, at age 16. He acquitted himself creditably during his training and eventually settled into the famous Rifle Brigade, of which the Duke of Wellington and then his father, Prince Albert, was Commander-in-Chief. In the early years of his career he saw service in South Africa, Canada (where he was made a Chief of the Six Nations by the Iroquois), and Ireland.

The Queen made him Duke of Connaught and Strathern in 1874, and was delighted when he married Princess Louise of Prussia in 1879. Their marriage was a happy one, and produced three children: Margaret (later Crown Princess of Sweden), Arthur, and Patricia. In his later years, and especially after his wife’s death in 1917, he was close to Leonie Leslie, aunt of Winston Churchill.

Arthur continued to perform both his army and royal duties, was made a Field Marshal (though he was disappointed never to become Commander-in-Chief of the Army as his mother hoped he would) and in 1911 became Viceroy of Canada, the only member of the royal family to have served thus. After his return from Canada (where he was quite popular and well-liked) he didn’t hold any further official positions but continued his ceremonial and advisory duties right up to World War II, dying in 1942 at age 91. Not a bad life, when you consider it.

Up, Up and Away

2011-07-15T12:29:00.003-04:00

The nineteenth century saw the birth of many inventions we take for granted today, but few were viewed with greater awe and anticipation than the hot air balloon. Crowds gathered every time the basket and uninflated balloon arrived on a wagon and watched as the bag was filled and the balloon rose into the sky. Ascensions, as they were called, were plentiful around London, from the various parks and Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. Young ladies swooned over the prospect of being lifted aloft, and young men dreamed of being aeronauts. One of the most practiced in the art was Charles Green.

Green was the son of a fruit merchant. But he grew interested in ballooning in school and went on to build his own balloons and fly them. He also had a theory that coal-gas would be a more convenient and safer fuel than hydrogen gas, which was widely used at the time. At the request of the government, Green ascended from one of the London parks on George IV’s coronation day (July 19, 1821) in the first balloon filled with coal-gas. The crowds went wild.

But Green wasn’t finished with stunts. In August 1828, he took a pony aboard with him, ascended from the Eagle Tavern in London, and came down thirty minutes later in Kent. The proprietors from Vauxhall were so impressed they commissioned him to build them a balloon for the delight of their customers. He liked it so much he bought it back from them but continued to ascend from Vauxhall, taking groups of people around England.

In 1836, Robert Hollond, a member of Parliament representing Hastings, funded Green to fly the balloon from Vauxhall to Germany. Hollond and his friend Thomas Monck Mason had both dreamed of being aeronauts but had settled for more prosaic occupations. The two joined Green at Vauxhall for a grand send off, crossed the channel to Dover, and reached the countryside on the outskirts of Weilburg in Germany. They had traveled a total of 500 miles over land and sea in 18 hours. The record would not be broken until 1907. Green’s fame was assured.

But however much the crowds idolized the aeronauts and dreamed of flying themselves, ballooning was not for the faint of heart. Green set the record for a time for height, reaching more than 27,000 feet, with temperatures well below freezing. He fought his way through thunderstorms and rode the winds aloft at times nearly 100 miles an hour. He piloted a balloon where one of the first parachutes was tested (at the loss of life of the man testing it!). Once someone severed the ropes attaching the basket to the balloon, and he and his passenger had to climb onto the mesh of the balloon to survive. Still, by the time he retired, he had ascended more than 500 times!

The British Balloon and Airship Club still awards the Charles Green Salver for exceptional flying or contributions to the field of ballooning.

Me? I’m afraid I’m one of those terribly practical people who prefer their feet to remain safely on the ground!

What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Part 2: The Queen’s Doll House

2011-07-12T19:03:00.008-04:00

Today’s Summer Vacation activity is about twenty years after the 19th century…but it’s just so amazing and fascinating that I’m going to talk about it anyway…and the neat thing is that if you happen to be in the vicinity of Windsor Castle, you too can see it.

What “it” is is Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House. Queen Mary (born 1867, married Prince George of York 1893, became queen 1910, died 1953) was a noted collector of art and trinkets—objets d’art—with an especial fondness for miniatures. In fact, hostesses often put away their trinkets when the queen was coming for a visit because of her well known habit of staring longingly at an object and commenting on its beauty until its owner felt compelled to give it to her.

Her friend and cousin, Princess Marie Louise (one of the daughters of Princess Helena) was inspired in 1921 to create a dolls’ house for her as a gift, both personal and public. The Queen had been a tower of strength during the hard years of World War I, and such a gift seemed the perfect thank you. The princess enlisted the help of well-known architect Sir Edwin Lutyens to help organize…and the project snowballed, with Marie Louise calling on her extensive circle of friends and acquaintances in the arts (and on their friends and acquaintances) to help create a perfect miniature palace featuring three years of work and the labor of thousands...and the results are amazing:

Hundreds of well-known artists contributed, painting amazing tiny murals in the house or creating miniscule watercolors for the royal portfolio. Writers like Rudyard Kipling, Edith Wharton, Aldous Huxley, Arthur Conan Doyle, and hundreds of others donated work for the library, some of it unpublished elsewhere, and often handwriting it themselves in tiny 1” by 1 ½” blank volumes provided to them which were later bound in elegant gold-tooled leather (Ernest Shepard, the illustrator of Winnie the Pooh, designed the bookplates). Composers like Delius, Holst, and Bax contributed musical scores. The wine cellar contains hundreds of tiny bottles of actual vintage wines, from champagne (Veuve Cliquot 1906) to fine Madeira from 1820. The linens are all monogrammed. The tiny gramophone in the nursery actually works, and there’s electricity and hot and cold running water. There are working motor-cars and motorcycles in the Royal Garage, and the gardens were designed by famed designer Gertrude Jekyll.

The Queen was, of course, delighted. The house was exhibited to the public at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924-25 and later to raise funds for charities; now it’s on permanent display at Windsor. Want to see more? Check out this interactive website, which includes information on a new book just published about the Dolls' House, The Queen's Dolls' House by Lucinda Lambton (don't worry, it's available in the US as well). Fancy a visit? Go here for more information. I know that the next time I go to England, this will definitely be one of my stops!

Blogging from National, Part 3

2011-07-08T12:35:00.008-04:00

Okay, so the RWA National Conference is now a week over, but we had so much to report between it and now that we thought we should wrap things up for you. I was so impressed with the Newport Mansions that I kind of skipped over a few things, like going to the ball.

You see, the RWA National Conference is my Season, just as so many ladies in the nineteenth century enjoyed the Season in London. It’s a time to visit with old friends and make new ones, to dress up in pretty clothes, to see the sights and learn new things, and to feel like a member of the “in” crowd for a short time. And just like the Season, it’s a time to go to soirees and balls. Every major publisher puts on some kind of event to honor their authors, but the very best, in my humble opinion, is the Harlequin party.

This year it was a tremendous crush, my dears, held at the Waldorf-Astoria and themed the Black and White Ball. Everyone dressed in black and white, and some of the dresses were worthy of the red carpet! Here’s my old friend Jenna Mindel (Season of Dreams), new friend Christine Johnson (The Matrimony Plan), me, and Dream (Love Inspired’s talented social media guru) in our party togs.

And a look at the crowded dance floor, with about 198 women and 2 men all rocking out. Too much fun!

Unfortunately, the event was so crowded that only select authors were allowed to bring guests, so Marissa couldn’t join me this year. {pout}

Alas, the Season was too soon over, but Marissa invited me to her very own house party on Cape Cod! After our detour to the Newport Mansions, we arrived in the Chatham area. Sometimes I bemoan the fact that our town is short on history. Most of the homes here date from the 1950s. Imagine my delight in visiting towns started in 1712 or earlier with extant homes still in existence!

What else I learned in Cape Cod:

Cape Cod houses really come from Cape Cod. They were everywhere! I adore the design and enjoyed seeing all the ways people made them unique, from different shutters and doors to flower boxes and gardens. Then there were the grander homes, like the one at the top of this post, named Hydrangea Walk.

To sail properly, you not only need sea legs but a sea butt. I knew enough to sit down in the sailboat Marissa’s family owns, but that didn’t stop me from sliding right off onto the floor at the first turning. I decided to stay there. You can still take great pictures from the deck. :-)

The dark of the moon is really dark at sea. We motored over to Pleasant Bay to watch the fireworks (which were fantastic!). But coming back, with a thin sliver of moon and hazy clouds obscuring the stars, the night quickly turned to pitch. It was extremely disorienting. As I’m currently writing my second book in the Everard Legacy miniseries and my hero is a sea captain, I wondered how he dealt with the absolute lack of sight. I also got to experience how it feels to run aground, when our boat got stuck in the shifting sand bars of the bay and we had to wait an hour for the tide to raise us off.

We are both back home and back to our usual writing schedules. We hope you enjoyed our adventures as much as we did. Look for more of our usual types of posts next week. And please continue commenting. We love hearing from you! Comments through next Tuesday, July 12, will be included in the drawing for an Irresistible Earl prize packet. I’ll announce the winner on Friday, July 15.

Blogging from National, Part 2

2011-07-03T18:51:00.009-04:00

Pray forgive the lateness of this missive, my dears. Friday was the last day of our conference in NY, and Saturday we traveled by train and automobile from the city out to Cape Cod. I adored saying this all conference long: “Yes, Dahling, I’m going to the Cape for the Fourth!”

And of course Marissa and I could not pass up the opportunity for some historical research on the way, in Newport, Rhode Island, to be exact. I know little about the Gilded Age, turn-of-the-century East Coast. I was surprised to find that it wasn’t so far off from the nineteenth-century England I love.

We’ve talked about the way the aristocracy left London in the summer for their country houses, which were often far more magnificent than their London residences. The same might be said for Newport, where the summer “cottages” are multi-room mansions with manicured grounds.

Take the one above, for example. This is The Elms, patterned after a French chateau outside Paris. This picture looks at the rear of the place, facing the grounds. And down the lawn is a delightful folly that could well have graced one of the designs of the famous landscape artist Capability Brown in England. Don’t Marissa and I just look as if we belonged here?

Farther down the island is The Breakers, a 70-room mansion overlooking the ocean. This view from the veranda tells you how it got its name.
And I have never seen such tall wrought-iron gates even in England.

Ornate does not begin to describe the rooms. Anything that can be made of marble is, as is anything that can be gilded (including the marble!). Marissa was rather fond of a fireplace that was mottled in red and gray, looking a bit like flames. She thought that was much better than the columns on the stairs at another house, which she said looked like someone had eaten a buffalo mozzarella pizza and then thrown up.

A few things I noted that surprised me:

The servants’ stairs, though narrow, were also made of marble, with fine wood banisters and wrought-iron paneling.

They actually did appreciate the view, as evinced by the many windows and verandas overlooking the sea as well as this charming lawn chair with the porthole windows on either side.

They made use of earlier fine materials. I saw a fireplace that had been taken from an 18th century French chateau and cushions on which Marie Antoinette had once sat.

It was fun trying to imagine ourselves here, among the emerald lawns, the tall frescoed ceilings, the marble stairs ascending to private bedrooms papered in silk. We decided we liked this particular house, which was built on a much more modest scale, until we realized it was the children’s playhouse!

Look for more on our travels next week, and don’t forget to comment on any post through July 12 to be entered in a drawing for an Irresistible Earl prize packet. Happy Independence Day!

Blogging from National, Part 1

2011-06-29T11:18:00.020-04:00

Well, Regina and I are here at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, NYC for the Romance Writers of America’s 31st Annual National Conference. It’s hotter than you-know-what, but honestly, at these conferences you’re so busy that you don’t have to stir out of the air-conditioned building.

This hotel is huge. I mean, really reallyreallyreally huge. It has to be, to house this conference of 2000 attendees…but check this out!

The elevators are in a column running up the center of this huge hollow space, and they’re glass…just a trifle dizzying the first few times you go whizzing up to the 35th floor where we are, but you quickly learn to look at your feet rather than out.

We both arrived Monday night, and after squealing happily at each other (hey, we only get to see each other once a year!) we trundled down to dinner (good food, but oh the NYC sticker shock!), spent a lot of time just yakking, then called it a night, because Tuesday was…

The Beau Monde Conference
Regina and I are both members of the Regency writers chapter of the RWA, called The Beau Monde …in fact, Regina was elected chapter president for the year! Madame President and I arrived in time for a yummy continental breakfast and to help lay out the Silent Auction (an annual fundraiser for the chapter, which features research books and other fun historical and Regency-related items). Then Regina conducted the Annual Meeting, and at last we heard our guest speaker, the much-loved (and deservedly so) Mary Jo Putney.

After that, it was time for workshops! I attended one on traveling and researching in England, given by my friend Jo Ann Ferguson, then a second workshop session on the Battle of Waterloo and visiting Belgium to attend the annual reenactions of the Battle (oh my gosh, wouldn’t that be so cool?) I grabbed lunch with a group of Regency writers before coming back for a session on researching Regency interiors, and learned that there are hundreds of images from Regency magazines like Ackermann’s (where I get most of my Fashion Forecast images) available at the New York Public Library’s website (http://www.nypl.org/).

After that, it was, of course, time for tea! We feasted on an assorted of tea sandwiches (yes, including cucumber!) and pastries, then went to get ready for the big book signing RWA sponsors each year at National to benefit literacy programs in the host city. Alas, my books didn’t arrive so I couldn’t sign, but Regina was there to sign her June release, The Irresistible Earl.

After that, it was time to get ready for…

The Beau Monde Soiree
After years of attending this event, I decide it was past time I got myself the appropriate togs…so this year, I obtained a Regency gown, with the requisite chemise and corset to wear underneath. The undergarments really are necessary to give the proper lift to the bust in these very high-waisted dresses, which modern brassieres just can’t manage. Aren’t we just a pair?

Plenty of other Beau Monders came in Regency attire as well...and danced to the live music performed by a three piece ensemble and a caller, who led everyone through Regency period dances. Neat, huh?

It's been a great couple of days...look for a further report on our further doings from Regina later in the week.

How a Prince Parties

2011-06-24T12:24:00.004-04:00

Marissa’s written several posts on George the IV, who became Prince Regent two hundred years ago, in 1811. This week marked the anniversary of his first official party, a Grand Fete to celebrate the exiled French royal family.

Wait, what?

Yes, celebrating the French does seem like an odd way to began your march toward ruling Britain. After all, in June 1811 Napoleon’s army was still madly fighting away, and British troops were dying on foreign battlefields. Then too, June was traditionally when the King, George’s father, held his birthday party, and he was too ill to attend. So partying, for any reason, seemed a bit crass.

But that didn’t stop Prinny. He invited 2,000 of England’s elite as well as the younger brothers and family of the executed King Louis XVI to join him at nine in the evening on June 19 at his Carlton House address in London. More than 60 servants in blue livery with gold lace served hot and cold soups, roast beef, and exotic fruits, and champagne and fine wine flowed. The supper table was so long it crossed the dining room and ran down the center of the conservatory beyond, the entire length groaning under the weight of all the silver serving dishes and place settings. To top things off, a stream meandered down the center of the table, bubbling from a fountain in front of the Prince. Little bridges spanned the stream, flowers and moss decorated its banks, and live goldfish wove through the waters.

Well, live for awhile. The poor things quickly asphyxiated and lay there dying, causing more than one guest to lose his appetite. But that wasn’t the only thing that gave the rest of the Prince’s subjects pause. The entire affair cost 120,000 pounds, an amount equivalent to more than 4 million pounds (or 6 million dollars) today.

Well, that’s one way to start your summer. Here’s another. If you can be in New York City on Tuesday, June 28, stop by the Marriott Marquis Times Square. More than 500 (yes, you read that right—five hundred!) authors of romantic fiction will be signing books for charity from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. Marissa and I will be among that number. We’d love to have you say hi! More on our New York travels next week.

And even if you can’t get to New York, don’t forget to comment on any post between now and July 12 for a chance to win an Irresistible Earl tote and goodies!

What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Part 1: Big White Horses

2011-06-21T15:56:00.007-04:00

Our first summer excursion is to Wiltshire, a county southwest of London about halfway to Cornwall. Wiltshire is home to Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge, probably Great Britain’s most famous prehistorical site; it’s a place of rolling, open hills, called downs, with little farming due to the poor nature of the soil.

But it’s the nature of that poor soil that makes Wilstshire—and other places across southern England—the first stop on our Summer Tour. Forming the hills under that thin soil is chalk—yes, the white stuff formerly used to write on blackboards in classroooms. And at some point back in prehistory, someone figured out that you could cut shallow trenches in the soil to expose the underlying chalk, and create enormous pictures spreading across hillsides…like this:That’s the 374 ft. long White Horse of Uffington, (nearby in Oxfordshire, by the way, not Wiltshire) dating back to about 3000 years ago. But in historical times, chalk cutting became a popular pastime for landowners, and Wiltshire is home to several of them. There’s the Westbury White Horse, carved in the 1770s for a Mr. Gee (though it may have covered an earlier figure—mention of a horse carving there dates back to 1742):
And here’s another, the Cherhill White Horse, carved in 1780 by a Dr. Alsop and measuring about 160 feet across:The somewhat smaller--62 ft--Marlborough White Horse was carved in 1804 by schoolboys from a nearby school, and refurbishing it was a yearly school tradition. These chalk figures require upkeep—weeding and replenishing the chalk—at frequent intervals: So what inspired people to spend a great deal of effort to dig trenches hundreds of feet long to form these pictures? The 18th century was really the first great period of English landscape gardening, and carving chalk figures into hillsides was one way to play with the landscape, if you happened to own hundreds of acres in chalk down country. I am sure our young 19th century tourist misses, on their way perhaps to view the stately homes at Longleat or Fonthill Abbey (which I shall write about later this summer), enjoyed side trips to view these images, startlingly white against the green summer grass.

And enormous horses aren’t the only chalk carvings around; huge figures of men also exist such as the Wilmington Figure (which may also date to prehistoric times) and the Cerne Abbas Giant, probably carved during the English Civil War as a sort of satirical cartoon of Oliver Cromwell! The practice continues even today, as a White Horse was created just in 2003 at Folkestone in Kent, overlooking the terminal for the Channel Tunnel. And they remain a tourist attraction in the 21st century; visit http://wiltshirewhitehorses.org.uk/ to learn more about Wiltshire’s White Horses.

Don't forget--through July 12, all Nineteenteen commenters will be entered in a drawing to win Regina's Irresistible Earl beach tote. So what are you waiting for?

My Brother, the Irresistible Earl

2011-06-17T13:03:00.005-04:00

We are pleased today to have with us Lady Phoebe Dearborn, younger sister of Chase Dearborn, Lord Allyndale, the so-called Irresistible Earl. Like her brother, Lady Phoebe was born in Yorkshire, on the edge of what today is the North York Moors National Park. She was raised at home on their family estate and, at nineteen, has just completed her first Season in London. Welcome, Lady Phoebe.

LP: Thank you so much for having me.

19 Teen: So how did you enjoy the Season?

LP: Oh, it was marvelous! All the balls, all the shopping! I was having a wonderful time until my brother cut it off short.

19 Teen: Why was that?

LP: Well, let’s just say that a certain gentleman caused trouble, and my brother thought I would be better off somewhere else.

19 Teen: So you went to Scarborough. That seems like a strange spot for someone who prides herself on being fashionable.

LP: Well, I actually suggested Scarborough, after I learned that’s where. . . um, that’s where Chase would prefer to be. Of course. He’s a bit strong on tradition, my brother. He says Scarborough is perfect because it’s full of company in the summer but close enough to home that he can pop off to the estate for the day and see to his affairs. He’s also strong on doing his duty.

19 Teen: He sounds a bit bossy.

LP: He’s terribly bossy! I suppose that’s because I’m more than ten years younger than he is. Our father died when he was only twelve, and he had to take on responsibility for me, Mother, the estate, and all our tenants. But he seems to have forgotten that I’m quite grown up now. I don’t need him to make my decisions for me.

19 Teen: Certainly not. Have you had luck convincing him of that?

LP: SIGH. Not as much as I’d like. But I have great hopes. He’s changed since he met Meredee Price. She’s had quite the civilizing influence on him.

19 Teen: Didn’t I hear you met Meredee under interesting circumstances?

LP: She saved my life! I had gone out to bathe in the waters on Scarborough Bay. You see, if you go to Scarborough, you must do two things: drink the waters and dip in the sea. It’s supposed to be good for your health. Only I slipped coming out of my bathing machine and went under. If Meredee hadn’t come along, I don’t know what I’d have done!

19 Teen: I imagine your brother was very thankful for her intervention.

LP: Very! He invited her to dinner the very next night. And then he decided to help her hunt for seashells. You see what an influence she’s had? Who would ever have thought of Chase hunting shells!

19 Teen: If he’s so strict, how did he get the nickname of the irresistible earl?

LP: You all have a saying, I believe: “Resistance is futile.” That’s pretty much Chase. But he does strike a commanding figure. I’ve heard ladies sigh when he passes. Even Meredee was smitten. I could tell. All my plans are working out perfectly.

19 Teen: Your plans?

LP: Oh, just a manner of speaking.

19 Teen: But you do have other plans for your time in Scarborough.

LP: I certainly do. But I am not at liberty to divulge them.

19 Teen: Oh, come now. Surely you can tell us.

LP: Well. . . [Glances both ways and lowers voice.] I do have hopes of attracting the attentions of a certain gentleman. But you mustn’t tell Meredee; she might think less of me. And please don’t tell Chase. He’d ruin everything.

19 Teen: Goodness, this sounds serious.

LP: I certainly hope so. [smiles]

If you’d like to know more about Lady Phoebe and her irresistible brother, check out The Irresistible Earl from Love Inspired Historical, available now online and in fine stores near you. To learn more, see Regina's website.

And don't forget--if you comment on any post between now and July 12, we'll enter your name in a drawing for an Irresistible Earl prize package. Hope to hear from you!

Summertime!

2011-06-14T09:32:00.000-04:00

Well, temperatures have already zoomed up to the high nineties--unheard of so early in the season for New England!--so I think summer is here, even if the calendar says it’s still officially spring. And so it seems to be a good time to let you know what we’ll be up to this summer at Nineteenteen…and I’ll save the best part for last.

First, we thought it would be fun to launch a series on what a proper 19th century miss might have done after the Season was over…so look for posts throughout July and August on What I Did on my Summer Vacation from both me and Regina. We’ll explore the great vacation destinations around England back in, say, 1820 (so jaunting to Legoland® Windsor or popping across the Channel to Disneyland® Paris is out of the question!)

But before that, we’ll be having our annual trip to the Romance Writers of America’s National Conference, held this year in New York City. We’ll blog our adventures there which will include The Beau Monde's (Regency writers’ special interest chapter) annual conference and Soiree. Look for a lot of interesting photos from this year’s Soiree (she said mysteriously…!) But this year the adventures will continue as Regina comes to visit me on Cape Cod post-conference for a few days (hey, she isn’t on this side of the continent very often!) Look for pictures of two proper YA historical fiction writers spending a lot of time on the beach!

And now, the best part I promised…Regina’s latest book, The Irresistible Earl, arrives in bookstores this week!! To celebrate, we’re holding a contest…anyone who comments on a Nineteenteen post between now and July 12 will be entered in a drawing to win an Irresistible Earl totebag containing a lovely scarf and a sandalwood fan (an assortment of items our 19th century miss would have wished to have with her on vacation!) and of course a signed copy of The Irresistible Earl (which she definitely would have enjoyed!!).

So it’s shaping up to be a busy summer…and we hope you’ll be here to enjoy it with us. Make sure you stop by on Friday when Nineteenteen will be interviewing Lady Phoebe Dearborn, who’ll have a thing or two to tell us about her brother, the Irresistible Earl. And don't forget to comment on posts to be entered in our contest!

Career Planning, Nineteenth Century Style

2011-06-10T13:11:00.003-04:00

Next week, I have the honor of escorting a young gentleman to visit a college in the wilds of Montana. This will be my fifth such college visit with said gentleman. He, at least, knows exactly what he wishes to study and the career he wishes to pursue. He desires to become an architect. He has been studying drafting and design in high school for several years, and he’s read up on the subject online. Career planning is part of the curriculum in his school. However, nineteenth century lads had another resource to decide which careers they might pursue: The Book of Trades, Being a Library of the Useful Arts.

Now, that surprised me. I’d always assumed that a boy would just follow in his father’s footsteps or at least continue in some family business. If your father was a baker, you’d apprentice as a baker and you’d finally take over the shop when dad had passed to his just reward or at least become too feeble to work. But it appears that many families gave their children other options.

The Book of Trades, a three-volume collection, was first published in 1804 and 1805 for Tabart and Co. of 157 New Bond Street in London, but it became so popular that by 1839 it was in its twelfth printing. With engraved pictures and text describing the attributes needed for success, the likely pay, and the working conditions, each section detailed a specific skilled occupation a young man (and sometimes a young lady) might undertake. The books were sold for three shillings each (or five shillings if you wanted hand-colored plates) from Tabart’s shop and were shelved among the children’s books and school texts. The 1824 edition, of all three books combined, totaled over 400 pages!

Here’s the entry for baker:

“The business of the Baker consists in making bread, rolls, and biscuits, and in baking various forms of provisions. Bread . . . is known in London by two names: the white, or wheaten, and the household: these differ only in degree of purity; and the loaves must be marked with a W, or H, or the baker is liable to suffer a penalty.

The life of the baker is very laborious; the greater part of the work being done by night: the journeyman is required always to commence his operations about eleven o’clock in the evening, in order to get the new bread ready for admitting the rolls in the morning. His wages are, however, but very moderate, seldom amounting to more than ten shillings a week, exclusive of his board.”

Hm, late nights and little pay. I think I’ll look further. I’ve always thought our family could use a good plumber, and it also surprised me to find that this was considered a trade so early in the nineteenth century, when what we think of plumbing today was in its infancy.

“The business of the Plumber consists in casting and working of lead, and using it in buildings. He furnishes us with a cistern for water, and with a sink for the kitchen; he covers the house in lead, and makes the gutters to carry away the water; he makes pipes of all sorts and sizes, and sometimes he casts leaden statues as ornaments for the garden. The plumber also is employed in making coffins for those who are to be interred out of the usual way. He also fits up water-closets and makes pumps. . . . The health of the men is often injured by the fumes of the lead.

Journeymen earn about thirty shillings a week; and we recommend earnestly to lads brought up to the [plumbing, glazing, or painting] trades, that they cultivate cleanliness and strict sobriety, and that they never, on any account, eat their meals or retire to rest at night, before they have well washed their hands and face.”

So we’re looking at better pay and work with variety, but definitely some serious occupational and health risks. Think I’ll keep looking.

I have an abbreviated version of the books, with only 44 of the trades. If there’s some trade in particular you’re curious about, let me know and I’ll see what I can find later this summer. And speaking of summer, stay turned next week, when Marissa tells you all about how we plan to spend our summer and how we’ll be sharing it with you!

Victoria’s Children, Part 6: Princess Louise

2011-06-07T04:46:00.001-04:00

Victoria’s sixth child and fourth daughter was born on March 18, 1848, a year that became known as the Year of Revolutions and saw violent upheavals in many parts of Europe. Little Louise Caroline Alberta (names all chosen by Prince Albert) herself was temporarily thought to be in danger as the revolutionary Chartist movement bubbled and simmered in England, ultimately coming to nothing.

From her earliest childhood, Louise was considered the most attractive of Victoria’s daughters, with a more refined version of the family’s somewhat heavy features and enough height to be considered statuesque. She was also the most rebellious, even down to preferring French to the Queen’s beloved German. Despite her naughtiness, thought, it was recognized early on that she had a real artistic talent. She was encouraged by her drawing masters, and always seemed to have a sketchbook in hand through her childhood years. Artistic ability ran in the family: Victoria herself was no mean watercolorist, and eldest sister Vicky was quite proficient in oils…but true to her rebellious nature, Louise’s preferred artistic medium was sculpture. Sculpture was not regarded as an appropriately “feminine” art; furthermore, as a royal princess, Louise could not expect to ever be able to “do” anything with her art.

But sometimes being rebellious has its uses. When Prince Albert died, Louise was, at the tender age of twelve, expected to help bear the weight of her mother’s grief, and did her best…but Victoria realized that this daughter would never be the close confidant she sought. Perhaps that was why, when Louise was twenty, Victoria listened to her pleas and permitted her to attend the National Art Training School at Kensington. This was an almost unprecedented step: no royal princess had ever attended a school of any sort.

Still, the chief duty of a princess was to marry—the question was, whom would Louise choose? Victoria didn’t want to lose her occasional secretarial services, so like her sister Lenchen, a foreign head-of-state was out of the question. Eventually, after much backing and forthing that lasted till Louise was twenty-two, another revolutionary decision was made, and Louise married a non-royal British subject—namely, the Marquess of Lorne, heir to the Duchy of Argyll. Lorne (as he was called) was a handsome blonde, perhaps not the cleverest man but certainly a pleasant one.

Though it seemed to start well, the marriage would not be an entirely happy one. No children were ever born to the couple, and in later years they often lived apart. Louise only spent a few of the years Lorne was Viceroy of Canada at his side; a bad sleighing accident sent her abroad to recuperate (though the province of Alberta and Lake Louise were named in her honor). But in their last years Louise and Lorne seemed to rediscover their earlier fondness and became devoted to each other, with Louise nursing her husband through some years of senility and illness.

She continued her art throughout her life, producing several public monuments, including a statue of the Queen at Kensington, and became a firm supporter of women’s suffrage and right to work. A bit of a fitness nut, she would tell scoffers “I’ll outlive you yet!”…and did. She survived to the advanced age of 91, dying in December 1939. Unlike the circumscribed existence most royalty was forced to live, this rebel princess’s life was a remarkably varied one.

Summer Sights: The British Museum

2011-06-03T13:30:00.007-04:00

Summer’s almost here, though the weather does not seem to agree. Time for school to let out, people to go on vacation, nineteenth century young ladies to be in London for the Season. So, in between all those balls and parties, what did a well educated young lady do during her time in London? One favorite with tourists then and now is the British Museum.

In 1753, the physician and collector Sir Hans Sloane had bequeathed his collection of 71,000 books, antiquities, and natural artifacts to England, provided the country could offer suitable housing and pay his heirs 20,000 pounds. Parliament held a public lottery in 1755 to raise 21,000 pounds to purchase and repair Montagu House in Bloomsbury to hold the collection. Four years later, on January 15, the British Museum was opened to the public.

Originally the museum held printed books and prints, manuscripts and medals, and a hodgepodge of other items, but slowly, through purchase and donation, the museum acquired a number of unique pieces such as an Egyptian mummy, drawings from Captain Cook’s three Pacific voyages, and a collection of ancient Greek vases. In fact, the wealthy delighted in donating interesting things to the museum, including the trunk of a tree gnawed by a beaver, a rock that looked like a petrified loaf of bread, and a live tortoise.

By the early 1800s, the museum was becoming more selective. It acquire the Rosetta Stone, various collections of classical sculpture, and portions of classical buildings like the Parthenon (the Elgin Marbles) and the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos. The collections also expanded to include artifacts from the Middle East and, under protests from national scholars, England. As the collections grew, so did the museum, expanding far beyond the original walls to the classical front visible today.

With the museum free to visit, the trustees were concerned that the building would be overrun. So, to protect the collections, the museum issued a few tickets a day, for a set time of the day to visit. If you wished a ticket, you went to the museum and applied to the Porter at the front gate. The Porter set you down for a certain day and time, but you had to return to the museum another day to get the ticket and then again at your visiting day and time, somewhere between 9am and 4pm, Monday through Friday.

No more than five people were assigned each time slot. On the appointed hour, you met with one of the Under-Librarians, who gave you a guided tour. You started up the Great Staircase to tour the upper rooms, then descended to the ground floor for a tour of those rooms. You were not encouraged to linger over the marvelous sights. Each tour was quick and sharp, to make sure to leave room for the next group.

Hm, think that might be the origin of “And we’re walking”?

Is it Okay? No, but it's OK

2011-05-31T18:45:00.007-04:00

Over the course of doing research for our vocabulary posts, I ran across a fascinating fact about one of the most common casual expressions in use in modern times—“okay”. Or should I say “OK”?

If I want to be 19th century, it has to be OK. “Okay” is a later form of the word, not recorded till 1919...but OK dates back to—are you ready?—1839. (Note the 1839 fashions at right):

There are dozens of explanations of the origin of OK, some more far-fetched than others (no, it didn’t come from Aux Cayes, a port in Haiti known for its rum!) The generally accepted view is that it originated in the United States in the 1830s.

It seems that in the late 1830s and ‘40s, there was a bit of a fad for creating comical abbreviations, which began in Boston in 1838 and spread across the young country. Newspapers in Boston used expressions like “OFM” (Our Finest Men) for local bigwigs and abbreviations like “NG” and “SP” (that’s “no go” and “small potatoes”, respectively.)

And then there was OK, which first appeared in print in March 1839. It was the result of the abbreviation fad combined with a concurrent fad—that of comical mispellings. Abbreviated phrases like “KY” (“know yuse”—no use) and NS (“nuff said”—which still persists today) were common…as was OW “oll wright” (all right) and its cousin, OK (“oll korrect”).

Like most fads, this one slipped into oblivion…except for OK, which for some reason caught on. Its use became widespread when it was adopted by Democratic supporters of presidential candidate Martin Van Buren as a name for their club—OK gained the additional meaning “Old Kinderhook”, the town in New York where Van Buren was born. Tammany toughs used it as their battle cry in street fights in New York City.

But Van Buren’s opponents could play that game too, and soon found unflattering meanings for OK, like “Out of Kash, Out of Kredit, and Out of Klothes” and “Orfully Konfused”, among others. It became something of a game for anti-Van Buren newspapers around the country to find new versions…and thus “OK” spread across the country.

Kind of puts our "LOL" and "OMG" and other textspeak into perspective, doesn't it?

Now, to bring this back to 19th century England, I’ve got some pretty OK news: my next book has a name and release date! Look for Courtship and Curses to be hitting shelves some time in spring of 2012!

Picture Makes Perfect, Part 2

2011-05-27T10:27:00.008-04:00

Oh, those lips, those eyes, that hair! Pick a feature! In the days before photography, how did one memorialize the beauty of your one true love? If you couldn’t afford a formal portrait or you wanted something to carry next to your heart, you had a couple of options.

One was the miniature. As the name implies, this was a small picture, anywhere from the size of a paperback book to the oval that fit into a jeweled setting. Artists specialized in capturing a loved one’s likeness in tiny lines in watercolor or gouache on ivory or enamel on copper. Children, sweethearts, and even your favorite pet were painted. You might also purchase a miniature to remember visiting some far off sight: sets showing features of Greece, Italy, and Venice were popular. The miniatures might be mounted in larger frames, tucked into lockets, or set in brooches, pendants, or rings.

But sometimes, it wasn’t appropriate for you to be carrying around someone else’s likeness, or carrying that likeness was bitter sweet. Perhaps you couldn’t marry your love, or your dear husband had died young on the battlefield. You could commission a painting of just your lover’s eye. Hidden in a locket, no one would know but you. And even if they saw the picture, they would be hard pressed to prove who it portrayed.

Legend has it when the Prince of Wales was in love with Maria Fitzherbert and forbidden from legally marrying her without forfeiting the crown, he commissioned a painting of his eye for her and her eye for him. This he could wear against his heart without anyone being the wiser. He must have shown it about sufficiently, however, for “lover’s eyes” as they are now called, became quite the rage. Later people chose them to remember someone who had died.

So, here are a couple of eye miniatures of two writers you happen to know. See if you can tell which is which.

Trooping the Colour, or Happy Birthday, Your Majesty!

2011-05-24T18:59:00.008-04:00

Today is Queen Victoria’s birthday! One hundred and ninety-two candles would make for a very bright cake, don’t you think?

We last celebrated Victoria’s birthday here, but did you know that for centuries, the Queen’s (or King’s) Birthday has been marked by a ceremonial parade known as Trooping the Colour? It was first celebrated in 1748 and periodically after that, and in 1820 became an annual event, cancelled only by bad weather or other extraordinary events (such as World Wars I and II)—leave it to Prinny to formalize the celebration of his birthday with an enormous parade!

Infantry regiments had “colours”—usually a standard or flag—which served as a rallying point for the members of regiments in battle. As such, they were of great symbolic importance; to lose one in battle was unthinkable, while to capture an enemy’s colours was the ultimate glory. When Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, three of his standards, or eagles, were sent post-haste to England, where they were presented to the Prince Regent at a dinner party to notify him of the Emperor’s final defeat.

So on the sovereign’s birthday, the Household infantry regiments who were permanently stationed in London to guard the royal family and perform other ceremonial functions, as well as any other regiments that happened to be in the vicinity, got gussied up and marched in procession on Horse Guards Parade near, flags waving, to be inspected by the King or Queen. As they still do--here's a clip from last year's Trooping:

If you'd like to know more, here's the official Trooping the Color website. This year's parade will take place on June 11, with the 1st Battalion Scots Guards. In the meanwhile, though, I'll be here celebrating another great Queen's birthday. Happy Birthday, Your Majesty!

Picture Makes Perfect, Part 1

2011-05-20T12:22:00.004-04:00

I admit it: I am not a very good photographer. I never want to interrupt things to take a picture, and when I do, someone’s head, arm, foot, or other body part gets cut off or everything turns out entirely too fuzzy. I understand the value of documenting memories, of chronicling changes in height and weight and hair style and maturity (or lack thereof). I just can’t seem to use a camera for that purpose. But nineteenth century families had another way of capturing memories: portraits.

Let’s say that you had just married, and your husband was determined to memorialize the beauty of his young bride. You might hire a painter to come to your estate and create your likeness on canvas. Families would also have children painted at various ages, much as we take pictures today. And if a gentleman or lady had accomplished something of particular note, well that was cause for a celebratory painting as well.

More-famous artists had people come sit in their studios to be painted. You might sit for four hours or more, at different times, for the artist to capture you to his or her satisfaction. One of the more popular painters at the time was said to require 100 hours of your time! And forget about 1-hour photo: portraits could easily take up to a year to complete.

Most portrait painters in the nineteenth century were men for two main reasons. First, the more celebrated painters had been trained at the Royal Academy, which only admitted men because women were deemed too delicate to withstand the nude anatomy sessions where they learned to sketch and paint the human body. Supposedly when the Royal College of Art admitted women in 1837, the male models in the women’s anatomy sessions wore full suits of armor! Then too, a lady’s reputation was strained if she had to be alone with gentleman for hours at a time, studying them in the depth required for a good portrait.

The art of portraiture perhaps reached its zenith in the nineteenth century in England. Painters like Sir Thomas Lawrence and Sir Joshua Reynolds excelled at capturing not only likenesses reliably, but the person’s favorite pastimes. It was said a true artist captured the essence of the person, giving a view into the soul. I’m not sure what that says for this fellow.

But what if you couldn’t afford a portrait or you wanted something a little more portable than a wall-size masterpiece? I’ll explain about that next Friday.

Such Language! Part 7

2011-05-17T17:05:00.004-04:00

Time for a fresh batch of old slang, from that wonderful compendium, The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue.

Quidnunc: An inquisitive gossip or newsmonger. (“Miss Wheedell is such a dreadful quidnunc, but I do enjoy it when she comes to tea!”)

Crack a whid: Tell a tale. (“My brother Harry cracked such a whid about giving all his pocket money to poor orphans that Grandmother gave him £5 when he went back to school…but who knows? Maybe all those poor racehorses lost their parents at an early age.”)

Ear-wigging: Pestering with private confidences, pleas, or admonitions. (“I simply will not go driving with Euphemia, no matter how handsome her phaeton, for she will only ear-wig me constantly about introducing her to Harry’s friend Lord Narcissumthorpe.”)

Grumbletonian: A discontented person; one who is always complaining at one thing or another. (“Uncle Homer was a dreadful grumbletonian until Aunt Lucy hired a new cook, and now he’s gentle as a lamb now that he’s no longer constantly bilious.”)

Jerrycummumble: To shake, towzle, or tumble about. (“Jane drove us so quickly down the Lady’s Mile that my new bonnet was completely jerrycummumbled.”)

Circumbendibus: To move in a roundabout way, or tell a meandering story. (“But even though Uncle Homer is in a better frame of mind, he still tells dreadfully circumbendibus anecdotes at dinner.”)

To milk the pigeon: To endeavor at impossibilities. (“George is attempting to grow two inches before the Duchess of Snobbish’s ball next month by hanging from his knees from an apple tree for five hours every day, even though Papa told him not to trying milking the pigeon.”)

How to Become a Peer

2011-05-13T13:17:00.004-04:00

We focus a great deal on the peerage: lords and ladies among the aristocracy of nineteenth century England. They had the power, they (generally) had the wealth, they were considered the Beau Monde, the good people. Title holders were considered peers (nobles); their wives (unless she had a title in her own right) and their children were considered commoners. So how exactly did one go about joining the peerage in the nineteenth century?

Some, of course, were born into it. The Baron le Despencer’s title, for example, dates back to 1264. The title Viscount Hereford goes back to 1550. The older your title, the more impressive your lineage. So, if you were the oldest son (or rarely, a daughter) of a title holder, you could virtually guarantee yourself a title when dear Papa passed to his just reward. If you were the oldest son of a duke, marquess, or earl, and dear Papa had a slew of titles, you were given one as a courtesy until you inherited them all. So you might be Viscount Victorious or Baron Beefcake (although they generally didn’t call anyone “baron”).

But let’s say you can’t inherit a title. You might instead do something sufficiently impressive that the ruler would grant you a title in gratitude. Earlier peers won mighty battles against foreign enemies, championed the poor and oppressed, and provided care and comfort to fleeing kings and queens. By the nineteenth century, sadly, many were created peers for far less glorious pursuits, such as the ability to steer politics in a certain direction. One exception was Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, who finally brought Napoleon to his knees. At various times in his illustrious career, he was made a baron, a viscount, an earl, a marquess (twice), and finally a duke.

But perhaps you aren’t in a position to save the nation from utter ruin. I was surprised to learn this week that you might buy yourself a peerage. Yes, I’ve heard of people who do so today. Certainly I can imagine wealthy families lobbying for peerages for their second sons and third sons. What I can across this week was something different: a doting father who bought a peerage for his daughter.

Henrietta Laura Pulteney was the only daughter of wealthy barrister and later Parliamentarian William Johnstone, who later changed the family name to Pulteney when his wife inherited the vast Pulteney fortune. You can see she was a happy child. Laura was only 16 when her mother died, and she in turn inherited the fortune. She led a sheltered life, attending a convent school in France and coming out in French society. Her father, however, was busy in the House of Commons. Several times he was approached about a peerage, but he decided instead to buy one for Laura. She was created Baroness Bath when she was 26 and elevated to Countess of Bath when she was 39. Sadly, she passed away three years later, very likely from consumption. As she had no children, her titles died with her. Her fortune at her death was valued at nearly 600,000 pounds (over $50 million in today’s dollars).

No ever said it was cheap to be a peer.

Where the Boys Are: Watier’s Club

2011-05-10T01:51:00.000-04:00

Our century was definitely the golden age of the men’s club, a place where gentlemen and the nobility went to hang out with each other, read the papers, gamble, and conduct what we today call “networking”…and one of the more interesting of these clubs was also one of the shortest-lived, being on operation for only twelve years. But for those twelve years, Watier’s was one of the most fashionable of masculine London hangouts, and one of the few clubs to lack a political slant. The nickname Watier’s was most known by was “the Dandy Club”, which should tell you everything about the interests of its members.

Its origins are lofty ones. According to Captain Rees Gronow, a fashionable man-about-town of the time whose diary makes fascinating reading, Watier’s was the brain-child of the Prince Regent himself. At a dinner one evening in 1807, Prinny asked his friends (members of White’s and Brooks’s, two of the premier clubs of London) about the dining at their clubs, and was told that the food was universally awful: "the eternal joints, or beef-steaks, the boiled fowl with oyster sauce, and an apple tart--this is what we have, sir, at our clubs, and very monotonous far it is". Then and there, Prinny (who as you might recall, was quite the gourmet) proposed that they start their own club, dedicated to the French art of “gastronomy.” His best friend, Beau Brummell, was appointed President in perpetuity, and Prinny’s own personal chef, Jean Baptiste Watier, was summoned from the kitchen to weigh in on the matter. Though he declined to be the new club’s cook (or Prinny didn’t want to lose his chef!), the club was named in his honor and another royal chef, Monsieur Labourie, became chef; one of Prinny’s pages, Madison, was named manager.

And the result? Though Watier’s was initially billed as a musical society and singing club, it soon became known as the finest dining establishment in London, with food unmatched even by the best Parisian cooks…but it also became known as a gambling house where the stakes were incredibly high (evidently the singing wasn’t enough!) Beau Brummell’s fine athletic figure suffered as a result of his presidency, and so did his pocketbook: too much fine dining and playing at high-stakes Macao saw the beginning of his ruin, which would be complete in 1816 when he and the Prince had a falling-out. After the Beau’s flight to France to avoid his creditors, Watier’s fell apart, and in 1819 it closed.

But its legacy lived on, and ten years later Crockford’s Club was established, also dedicated to fine dining and featuring superstar chefs Louis Eustache Ude and Charles Francatelli, who went on to become Queen Victoria’s personal chef.

Hunting for Bargains

2011-05-07T12:50:00.003-04:00

I have any number of friends who live for sales. Around here, the semiannual sale at Nordstom’s Rack is big news, and there are those who rejoice at a 50% off coupon for Chico’s. Me—I eagerly await one day, the biggest shopping day of the year for me, the first Saturday in May: the Methodist Rummage Sale five dollar a bag special! You know where I’ll be this afternoon.

Ladies in nineteenth century London also looked for ways to extend their fashion budget. For a good part of the century, all clothes were handmade, specifically for you. You might go to a shop and have your measurements taken for a new gown, or a seamstress might come to your house and measure you. If the cost of a seamstress was too dear, you might purchase fabric and sew your own gown (very likely by hand, although home sewing machines became more common toward the end of the century). But if even that was beyond your budget, you had several alternatives.

You could remake an older dress, either one of yours or one belonging to a willing relative like your mother or older sister. Particularly as the fashions changed later in the century it was relatively easy to pull off bodices and reattach them to different skirts. Changing rickrack was equally easy and a quick way to change the look of an outfit. If the older dress had a lot of fabric and the newer style used less, you could pick apart the older dress and make a complexly new one.

You could also buy someone else’s gown. Wealthy mistresses often handed gowns that had fallen out of favor for one reason or another to their maids, who took them to second-hand shops in less prosperous parts of the city, such as near the docks. During the latter part of the eighteenth century, in fact, second-hand clothing was a lucrative export from England to America!

Oh, how they would have loved the Methodist Rummage Sale!

Fashion Forecast: 1821

2011-05-03T22:04:00.011-04:00

What was the well-dressed young woman wearing in 1821?

She certainly wouldn’t have been missed in this cheerful Promenade Dress, colored, according to its description in January’s Ackermann’s Repository, “between a ruby and a geranium”. On the chair behind her is a pelisse of the same poplin fabric, but showing its white sarsnet lining. And once again, there’s one of those amazing ermine muffs! Note also the quizzing glass hanging from a chain about her neck ):

This Morning Dress is of a new style we’ll be seeing a lot of this year—it’s described as “A wrapping dress composed of cachemire: the waist is the usual length; the body comes up to the throat in the back of the neck, but is a little sloped in front, and turns all over so as to form a pelerine; it wraps across before, and displays a little of the fichu worn underneath. The back has a little fulness; it is of a moderate breadth, and a good deal sloped at the sides. The sleeve is easy, but not wide; it is finished at the wrist by folds of gros de Naples, to correspond in color with the dress. The girdle is also of gros de Naples; it is rather broad, and fastens with a gold clasp at the side. The skirt is moderately wide; it wraps across to the left side, and is fastened up the front with bows to correspond. Head-dress, a cornette composed of full bands of net inserted between plain ones of letting-in lace; the crown is remarkably low; the ears are cut very narrow, and far back; and it fastens with a full bow of pale pink ribbon under the chin. Black kid shoes. (February, Ackermann’s Repository):
How’s this for a charming Fancy Ball Dress? The high bodice is a confection of lace and ribbons, but it’s the roses about the lower edge of the skirt that are especially striking (though I bet they made dancing difficult!) Notice the mask she’s holding hear her face! (May, Ackermann’s Repository):
Hats! This print, also from May’s Ackermann's, offers a view of some rather extraordinary headgear…ruffles and a lot of artificial flower trim were definitely “in”!

I love this Evening Dress from June’s Ackermann’s…notice the oak leaf trim around the lower hem, topped by more flowers. The pointed bodice is unusual, and hearkens forward to the fashions coming later in the decade:
For sheer frou-frou delight is a Court Dress from October’s Ackermann’s…note the obligatory feathers, lace lappets hanging down on either side of her face, and the court train in pale yellow with appliques… très élégant! This would have been worn at the court of the now King George IV, who had been crowned in July:

I told you we’d see this style again…in fact, I have four other Ackermann's prints from 1821 featuring a wrap-style dress with large bows up the front or side. This Promenade Dress from the December issue also features a rather overgrown bonnet —yikes! What do you think of 1821’s fashions?

Royal Weddings, The Finale: Wedding Gowns!

2011-04-29T12:14:00.004-04:00

Well, did you stay up until the wee hours to see this decade’s royal wedding? It was at 1am my time, and I’m afraid I preferred my sleep. I did hear already that the announcers struggled to use the correct titles for the various members of the royal family. And that the bride looked beautiful in her gown. Isn’t that the dream of every bride?

So to end our series of posts on nineteenth century royal weddings, Marissa and I wanted to share some pictures on royal wedding gowns over the years. You’ll remember several we’ve discussed in the last few weeks, including Princess Charlotte’s gown, Queen Victoria’s satin gown, and the gown of Princess Mary of Teck, among others. It’s hard to imagine that these have survived so long, for nearly 200 years!

This link will take you to an excellent article and video on the Telegraph’s site. Below is a more formal presentation of the history behind the dresses.

Enjoy!

Royal Weddings Part 6: George, Duke of York and Princess Mary of Teck

2011-04-26T17:34:00.010-04:00

I’m starting our final week of Royal Wedding month with the 19th century royal wedding that most resembles this current week’s event: the 1893 wedding of Prince George, Duke of York (and grandson of the reigning monarch) and his bride Princess Mary of Teck.

What’s interesting about this wedding is the fact that George was not the first person Mary was engaged to marry. In December 1891 George’s older brother Eddy, Duke of Clarence, had proposed to Mary, who’d more or less been chosen for him by the Queen. Eddy was not known to be terribly stable or intelligent, while Mary was both—it was thought that she might improve him as he was, after all, in line for the throne after his grandmother and father. But only weeks after their engagement, Eddy was dead of pneumonia following an attack of the flu.

Queen Victoria, however, had decided that her great-niece Mary (a descendent of her father's younger brother, the Duke of Cambridge) was too good to be allowed to slip away, and encouraged a match between her and Eddy’s younger brother George, now second heir to the throne. Her wish was eventually granted, and a little more than a year after Eddy’s death (and after a lot of public speculation as to whether they would or not and doubts on both their part), George and Mary were engaged. Happily, their doubts proved groundless, and they became a devoted if not very demonstrative couple, Mary indeed proving to be a source of strength for her husband, just as the Queen had foreseen.

Their wedding, in the Chapel Royal at St. James's Palace, was attended by a large crowd of royalty, among them the recently engaged Alix of Hesse and her fiancé, Tsarevitch Nicholas of Russia. The weather was perfect, hot and sunny but with a breeze, and Londoners turned out in droves to watch the spectacle. Mary's ten bridesmaids (including two of George's sisters and several cousins) rode to St. James's in open carriages to the delight of spectators. The Queen was a spectator, and wrote in her journal about the wedding "Dear May looked so pretty & quiet and dignified. She was vy. simply and prettily dressed--& wore her mother's lace veil. The bridesmaids looked vy. sweet in white satin, with a little pink & red rose on the shoulder & some small bows of the same on the shoes.... Georgie gave his answers distinctly...while May, though quite self-possessed, spoke vy. low."

After the service, which was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and a handful of other bishops, a luncheon was served back at Buckingham Palace, and at 5 pm the couple left Buckingham Palace for Sandringham, the country estate of the Prince of Wales, for their honeymoon--an odd choice, as it had been the place of Prince Eddy's death just the previous year. They would eventually settle in York Cottage on the grounds of Sandringham, and not quite a year later, the couple's first child would be born--a son who would grow up to be King Edward VIII and give up his throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson.