Public Spectacles, Amusements, and Objects Deserving Notice, April

April, spring, and Easter all combined to make this month particularly enjoyable for young lads and lasses in nineteenth century London. After all, Easter marked the traditional start of the Season, when anyone who was anyone came to London to take part in Society and its rituals. But it wasn’t just the wealthy that celebrated this time of year. If you were one of the poorer people, for example, you might find it necessary to hang out at Whitehall Chapel on Maunday Thursday, the day before Good Friday. That’s the day His Majesty’s almoner distributes gifts to the poor.

(Now there’s an interesting profession: the Royal Almoner. Appointed by the monarch, the position comes with the title of Lord High Almoner, letters patent, a tidy salary, and the ability to appoint a sub-almoner to help out. He conducted one lecture a year on Maunday Thursday when he made the major distribution of gifts to the poor. But he also distributed gifts to pay for funerals, to compensate for crimes, and to simply hand out kindness from His or Her Majesty.)



The days after Easter are similarly festive. Easter Monday, Sadler’s Wells, Astley’s Ampitheatre, and the Royal Circus open. That same day, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen go in state to Christ-Church, attend service, and then go to feast at the Mansion House. Be sure to attend the ball that evening; tickets are to be had from the Lord Mayor or the sheriffs.

Ah, but if you really wanted a spectacle, Easter Monday and Tuesday you would head out to Greenwich for the Fair. Charles Dickens commented fondly on the practice in his Sketches by Boz, calling Greenwich Easter Fair a "spring rash" and a "three days’ fever." Carriages, wagons, and omnibuses carried merry Londoners out to the event. Stalls of vendors selling things like sweet meats, gingerbread, and toys filled the streets, and there were wild animal shows and theatricals.



Even more boisterous events brought throngs to the park. There were games for the children and young at heart. Retired Naval men set up telescopes and charged a penny for the privilege of explaining what you saw through them. Gypsy fortune tellers worked the crowds. Some adults were content to stroll about and watch the revelry. Others danced and drank and flirted. And some tumbled.

Tumbling seems to have been both a shocking and much beloved event. The idea was to take your sweetie by the hand and climb to the top of Observatory Hill. There you’d link arms with a dozen or more men and women and dash down the slope together. Only some kept their footing. Others fell or rolled to the bottom. Bonnets were squashed; curls were disarrayed; and I imagine more than one gentleman caught a glimpse of shapely ankles and other portions of a lady’s anatomy.

The public frolic and revelry was so great that in 1857 the fair was outlawed as dangerous to order and public morals. And here I thought all those chocolate bunnies were the most dangerous thing about the Easter season!

(Greenwich Fair image from the Bolles Collection at the Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University)

Guest Blogger Jackie Horne on Teen Reads in the 19th Century

Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games — many of the most popular books for young adults today are works of fantasy. If you were a teenager in the 19th century, though, the books you’d be reading would be far different.

In 1884, Charles Welsh sent out a circular to schools for boys and girls in England, asking students to answer questions about their reading preferences. What is your favourite book, and why do you like it best? Who is your favorite author? Which of his books do you like best? What other writers of fiction do you like? are among some of the questions he asked. Welsh received responses from 790 boys and more than a thousand girls aged eleven to nineteen. His colleague, Edward Salmon, undertook the work of tabulating the results of what may be the first poll of child readers’ tastes and interests, issuing his findings in the introduction to his book, Juvenile Literature As It Is, published in London in 1888.

Salmon’s list of the most popular authors and books tell us two surprising things about teen readers in the late Victorian period. First, although a vibrant market for books written specifically for children existed at the time, teen readers polled by Welsh preferred authors who wrote for a broader audience, not only for children. The top vote-getting among both boys and girls asked about their favorite author is a novelist whom today we categorize as an “adult” writer: Charles Dickens, whose novels were appreciated by family members young and old in the 19th century. Only two authors who wrote primarily for children appeared on the list of girls’ favorite writers (Charlotte Mary Younge and Hans Christian Andersen), and none on the boys’ (Captain Marryat wrote for both children and adults, but his adult seafaring adventure novels were far more popular than his moralistic children’s books).

The second interesting observation has to do with gender. The children’s book market was clearly split into books intended for boys (primarily adventure novels) and books intended for girls (primarily domestic stories), and in the case of male teen readers, this split continues into the teen years. With the exception of Dickens and Shakespeare, the remainder of boys’ top ten authors are all wrote in the genres of adventure or historical romance. Girls tastes, in contrast, were far more wide-ranging: favorite books included historical romances (The Days of Bruce, Westward Ho!), domestic novels (Little Women, The Daisy Chain), social realism (John Halifax, Gentleman, David Copperfield), sentimental fiction (The Wide, Wide World), and, of course, The Bible.

The mid-19th century is often referred to as the “Golden Age” of children’s literature, for this is when works of fantasy for children first began to flourish (Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies, and Mrs. Molesworth’s The Cuckoo Clock, to name just a few). Ironically, though, the only fantasy novel mentioned on either list is F. Anstey’s Vice Versa (which readers and filmgoers today might recognize as the precursor for the Disney film Freaky Friday). Would 19th century teens find Harry Potter as appealing as young readers do today?

Boys’ top ten authors:
C. Dickens (223 votes) W. H. Kingston (179) Sir W. Scott (128) Jules Verne (114) Captain Marryat (102) R. M. Ballantyne (67) H. Ainsworth (61) Shakespeare (44) Mayne Reid (33) Lord Lytton (32)

Boys’ top ten books:
Robinson Crusoe (43) Swiss Family Robinson (24) Pickwick Papers (22) Ivanhoe (20) Boy’s Own Annual (17) The Bible (15) Tom Brown’s Schooldays (15) Valentine Vox (13) Vice Versa (12) St. Winifred’s, or The World of School (11)

Girls’ top ten authors:
Charles Dickens (355) Sir Walter Scott (248) C. Kingsley (103) C. M. Yonge (100) Shakespeare (75) Mrs. Henry Wood (58) E. Wetherell (Susan Warner)(56) George Eliot (50) Lord Lytton (46) Andersen (33)

Girls’ top ten books:
Westward Ho! (34) The Wide, Wide World (29) The Bible (27) A Peep Behind the Scenes (27)John Halifax, Gentleman (25) David Copperfield (22) Little Women (21) Ivanhoe (18) The Days of Bruce (16) The Daisy Chain (13)

About Jackie: A former children's book editor, Jackie Horne is the author of History and the Construction of the Child in Early British Children's Literature (Ashgate 2011) and coeditor of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows and Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, volumes in the Children's Literature Association's Centennial series. She has taught courses in Victorian Children's Literature and Fantasy and Science Fiction for Children at the Center for the Study of Children's Literature at Simmons College. She's also currently at work writing a Regency-set historical romance for adult readers.

Happy Birthday, Charles and Laura!

February 7 just happens to be the birthday of two extraordinary figures in English language literature: Charles Dickens, who is celebrating his 200th this year, and Laura Ingalls Wilder, celebrating her 145th. Happy birthday to you both!

I’m not going to write a conventional biographical post on these two—you can find that easily enough on your own. Nor do I think it necessary to post a list of their works—also easily obtainable elsewhere. What I’m offering today are a few words on part of why I think they are important figures now in 2012. I hope that you’ll post your thoughts as well—your thoughts on their place in your lives as a reader, your favorite book by them—whatever you like.

First, Mr. Dickens. My husband just finished reading Stephen Pinker’s new book The Better Angels of Our Nature (yes, a Christmas gift from me), which discusses why he thinks that on the whole, civilization has progressed and violence in society has declined over the last couple of thousand years. You may or may not agree with him (I haven’t read the book yet, but it sounds fascinating) but he made one point that struck my DH strongly, and that he passed on to me: that one of the reasons western society as a whole has become a gentler place over the last two hundred years is the rise of novel reading since the 18th century—that reading novels (which became more affordable and obtainable via libraries in the 19th century) forced people to temporarily inhabit the skins of other people and live through their joys and sorrows, and thus develop empathy. Poor people weren’t just lazy or somehow inherently bad—they were human beings too, with aspirations and dreams, and deserved respect and help rather than scorn. If there was ever a champion of the poor in literature, that person has to be Charles Dickens. Thank you, sir, for helping to civilize the world. Who said that books don’t possess power?

And now, Mrs. Ingalls. Okay, so I’m an unashamed LIW fan and have been since fourth grade—let’s just get that said up front. I still re-read her Little House books every few years; interestingly, the book I had the hardest time with and liked the least back then (The Long Winter) is now my favorite. I have read biographies of her and of Rose Wilder Lane and understand that her books are indeed, as she said, the truth, but not all of it. But I think she’s part of the origin of my history geekishness and my fascination with the details of how people once lived; she’s also a symbol, to me, of the sweep of history. Think about this: she was born two years after the end of the Civil War, and died just months before the first satellite went into earth orbit. In between that she saw the fall of horse power and sail and the preeminence of the engine on sea and land; she saw the telephone, the motorcar, radio, and television, the birth of medicine as a science, and the emancipation for women. What a life to have lived! Thank you, Mrs. Ingalls, for bringing part of that history to life for me.

P.S. In a few weeks we'll learn more about what teens read in the 19th century. Stay tuned!

Christmas in a Nutshell

Before we get started... Remember that invitation to the Regency Tea and Dance party I posted about a few weeks ago? Well, you must check out QNPoohBear's blog--she went, and took lots of pictures! It sounds wonderful...and there are rumors of a spring dance floating about as well. Thanks for the link, QNPoohBear!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Regina and I have been teaching a course on Regency and Early Victorian Christmas customs for the Beau Monde Chapter of the Romance Writers of America, and turning up all sorts of interesting information in the process. Did you know that Christmas as we know it is very much a 19th century invention, courtesy of Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens?

I've mentioned several times how very popular the Queen was when she came to the throne, in a media personality way that really had never happened before. Everyone wanted to know what the queen did, what her favorite perfume was, what kind of biscuits she liked with tea, and so on ad infinitum. When Victoria married her beloved Albert, that attention didn't go away...and when the public learned that Victoria and Albert enjoyed celebrating Christmas in the German way, with things like trees decorated with candles and sweets and lovely ornaments and music and lots of gifts for their children, they thought, "Hmmm...."

At about the same time, Charles Dickens published a short novella he hoped would revive his career which had blossomed with Sketches by Boz and The Pickwick Papers, then tanked with Martin Chuzzlewit. The novella was called "A Christmas Carol", and the first edition of 6000 copies sold out within days. Readers were touched by poverty-stricken Cratchit family and moved by Ebenezer Scrooge's holiday change-of-heart...and the combination of Victoria and Albert and Tiny Tim were enough to send the country Christmas-mad, aided and abetted by such things as increased access to inexpensive manufactured good courtesy of the Industrial Revolution (think TOYS) and improved transportation so that far-flung family members could reunite for the holiday. The Christmas card and Christmas crackers date from this period, and the next twenty years saw the renaissance of the Christmas carol, with most on the ones we sing today dating from the 1850s through 1870s.

Speaking of nutshells...here's a late 19th century Christmas game that I thought was charming...enjoy!

Surprise Nuts Centerpiece
Split some large, well-shaped English walnuts. Remove the meats and in their place put some small toys or trinkets. Glue them back together and then glue an 18” length of colored ribbon to one end of each walnut. Heap them in a bowl with other nuts, ribbons hanging over the side of the bowl; each of your guests can choose one ribbon to pull and claim their prize. Don’t forget to have nutcrackers on hand!

Have fun!