Not a Slippery Slope

 

Here’s a bit of a riddle to introduce today’s topic: can you guess what it is?

• Jane Austen wrote her books on one.
• The daughters of George III had them for their voluminous correspondence and artwork.
• You can order one on-line right this minute, from a multitude of places.

What is it?

It is one of these: writing slopes!

Writing slopes are elegant little boxes (generally twelve to fourteen inches wide and ten to twelve inches deep.) They’re called slopes because they open like so, providing an angled surface (generally around twenty-five or thirty degrees), usually covered with fabric (blue velvet is a favorite) that provides an absorbent surface on which to write—in short, a portable desk.

The interiors are divided into small compart- ments in which one could keep writing paper, pens, ink, penknives, sealing wax, and all the other appurtenances of writing. The tiny ink bottles just slay me!

 

They could be relatively plain, like this one:

 

 

Or elaborately inlaid with decorative woods, bone, mother of pearl, and metal. They often had locks, so that one could store private correspondence in them; some even had secret compartments.

The world is fortunate that Jane Austen's writing slope, a gift from her father in the 1790s, has been preserved—along with are purported to be some of her spectacles! It is in the collections of the British Library; go here to see a couple of really cool 3-D manipulative images of it.

And as for writing slopes today, physical therapists, teachers, and orthopedists have found that using a slanted surface to write, read, or draw at, which is why slanted surfaces are readily available today. However, I’ve yet to see one as pretty as those from the 19th century!

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Speaking of slopes…slide your mind back to March 2022, when NineteenTeen welcomed guest blogger Katie Kennedy to talk about which president she would most prefer to go bathing suit shopping with (among other things!) I’m happy to report that Katie’s The Presidents Decoded: A Guide to the Leaders Who Shaped Our Nation is out today!  You can find it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your favorite independent bookstore.

It’s Jane Austen’s Birthday, But You Get the Presents

Authors of past centuries may continue to be read, revered, studied and debated long after their deaths, but I don’t think there’s one who has such a passionate popular following as a genteel but wickedly humorous spinster from a quiet corner of Great Britain who wrote only six completed novels and a handful of lesser and unfinished works.

Yes, you all know who I’m talking about. ☺

Can't you just picture them all huddled over their phones?

This coming Saturday (that's December 16) will be the inimitable Jane Austen’s 242^nd birthday. Well into her third century, she continues to delight readers with her characters’ matrimonial adventures and misadventures...and inspires the question, “How would things have been different for the Bennett sisters if they’d had a good dating app?" The BBC thinks they might have an answer...

   

On a slightly more serious note, research into The Divine Jane’s work and life continue—not only on the content of her work, but how she put it together. There’s a saying among writers that writing is revising, and it’s very true: the books you see on bookstore shelves have been written, re-written, revised, polished, edited, and possibly re-written and revised and polished again. For us spoiled writers of the 21^st century, our trusty computers make it a relatively easy process (well, except for getting the actual words right!) But for authors in the benighted pre-computer era, revising their work was a chore: what did you do when, say, you decided that a paragraph had to be inserted into an existing manuscript page?  Well, if you were Jane (and others on her era, I presume), you wrote it down on a separate piece of paper and pinned it to the original manuscript in the spot where it was to be inserted. Between crossing out words and sentences and writing in new ones and pinning in longer additions, it’s easy to understand why an important part of preparing a manuscript was sitting down with a large stack of paper and copying the whole thing—making a “fair copy”—before sending it off to the publisher.

I’ll bet Jane would have loved Post-it notes...

So That’s What One Looks Like

I’m going to post a word, and I want you to tell me what mental image you get when you read it. Ready?

Penknife.

So what picture did you get in your mind? Maybe an object with short blades that fold up out of a protective cover? Or a Swiss Army knife with seventeen other bits and bobs on it beside a blade or two?

Well, had you been a nineteenth century miss, this is what you would have thought of:

Not much like today’s penknives, is it?  That’s because it wasn’t. In the 19^th century, a penknife was exactly that—a knife used to make or trim pens.

Up until the mass production of the steel-nib dip pen in the early 1820s (though metal pens had been around since the early 18th century), the chief type of pens in use were made from quills, usually the primary flight feathers of large birds like geese, hawks, eagles, or turkeys. They actually make good pens; the hollow shaft of a quill serves as an ink reservoir, and a properly prepared quill can last a long time (though not as long on today's wood-pulp based paper which can quickly wear down tips; they do best with parchment and vellum.)

Unlike what you might see in movies, a quill prepared for writing usually has most of the fluffy bits—the barbs—removed, so that they don’t chafe the writer’s hand. The shafts are heat-treated, which makes them stiffer (different methods can be used, from placing the quills in hot water or heated sand or ashes from the fire.) Then, one gets out one’s penknife and prepare the tip. There’s a great explanation of how to trim a quill here, for the truly curious...and it explains the fine, thin shape of a penknife’s blade since the blade was inserted into the quill at one point. Note on the photo of my penknife the shape of the handle—curved to fit comfortably against the fingers when shaving off bits of quill.

So that’s what a penknife is. And though I’m very happy with my laptop for writing, I can’t help sighing a little for the pretty desk accoutrements of the nineteenth century.  Maybe I could find someone to make me a pretty mother-of-pearl cover for my mouse?

 

In Which I Natter on for a Bit about Writing

This past Sunday I was happy to attend the annual performance of Handel’s Messiah by the Handel & Haydn Society of Boston. My DH and I been doing this long enough to get to know some of the returning soloists, and I was pleased that this year’s tenor soloist was James Gilchrist, whom we first heard in the Messiah a few years back. I love his voice; it has a mobile, conversational tone of great sweetness—and I don’t mean icky saccharine sweetness, but a gentle strength that conveys emotion beautifully. And his phrasing and enunciation are perfect—his every word is audible, and never gets lost. That’s a hallmark of the H&H Society’s choir as well—their diction is never, ever muddy, but always crystal clear. That clarity—that precision—makes for an amazing listening experience.

So I spent a very happy two-and-a-half hours on Sunday afternoon, listening to an exquisitely sung performance...and it got me thinking about writing (because hey, in my world, everything leads back to that.) Earlier this fall I had the privilege of getting a critique from a brilliant editor of the first twenty pages of a work in progress, and it made an enormous impression on me—enough that I’m re-editing the rest of the book based on her feedback. Her suggestion? Stripping away anything—unnecessary narrative or dialogue, too much explanation, down to one too many words in a sentence—that might get in the way of each moment when telling a story. In other words, precision and clarity.

And sitting there listening to the crystalline singing in that darkened hall, I itched for my computer so I could chip away at the extraneous matter in my stories, and achieve that same crystalline quality. And was delighted that listening to music in a dim concert hall could inform putting words on a page. Clarity. Precision. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my edits. ☺

Tagged! What, How, and Why I Write

It was my turn to get tagged for the Writing Process Blog Tour, making the rounds in the writing world (and which Regina participated in a few weeks ago.) Thank you to Tracy Bilen, author of the upcoming YA thriller Watch Your Back coming soon from Spencer Hill Press, for tagging me! You can read about Tracy's stop on the Writing Process blog here (and in general check out her really cute website!) Thank you, Tracy!

What am I working on?

It’s been a little hard to squeeze writing time into my schedule these last couple of weeks as I’ve been busy with pre-release promotion and nail-biting (very time consuming, nail-biting) for my first adult book (and first contemporary, too), By Jove, which releases from Entangled Publishing in one week! I’m pretty darned excited...but you’ll be hearing lots more about it next week. Just saying. ☺

In terms of works-in-progress, right now I’m working on a YA set on Cape Cod in the summer of 1917, just after the US has entered World War I. It has beaches, dances, secrets, lies, a handsome young man, seals (or are they just seals?), a Scottish seamstress, u-boats, German spies, and a lively young heroine who saves the day. And I’m writing it in first person, which is a bit of a change for me but this story just demanded it.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Um...because it’s mine? No, seriously: every book is different because every author is different. Every author has her own voice, her own way of telling a story. If you give five authors the same outline from which to write a story, you’ll end up with five very, very different tales. It’s why so many readers will have “auto-buy” authors: because they just love how that Regina Scott writes. ☺

Why do I write what I do?

Mostly because I have to. Because if I didn’t the stories would gang up together in my head and beat at me with their fists and shout in my ear (or whisper seductively, as the case may be) and not let me sleep at night. Writers can be funny that way; our stories often take on personalities and identities in some strange way, and do that sort of thing.

How does my writing process work?

I generally know, as I’m wrapping up work on one novel, which will be next (see above about the shouting and whispering.) But before I reach that point, an idea will have been sparked somewhere, somehow (on more than one occasion, as the result of a dream) and I will spend quiet moments noodling over it, asking myself “what if” questions about it and seeing if there’s “enough there” for the idea to be made into a book-length story. I’ll often write out a synopsis of the story at this point as a way to help make that decision, and if there really is a spark of life in it, fragments of scenes and speech and character development will also pop into my head, so I’ll scribble those down as well.

Once I’ve mentally (if unconsciously) chosen to write a book, I’ll work more on that rough synopsis and try to flesh it out further, concentrating on the beginning of the story (the characters, their wants and aims, the plot conflicts), and then...I’ll start writing. I keep refining my synopsis as I go on, adding and changing and sometimes going back and removing or altering things. It’s like a lantern I hold up as I walk down a dark corridor: it illuminates best in a close circle around me (which means the current and next couple of chapters). Beyond that, things remain shadowy until I move a few feet forward.

As for the actual process of writing...I write best in the mornings, so I try to get busy pretty promptly after rising or getting back from the gym. I reread what I’ve written over the last day or two and edit it, adding in details or whatever else is needed (it’s often more bare-bones than it should be), which sets me up beautifully to pick up the thread and move on.

And now it’s my turn to tag two authors, both of whom are my fellow RWA chapter-mates. Be sure to check out their stops on the Writing Process Blog Tour next Monday!

Always the hopeless romantic, Rebecca Paula writes gritty historical and NA romances full of social misfits, swoony heroes, and angst. She’s a graduate of Emerson College and a former journalist. When not writing, she is most likely reading or daydreaming about her next travel adventure. Rebecca lives in New Hampshire with her husband and their cat, Bella. You can find her online at her website, on twitter, or the Modern Belles of History blog.

Christine Tetreault fell in love with romance fiction in college and hasn't looked back. She writes contemporary romance set in her native New England and beyond. Learn more about Christine and her books at her website and at her blog, Happily Ever After.  

What, Why, and How I Write

Surprise!  Regina here, and not even on a Tuesday!  Marissa and I swapped days this week, because awesome YA author Marilee Brothers invited me to be part of the Big Easy Writing Process Blog Tour.  Marilee writes fun fiction with a touch of magic. Her writing has been called “an amazing combination of intelligent and goofy.”  My kind of gal!

She tagged me, and I get to tag three other fabulous authors after answering four questions.

1.  What am I working on?

I am working on the second book in my upcoming Frontier Bachelors series about the East coast ladies who journeyed to Seattle after the Civil War to help civilize the area.  In A Bride for Their Brother, prim and proper nurse Catherine Stanway is kidnapped by the youngest male member of a family of brothers desperate for help to cure their ailing mother.  Catherine agrees to stay and help, and the brothers decide she’d be the perfect match for their leader, Drew Wallin.  Drew feels like he has enough on his hands with raising four brothers and a sister after his father’s death 10 years ago.  He has no interest in taking on a wife, particularly one raised in the city who has no idea how to get on in the wilderness.  But Catherine just might teach him a thing or two about life, and love.

2.  How does my work differ from others of its genre?

That’s like asking a mother why her children are better than anyone else’s!  In my mind, my stories are different because I tend to blend humor, history, romance, mystery, and adventure into one story.  Those are the stories I like read. Those are the stories I like to write.

3.  Why do I write what I do?

Because those stories call to me.  They wake me up in the middle of the night with scenes and characters begging for a full plot.  They pop into my head when I’m at museums or walking past historical houses.  They even introduce themselves at highly inappropriate times, like when I’m being paid to take notes at technical meetings on nuclear waste (that’s where the premise for Perfection arrived).  And they don’t let go until they are written, or rewritten in the case of La Petite Four, now Art and Artifice.

4.  How does my writing process work?

I start with an idea, spend a day or two asking “what if” to see how far I can take it.  I do enough research to make sure the basic idea is historically feasible.  Then I brainstorm the plot and lay out a very rough, high-level outline that ends in “crisis, resolution, denouement” (I kid you not).  Next I write the first draft long-hand in a blank journal, with lots of holes (“Describe hero here.”  “What did they use for lighting in 1866 Seattle?”).  I let the characters and plot go where they will.  When the first draft is done, I go back and research any holes I discovered along the way.  Then I transcribe the journal into the computer, broadening, deepening, filling as I go.  By that time, I have a pretty good idea of what is bothering me about the story, what’s keeping it from being as good as I want.  I print it out and hack it up, then revise it in the computer.  Then it goes to my wonderful critique partner, who tells me what she likes and hates about it, and I revise it once more to deal with any problem areas.  Finally it’s off to my editor for my Love Inspired titles or a copy-editor for my self-published titles.

Curious how other authors write?  So am I.  I’m tagging three other great authors, who will be answering these questions next Monday, May 19:

Cheryl Bolen is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling and award-winning author of more than 20 romance books, both historical and contemporary mystery.  Since she was named Notable New Author in 1999, her books have been translated into eight languages.  In 2006 she won the Holt Medallion (Honoring Outstanding Literary Talent) for Best Historical, and in 2012 she won Best Historical in the International Digital Awards for ebooks published the prior year.  Admitting to a fascination with dead Englishmen and women, she invites readers to her website or her blog or to connect with her on Facebook.

Aileen Fish, author of The Bridgethorpe Brides series and the Small Town Sweethearts series, is an avid quilter and auto racing fan who finds there aren't enough hours in a day/week/lifetime to stay up with her "to do" list. There is always another quilt or story begging to steal away attention from the others. When she has a spare moment she enjoys spending time with her two daughters and their families, and her fairy princess granddaughter.  You can find her online at her blog and website.

Mary Jane Hathaway is the pen name of an award-nominated writer who spends the majority of her literary energy on subjects unrelated to Jane Austen. A homeschooling mother of six young children who rarely wear shoes, she's madly in love with a man who has never read a single Jane Austen novel. She holds degrees in religious studies and theoretical linguistics, and has a Jane Austen quote on the back of her van. She can be reached on Facebook at Pride, Prejudice and Cheese Grits or at her blog. She also writes under Virginia Carmichael, which is another pen name, because she's just that cool.

Okay, What is the Shocking Truth about Women’s Blouses?

I knew you were all dying of curiosity about what shocking pronouncement I might have on the subject, so I couldn’t leave you in suspense, could I?

As I’ve been reading ladies’ magazines from the summer of 1917 and paying especial attention to the advertisements, I noticed a surprising thing: the many ads for, of all things, underarm hair removal. Yes, you heard me correctly. Like this one, from McCall's July 1917 issue:

And this one from The Delineator, also July 1917:

And that doesn’t include the ads for antiperspirants and deodorants and talcum powder (some of which, by the way, are quite lovely (sorry that the image is a trifle crooked--I didn't want to damage the magazine while scanning it. This one's from McCall's, by the way):

This surprised me at first—underarm hair removal? Really? But as it says in the ad, ladies’ blouses made of sheer batistes, cottons, and linens were all the fashion. Here’s a couple from the same issue of The Delineator. Look closely and you can see that the sleeve fabric was indeed very sheer:

And that doesn’t include bathing suits, some of which were sleeveless by now (also from July's The Delineator):

Underarm hair would be clearly visible in both cases...and definitely not “dainty” (a favorite adjective from this era, it seems)...hence, hair removal products. Maybe I’m clueless, but I’d just never thought of this as an early twentieth century problem...but evidently it was.

And this is part of why I take such joy in research: because you don’t know what you don’t know, and filling in all those gaps in knowledge is such a wonderful thing. Even when it involves underarm hair. I don't think I'll be writing any scenes in which my characters fret about this problem--at least, I don't think I will--but it certainly was interesting to learn about. This is not the kind of history that ever makes it into the history books...but it's history just the same--how the people before us lived. It's my favorite kind of history, and I hope you've enjoyed all the shreds of it that Regina and I try to bring to you.

NineteenTeen Welcomes Patrice Kindl

This week at NineteenTeen we're delighted to welcome Patrice Kindl, author of a number of award-winning novels for young adults. Patrice has shared her home in upstate New York with monkeys, parrots, cats, dogs, reptiles and small mammals, as well as the occasional bird of prey, one son and a very indulgent husband. Her books include Owl in Love, The Woman in the Wall, Goose Chase, Lost in the Labyrinth, and the 19th century set Keeping the Castle and A School for Brides (forthcoming).

NineteenTeen: Welcome to NineteenTeen, Patrice! Keeping the Castle is not your first work of historical fiction…what inspired you to write a Regency-set story?

Patrice: I was reading yet another historical novel in which the spunky heroine scorned marriage for the opportunity to pursue some fascinating and perilous career. Yes, I like those books too, but very few seem to me to have to do with being female in any age but our own. For most of history women had precious few career options, and marriage was by far the best.

Although I definitely consider myself a feminist, I felt like we were rewriting history with a feminist slant that misrepresented reality. Being the sort of writer I am, I also thought that a more accurate assessment might be kind of funny. The Regency period is excellent for this sort of thing because it was a time when women were just beginning to have some slight amount of autonomy and power of choice, particularly as to their choice of spouse.

I have long felt that, “I love you – you are so beautiful!” is morally equivalent to, “I love you – you are so rich!” It is assumed that women will be flattered at being valued primarily for their physical attributes, even though few men would enjoy being seen almost exclusively as a source of income. Sure, men show off their net worth with expensive cars just as women dress to emphasize their best features, but both also long to be known and appreciated for other, less superficial qualities. From the opening pages of Keeping the Castle I wanted to make it clear that, to me at least, marrying for money alone is no worse than marrying for physical attractiveness alone. Actually, marrying for money makes more sense: it may reflect intelligence and ability, while beauty is simply the result of genetic roulette.

NineteenTeen: There are strong Jane Austenish overtones in the plot of Keeping the Castle—a poor but proud young woman trying to find a husband who also likes to dabble in matchmaking—Emma Bennett, if you will. :) Is Jane Austen a favorite of yours?

Patrice: First of all, of course I adore Jane Austen! I know the novels practically word for word. However, I am not sure I entirely agree with the first sentence above. I wouldn’t call Althea proud, exactly. We first see her as quite willing to marry anybody at all who can offer her a respectable family and a sizeable income. It is only as the novel progresses that she finds she does care about more than money and position. I consider her a practical and unsentimental young woman who is doing the best she can with the resources available. Miss Austen’s heroines were considerably more nice-minded than mine; they had been trained to hide their baser emotions and desires behind a screen of manners. My Althea is not a true Regency lady; she forgets to pretend.

NineteenTeen: Who was your favorite character to write in Keeping the Castle?

Patrice: Oh, Mr. Fredericks, definitely! I missed him so when I had to send him off to London. On the other hand, I am terribly fond of Miss Charity Winthrop, now Baroness Boring in the book I am working on now. And, of course, Althea. And I really like Miss Vincy. Hmm. Hard to say.

NineteenTeen: Being that we're history geeks, we have to talk about research. What was your best research moment--the one that made you smile and rub your hands together (metaphorically, of course)? What is the most interesting thing you learned as you wrote Keeping the Castle?

Patrice: Don’t you absolutely love the Internet? It used to be that I had to save up research questions and make special trips to large libraries in order to find out this stuff, and then I never got every question answered.

Okay, shall I choose the lead paint with which ladies used to coat their faces? I had fun with that. Or the discovery that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had mislead me about quicksand (remember the bogs sucking people and moor ponies right up, never to be seen again, in “The Hound of the Baskervilles”)? I had planned to use a pool of quicksand to swallow up poor little Alexander Crawley instead of a tin mine, but it turns out that it is quite easy to get out of quicksand if you keep your head. Look it up on You Tube. Oh, and while reading War and Peace (same time period), I realized that young ladies who kept collections of morbid and depressing quotations were quite common at the time, so I gave this hobby to Prudence Winthrop.

I also found my characters on eBay. I love the miniature portraits that were exchanged between spouses and betrothed couples at the time. I was thinking of treating myself to one, when I suddenly saw one of my characters and just started screaming with laughter. It was Miss Charity Winthrop, and I own her likeness today. You can see them at: http://mybookthemovie.blogspot.com/2012/06/patrice-kindls-keeping-castle.html

NineteenTeen: What were your favorite books as a teen reader? Are there any more recent YA books that you wish you could have read when you were a teen?

I loved Jane Austen, as already mentioned. The Once and Future King (T.H. White) was very important to me. I was a bit of an Anglophile. Oh, of course there are so many wonderful YA books I’d love to have read back then – I grew up in the era of Nurse Cherry Ames and Nancy Drew, Girl Detective. There weren’t a tenth of the great books for teens that we have now. Diana Wynne Jones and Margaret Mahy are two favorites (both gone now, alas!).

NineteenTeen: I do wish Margaret Mahy were better known in the US.  So what’s next for you? Will you be writing more 19th century set work, or exploring other times and places?

Patrice: As foreshadowed above in the question about my favorite Castle character, I am about half-way through a manuscript titled, A School for Brides. This begins about eight or nine months after where we left off in Keeping the Castle. Miss Winthrop and Miss Hopkins have formed a finishing school for young ladies in Lesser Hoo, and we follow the various trials and tribulations of the students there.

NineteenTeen: Hurrah for sequels! Where can our readers learn more about you and your books?

Patrice: Please do visit my website: www.patricekindl.com. Also, Keeping the Castle has a Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/KeepingTheCastle

Courtship and Curses-related Stuff and Some Thoughts on Writing Historical Fantasy

First, link time! Tricia Tighe of Damsels in Regress, another history and writing related blog we follow, has an interview with me and a review of Courtship and Curses which you might enjoy.

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I’ve sometimes thought about why I write what I write. I guess it’s something all people who create wonder about—what draws us to write this particular book, or paint that particular painting, or put this specific sequence of notes into a song. For me and my love of historical fantasy—well, the history part is obvious: the past is one of my biggest passions, and always has been. But no matter what I try to write, an element of fantasy always creeps into it. I can’t help it, it just happens; I attribute it to the fact that the very first chapter book I read as child was called The Little Witch, and it imprinted on me somehow. I have a couple of ideas for straight historical books…but you know what? It wouldn’t surprise me if some fantasy elements still managed to worm its way into those stories while my head is turned. Sneaky stuff, that magic.

Of course, some historical settings just seem to beg for the addition of magic. I think it’s because when we study history, we’re looking at the “big”, dramatic aspects of the past. And things just doesn’t get much more dramatic than 1815. Think about it for a moment: England was breathing a sigh of relief at not being at war for the first time in nearly twenty years, only to wake up one morning to find that Napoleon had somehow slipped away from house arrest on Elba and had marched across France and retaken his throne without firing a single shot. Moreover, the anointed and crowned King of England had gone mad, and his drama queen of an eldest son was now in charge. Writing about larger-than-life events and historical figures (*coughDukeofWellingtoncough*) just calls for larger-than-life plotting…and what’s larger than life than magic?

So Courtship and Curses got written because I wanted to play with 1815 and with the character of Lady Parthenope (Persy and Pen's mom) as a teen herself. I chose not to make her the heroine of the story because I tend to write about characters trying to find their place in the world, and Parthenope is one of those fortunate individuals who seems to have been born knowing where she belongs. So she is there to support Sophie, my heroine, who is having a heck of a time finding herself after losing her mother and sister, her ability to walk without a cane, and her magic. Combine that with the events of 1815, and there's quite a bit to write about!

On a related note, this is why I tend to feel that historical fantasy dating any later than 1945 doesn’t work well—the events of modern times just don’t have that larger-than-life feeling to them, even though, realistically speaking, many of them are far “bigger” than the events of 1815. It’s all a matter of perception.

Okay, I’m getting boring and serious here. Are there any points or periods in history that you think would make a terrific historical fantasy story?

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Don’t forget—all commenters this week will be entered in a drawing to win a copy of Courtship and Curses. Just sayin’….

Nineteenth Century Heroines: Beloved the World Over

I’ve wanted to be a writer all my life, though I realized fairly early that I probably needed some other vocation to fall back on when those rejection letters piled up. In the nineteenth century, many young ladies were taught the opposite. They were told to learn how to be wives and mothers first, and maybe they might have to fall back on a accomplishment like writing well if they ended up spinsters. That was certainly the case for nineteenth-century writers Ann and Jane Taylor.

Ann and Jane were born in 1782 and 1783, respectively, into an accomplished family. Their father and grandfather were engravers who illustrated books and sometimes set portraits, first in London and then in smaller towns around England. Ann and Jane had an unusual education: their father taught them at home then started Sunday Schools for poorer children, where they were expected to help teach. They learned reading, writing, math, history, and geography by working through practical problems such as artillery attacks on local towns, engraving issues, and household chores. Between learning and chores, they were busy from sunup to sundown, but that didn’t stop them from writing.

They wrote essays on various topics, they wrote little plays and put them on with the neighboring children, and they wrote poems. At age 15, Jane was invited to join a local society for reading essays and improving the intellect. When Ann was 17, she responded to a puzzle in the Minor’s Pocket Book, an annual publication for children, with a poem, and the editor was so impressed he asked her for more. By 1804, both Ann and Jane were providing poems to the magazine. Over the next few years, they put together collections of children’s poems, some by friends, family, and acquaintances but mostly theirs. When the first book brought in money, their mother decided writing wasn’t so bad. She graciously allowed them a half hour a day to devote to it!

But that seemed to be enough. Each of their children’s poetry books grew more popular. Their books were translated into French, German, Russian, and many other languages. They were so successful, in fact, that their mother decided to start writing too! She published nine books between 1814 and 1825, all explaining how important it was for women to marry and take care of their families.

Ann Taylor married a minister who had written her a fan letter for her work. She stopped writing for a time to raise eight children, then took up the pen again until her death in 1866. Jane never married and was the more prolific writer. Sadly, she died of breast cancer when she was only 40.

Perhaps because they wrote for children, you don’t often hear their names today. But I’ll wager you know this poem, written by Jane in 1806 and beloved all over the world:

Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky.

Did you know it has four more stanzas?

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveler in the dark
Thanks you for your tiny spark!
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark
Lights the traveler in the dark
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle little star.