Back to Top

Monthly Archives: February 2016

February is Black History Month so I thought I’d go with the obvious theme. While I know a lot of you are familiar with the Chevalier Saint-Georges (champion fencer, friend of the Prince Regent, Marie Antoinette’s music teacher, forgotten composer [thanks to Napoleon banning his music!]), I thought Abram Petrovich Gannibal might be unknown. He certainly was to me until the brilliant Twitter account @medievalpoc introduced me to him.

Петровское__Бюст_А_П__Ганнибала

Abram Gannibal, bust in Petrovskoe.

 

Gannibal was kidnapped from what is now Camaroon when he was about seven and given as a gift to Peter the Great. The zar took a shine to him, noting his intelligence, and essentially made him his page. The boy was raised in the royal household and accompanied the zar on military campaigns. He was sent to Mez to be educated, spoke several languages, and was part of the intelligentsia in Paris in the early 1700s (supposedly, Voltarie himself called Gannibal “the dark star of the Enlightenment”).

elephant

Russian medal adorned with Avraham Hannibal’s coat of arms

Eventually became a powerful member of the Russian court under Peter’s daughter Elizabeth and was made a major-general in her army. He was given estates (complete with serfs) and raised to the nobility. He was married twice, once very unhappily to a Greek woman and then later to a woman from the nobility of Scandinavia and Germany. The second marriage was extremely happy, and produced ten children, from whom some very surprising people are descended: Most famously, Aleksandr Pushkin! Yes, that Pushkin. But many British aristocrats are also Gannibal’s descendants, including the wife of the 6th Duke of Westminster, the wife of the 5th Duke of Abercorn, and the current Marquesss of Milford Haven.

Gannibal_I_A

School of Dmitry Grigorievich Levitzky Portrait of Ivan Abramovich Gannibal (1735-1801) Gannibal’s son.

And of course this is really where my brain started ticking. I have a character in my current series who is based on the Chevalier Saint-Georges. His heroine’s race was determined entirely by which model showed up at the cover shoot. And the model who showed up first was black. I’d been toying with the idea of basing her on Belle, but this just seemed sooooo much cooler. A black, French fencing champion and the granddaughter of an Afro-Russian nobleman? Say it with me: OOOOOOH, YEEEAAAAAH.

GOUTa021449

Origin of the Gout (artist Henry Bunbury 1750-1811), English, 1815 The perceived origins of gout may be tied more to the liquor on the table than to the more localized work of the devil.

I’m excited to share my new discovery of a great research source! (I hope I’m not the last to find out.) The U.S. National Library of Medicine has a truly awesome website offering a ton of databases and a massive library network. Its offerings on the History of Medicine include a collection of 71,000 downloadable images, and through the Medical Heritage Library, maybe one of the best collections of digitized period books on medicine –more than 9,000 books!

Does one of your characters have a medical issue? Or the need to know how to deal with someone else’s medical needs? We all know about laudanum, but how much more do we know about medicine in the Regency? I wish this goldmine had been available when I was researching my early books. Just thinking quickly through my first four stories I recall that my characters had to deal with hypoglycemia, infected wounds, psychological trauma and epilepsy –all (at one level or another) medical issues.

Battle of the Nile 1817a021102

The Cockpit, Battle of the Nile. London: Edward Orme, June, 1817. A view of sailors receiving medical treatment below decks.

Oh, doesn’t that make you want to run right out and read those? LOL!! Obviously, these aren’t the main focus of any of the stories –they are love stories, after all. But health and medical needs are part of everyday life, so if we want a realistic world for our characters to live in, I think we shouldn’t ignore these. Do you agree? Or do you think it ruins the fantasy?

As with any great resource, you have to be careful not to get sidetracked (or you can give in and have fun roaming)…I followed a link to the Medical Heritage Library (http://www.medicalheart_of_beauty2-192x300ritage.org/ ) and discovered they had some fascinating coloring pages to offer, and a “medical pop-up book” from the 17th century…with a video about how they handled digitizing this! So many treasures, so little time… The MHL, “a digital curation collaborative among some of the world’s leading medical libraries, promotes free and open access to quality historical resources in medicine” and as said above, has an amazing collection of fully accessible digitized material.

culpeper_british_herbal2-188x300 botanical_letters-180x300

The databases you can find at the NLM site include Toxnet, which can help you find info on poisons, among other useful things, and MeSH (which stands for Medical Subject Headings) where you can learn about medical terminology. And another thing they have is a worldwide map directory of where to find History of Medicine collections. Each spot on the map links to specific libraries and includes a description of their holdings. Is there one near you?

Just to give you a glimpse of the NLM site:

Digital Collections is a free online archive of selected book, serial, and film resources. All the content in Digital Collections is in the public domain and freely available worldwide.

Rare Books & Journals: Books Published before 1914: The historical book collection includes related areas of social, economic, and intellectual history. It includes over 580 incunabula (books printed before 1501), some 57,000 16th-18th century books, and 95,000 items published between 1801 and 1913, from all over the world, in many languages. Among works of popular and ephemeral interest are home health guides, pharmaceutical almanacs, patent medicine catalogs, medical equipment catalogs, personal narratives, first-hand accounts, broadsides, pharmacopoeias, illustrated herbals, and botanical name indexes (materia medica). Medical history landmarks in the collection include Andreas Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica (1543), William Harvey’s Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis (1628), William Withering’s An Account of the Foxglove (1785), and Edward Jenner’s An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae (1798), as well as comprehensive holdings of the works of major medical figures such as Hippocrates, Galen, Paracelsus, Boerhaave, and Osler.

Archives & Manuscripts: Searchable database of material, most dating from the 17th century to the present (which they call “modern”).

Images from the History of Medicine (IHM): A searchable database of images from IHM including fine art, photographs, engravings, and posters that “illustrate the social and historical aspects of medicine dating from the 15th to 21st century.” (granted many of them are portraits, but I’ve included with this post a couple of the Regency images I found)

PhysisciansFrienda021807

The Physicians Friend [Charles Williams, 1797-1830, artist] England, c. 1815. In a kitchen, a fat physician grasps the hand of the cook and compliments him on his culinary abilities, which increase the frequency of the physician’s visits.

Of course, if the material you want hasn’t been digitized, you still have three recourses: 1) go to Washington DC and visit the NLM in person, or 2) see if the material is available via inter-library loan, or 3) check if the material is available at one of the History of Medicine collection locations near you (see above). The Library does not lend historical material in its original format; however, they do lend copies of journal articles, copies of selected manuscripts, books on microfilm (when available), and copies of films and videos. The Library’s interlibrary loan services are available only to libraries, not to individuals. Individuals who want to borrow NLM material should make a request through a local library.

So, what do you think? Should medical issues be part of the Regency world we recreate? How much research would you do to make sure you had an accurate portrayal of the way such things would be handled? Did you already know about the NLM?

Drury_lane_interior_1808In researching for my WIP, Summerfield sister Genna’s story, I looked into my copy of The Annual Register, Or a View of History, Politics, and Literature of the Year 1816 (Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1817) and came across this entry in the Chronicles for February 17, 1816.

At Drury Lane Theatre, at the opening scene of the farce called Modern Antiques, or The Merry Mourners, in which Miss Kelly appeared in the character of Nan, a country girl; and Mr. Knight, as Joey, a country lad; while these two performer were, according to their parts, embracing, a pistol was discharged from about the centre of the pit. Great consternation was excited on the stage and among the audience and it was not ascertained whether any person was shot, or what mischief was done. It was not known then whether the deadly attack was intended to be against Miss Kelly or Mr. Knight; but a subsequent investigation proved that it was aimed at Miss Kelly….

The shooter was George Barnett, aged 21, a law stationer who lived at No. 22 Princess Street. He was stopped and apprehended by two members of the audience and taken to the managers’ office in the theatre, where he and the witnesses were questioned by Mr. Birnie, the magistrate. Barnett would not say anything at the time, though. He was then taken to Tothill Fields Bridewell by the constables. The recovered pistols were taken to Bow Street.

Pistolet_marine_1837-IMG_6935Mr. Birnie stated that from the wild and incoherent manner in which he (Barnett) conducted himself that there is “very little doubt of his insanity.”

The account goes on:

It was with some difficulty that Miss Kelly finished acting her character in the farce. On her being informed of the man’s name, she recollected that it was the same name which she had received, signed to several love-letters, some of which contained threats, if she did not accept his offer, etc–She, not knowing the person, treated the whole as a matter of indifference…The fright had such an effect upon her that she has been much indisposed since, and was confined yesterday…

When the pistol was fired, several shots perforated through the left back scene and struck the back of the orchestra. Had it been a musical farce, members of the orchestra might have been struck.

Don’t you feel this could have happened in today’s world? So much rings familiar–shootings in theaters, obsessed fans, even brave bystanders saving the day.

Reading through the Chronicles in the various Annual Registers (I have from 1810 to 1820), I am always struck by how little some things have changed in two hundred years.

Do you have any examples?

Later today, I will be choosing a winner of Lavinia Kent’s latest book, Ravishing Ruby. There’s still time to come by and comment for a chance to win!

 

 

Happy February!

I have much to delight you with today, including some Shameless Self-Promotion but also a treasure trove of information. . .

Let’s get the shameless self-promotion out of the way. The seventh book in my My Immortals series released last week.

My Demon Warlord

Cover of My Demon Warlord, showing a hot shirtless man who looks exactly as you imagine Kynan Aijan would look.

Cover of My Demon Warlord

A Demon Warlord Bound by Dark Magic. . .

Kynan Aijan’s centuries-long enslavement to a mage left him borderline insane and bound to Maddy Winters, a witch he intended to kill in horrible ways. Though he’s sworn the bonds they share will never be completed, their very existence feeds his desire for her even as he accepts that Winters will never forgive him.

. . . to the Powerful Witch He’s Desired for Years.

For Maddy Winters, the fight against evil magic users always takes top priority. But her bonds to Kynan give her intimate access to his thoughts and experiences, and she can’t always ignore their chemistry. Her insistence that she has no feelings for him is a deception she can’t afford to give up.

As Kynan and Maddy join forces to stop a rebellious and murderous witch, the dark magic that binds them locks them into forbidden passions and magic that could destroy them both. Will their fight for what’s right lead to a fight for each other?

My Demon Warlord is the seventh installment in the My Immortals series of paranormal romance novels. If you like magical supernatural tales, explosive chemistry, and irresistible passion, then you’ll love Carolyn Jewel’s latest breathtaking romance.

Amazon | Barnes&Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Google Play | All Romance eBooks | Print

Historicals!!

In news about my historicals, I am working on Book 3 in my Sinclair Sisters Series. It’s early days and there are some areas of research that are cropping up. If I told you these particular areas, they would be enormous spoilers and, quite possibly, not even in the book by the time I’m done. But never fear! I will be posting research related discoveries later. I learn something new every time.

I’m pulling together the historical novallas I’ve written and getting them spiffied up or ready for release on their own. So there will be that to look forward to. At least, I hope you’ll look forward to that.

Catalog Downloads from the Met, for Free

Risky Sandy posted this link on facebook. It’s from dressful.com — an awesome site, which mentioned that the Met has exhibit catalogs, including fashion related one, available to view online, order Print On Demand, or download as a pdf. And it is AWESOME. The Met Catalogs.

Lookit! Just as an example. If  I go over there again, I won’t get any work done.

The Academy of the Sword: Illustrated Fencing Books 1500–1800, LaRocca, Donald J. (1998)

It’s spectacular–all of it. I want ALL THE CATALOGS! There’s so much there that’s just wonderful and fascinating no matter what you might be interested in, and I want to hug the Met for this. And donate to them, too.

And so. Happy clicking around the Met.

We love you here at the Riskies.

Follow
Get every new post delivered to your inbox
Join millions of other followers
Powered By WPFruits.com