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Category: Diane Gaston

bodfp_smallWhenever I’m at a loss for a topic for this blog, I take a peek at Hillman’s Hyperlinked and Searchable Chambers Book of Days. The Book of Days (or, if you like, the real title: The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in Connection with the Calendar, Including Anecdote, Biography, & History, Curiosities of Literature and Oddities of Human Life and Character) was published in 1832 by Robert Chambers, a prolific writer particularly known for his reference books.

The Book of Days is arranged around the calendar, and contains interesting essays and trivia. The original work was printed in two volumes, each 840 pages long. It is an incredible feat of research.

Today’s date in the book contains who was born this date, who died, and the saint whose feast day it was. There was an essay about mermaids and about the “Circe of Carlyle House, Soho Street,” Teresa Cornelys. Mrs. Cornelys ran an upscale Assembly Room where great balls and masquerades were held.

The last essay of November 24 was this one:

THANKSGIVING DAY IN AMERICA

The great social and religious festival of New England, from which it has spread to most of the states of the American republic, is a legacy of the Puritans. They abolished Christmas as a relic of popery, or of prelacy, which they held in nearly equal detestation, and passed laws to punish its observance; but, wanting some day to replace it, the colonial assemblies, and, later, the governors of the states, appointed every year some day in autumn, generally toward the end of November, as a day of solemn prayer and thanksgiving for the blessings of the year, and especially the bounties of the harvest.

Thanksgiving day is always celebrated on Thursday, and the same day is chosen in most of the states. The governor’s proclamation appointing the day, is read in all the churches, and there are appropriate sermons and religious exercises. Families, widely scattered, meet at the bountiful thanksgiving dinners of roast turkeys, plum pudding, and mince and pumpkin pies. The evenings are devoted by the young people to rustic games and amusements.

The subjects of the thanksgiving-sermons are not infrequently of a political character, and in the chief towns of the union, those of the most popular preachers are generally published in the newspapers. The thanksgiving festival, though widely celebrated, is Not so universally respected as formerly, as the influx of Roman Catholics and Episcopalians has brought Christmas again into vogue, which is also kept by the Unitarians with considerable solemnity. As a peculiar American festival it will, however, long be cherished by the descendants of the Puritans.

Not a mention of shopping in Chambers’ essay. When you shop on Black Friday, don’t forget to put Megan’s The Duke’s Guide to Correct Behavior and Susanna’s A Christmas Reunion!

How many of you are planning plum pudding and an evening of rustic games and entertainments this Thursday?

Happy Thanksgiving!

For many reasons too boring to chronicle, I have not yet started on the Holiday shopping. Maybe I’m spending too much time wishing I was back in Mayfair. Now that would be a place to go shopping!

I’m sure I could find 99% of my gifts at Fortnum and Mason! In fact, I was just looking online to see if I could purchase Fortnum and Mason tea somewhere (William and Sonoma). But wouldn’t I love to be browsing through the Mayfair store again.
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I also wish I could purchase something from Floris. Not only are the scents wonderful, I would just love to walk into the store again!
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Books are always a good gift, right? Especially from Hatchard’s
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It’s difficult to pick a hat as a gift for someone, but if I stopped into Lock and Co., I’d get to gaze at Wellington’s hat and Nelson’s.
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After exhausting the options in Mayfair, I could stop at a boutique in Chelsea.
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No matter what store–heck, I’d even settle for a stop in Boots–I’d rather be shopping in England.

How about you? Any dream locations for Holiday shopping?

“One knows so well the popular idea of health. The English country gentleman galloping after a fox — the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.”
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), A Woman of No Importance, act 1.

Fox_Hunting_-_Henry_AlkenPursuing the “uneatable” was a popular sport among Regency gentlemen and the fox hunting season would have been this time of year, from after the leaves have all fallen to right before spring planting. Fox hunting has a long history in Britain, dating back to the 16th century. It became especially popular after the decrease in the deer population made hunting deer more difficult.

Hunting foxes was once considered a form of vermin control. Foxes were notorious for attacking small livestock, but by Regency times, the main purpose of the hunt was the sheer sport of it. Hounds were bred specifically for fox hunting. Gentlemen kept up to 12 hunters, horses bred for the hunt, so they could hunt six days in a row, using two horses per hunt. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Duke of Wellington kept eight horses and hunted frequently while on the Peninsula.

Hunting was the sport of wealthy gentlemen partly because those gentlemen had the wide expanse of land that the hunting required. Others could only hope to be invited to the hunt. Unauthorized hunting anywhere was considered poaching and could incur severe penalties.
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Regency times were times of house parties during which gentlemen rode to the hounds and only a very few ladies did. Ladies were encouraged to ride out with the hunters or to watch the hunt from carriages.

Fox hunting was outlawed in Great Britain in 2005 but still exists in other countries including Australia and the USA.

I love the idea of galloping over the countryside on horseback, but to chase a fox and have it torn to bits, not so much. I understand the appeal hunting game animals, although I couldn’t do it. Could you? Do you hunt? Have you ever been fox hunting?

This Christmas is exceptionally busy–and not with Christmas things! So I haven’t even been Christmas shopping yet. So today I went looking for an old Christmas posting and I found one!

Last week I was dreaming about shopping in Mayfair and it seems in 2011 I was dreaming about shopping in Regency England (I do a lot of dreaming, apparently).

Here’s what I said I’d purchase for my family and friends back then. Seems just as good to me now….If the year were 1819 and I was shopping in London.

If in Regency England, first place I’d go would be to the mall–The Burlington Arcade, I mean.

The Burlington Arcade is a covered shopping area behind Bond Street on what was formerly the garden of Burlington House. Lord George Cavendish, younger brother of the Duke of Devonshire owned Burlington House and wanted to do something to prevent ruffians from throwing trash and oyster shells into his garden. He hired architect Same Ware to design the arcade which had spaces for 72 enclosed shops. The arcade opened in 1819 and was an instant success. It is still the place to go for fashionable shopping in London.

On my London trip this September 2014, I walked through the Arcade and glanced at the windows of all the lovely shops still doing a thriving business.

I also used the Burlington Arcade in my 2012 book, A Not So Respectable Gentleman. Leo, the hero and brother of the Diamonds of Wellbourne Manor, runs into the Burlington Arcade to escape the bad guys….

If I can’t find all the gifts in the Burlington Arcade, I can shop at a department store–Harding Howell and Co, which sells everything from lace and every kind of haberdashery, but also jewelry, watches, clocks, perfumery and more. Harding Howell and Co. was opened in 1807 in Pall Mall, but it closed in 1820, so I couldn’t visit it on my recent trip.

I have a list to follow of what I’m looking for. (In 1819, I was organized; not so much now.)

Dear Husband: He likes gizmos. And he loves clocks. I think I’ll buy him a French clock. But he’d like a gizmo toy, too, like some kind of automaton.

Dear Daughter: She’s a music lover. I might buy her the latest piano sheet music from the music seller in the arcade although guitar is her instrument of choice. Maybe she’d play the harp in the Regency.

Dear Son: He’d probably want the latest in dueling pistols. Or the best hunting whip, although in today’s world, his shooting would be confined to video games and his vehicle accessory would probably be a GPS or cell phone holder.

Dear Daughter-in-law: (she wasn’t on that 2011 list, but I must add her now) She is an artist, so I would purchase art supplies from Thomas Hewlett Oil and Colourman near the Egyptian Hall, like Jack did in Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady.

Dearest Grandson!: (also not on the 2011 list – he’s only 17 mos. old, after all) Grandson loves cars and trucks, so I suppose in 1819, he might like a toy horse and carriage from Mr. Hamley’s toy store on High Holburn Street, the toy store where Anna and Brent bought toys for Brent’s children in Born To Scandal.

Dear Sisters: for one I’ll have to go to Jermyn Street and buy her some fragrance from Floris (where she and I shopped this past September!). The other might like a pretty new bonnet–I’d get her a Yorkshire terrier puppy (she has 3 already) but the breed won’t exist for a few years yet.

Dear Friends: Oh, I know what I’d buy them. BOOKS!!! Perhaps in 1819, I’d buy them two books in one. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, published in 1818. Sadly the author died in 1817, but she is our favorite author.

What gifts would you buy for friends and family if you were shopping in Regency England?

And, are you as ill-prepared as I am this year?

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