Category: Regency

What Jane Saw

Updated on August 23, 2013 by Myretta

At the University of Texas in Austin, Professor Janine Barchas has created (or rather recreated) the art exhibit at the British Institution in Pall Mall that Jane Austen wrote about visiting on May 24, 1813.

What Jane Saw is a wonderful site and a wonderful resource for art exhibits during our period. Each room of the exhibit is faithfully (as far as possible) reproduced. The floor plan allows you to see the paintings as they were exhibited and each painting is clickable, taking you to a larger image and historical information. Moreover, it includes a scan of the exhibit catalog

Mrs. Bingley?

This exhibit does not include the portrait of Mrs. Bingley that Jane Austen mentions finding in this letter, That portrait has been identified as Portrait of Mrs. Q (Mrs. Harriet Quentin) by William Blake. This was, obviously, not in the Joshua Reynolds exhibit reproduced on What Jane Saw. According to the letter, she saw this at at Spring Gardens.

But don’t let the fact that this exhibit doesn’t include Mrs. Bingley stop you from visiting. I dare say you’ll want to linger a while.

Posted in Jane Austen, Regency, Research | 4 Replies

A Picture and A Question

Updated on August 19, 2013 by Diane Gaston

For wont of another topic, none of which come to mind, I decided to give you a picture.

I collect architectural prints of the Regency, when I can find them. Some I have framed and hung in the den. Most are in a folder in my “book room” (too cluttered to be called an office or a library). A few are scanned.

Here are the ones from the den. You will recognize some of them; they are often reproduced.

Here is a scanned one, Theatre Royal, Covent Garden:

Most of my prints are post-Regency, I believe around 1828 and I daresay they were cut from books at one time or another, but not by me!

They are one way the Regency stays alive for me. I can just about put myself in the picture and lose myself there.

That brings me to my question.

Even though I love Regency Historical Romances, I don’t read many of them these days (although I loved my friend Mary Blayney’s One More Kiss). I can’t read them when I’m writing one, because if I get lost in that book, I won’t get lost in mine, or I may forget which book I’m lost in altogether.

I am curious though. Have you read a Regency Historical Romance lately that just blew you away? And if so, why?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Posted in Reading, Regency | 4 Replies

Reasons Why We Stay in Jane Austen’s England

Updated on August 17, 2013 by Myretta

Megan sent me a link to 13 Reasons You Wouldn’t Want to Live in Jane Austen’s England. It’s hard to refute the horror of most of these things, although I find some of them (for example forced marriage) a tad spurious. But, regardless of the dangers of 18th-19th century England, we still live there in in our imaginations. Many of the 13 reasons apply to the lower classes and, whether it’s right or not, these are not the people with whom we commune in our reading and writing. We’re living with the gentry and the aristocracy as was Jane Austen when she wrote.

When we live in Jane Austen’s England, we’re living upstairs, where the air is fresh and someone irons our newspapers and brings us tea. We walk in the country and stroll through Hyde Park. We take in an exhibit at Somerset House. If want to do manual labor, we’ll go out in the garden and cut some flowers. If we’re worried about what’s for dinner, we’ll meet with cook. If our sheets need to be changed, we’ll consult the housekeeper.

Our gentlemen are sitting in Parliament (no doubt solving the problem of child labor), riding in the park, hunting, shooting, hanging out with friends at their club. If we’re at our country estate, they’re meeting with their steward and caring for their land and their tenants. They’re helping us host a house party. Or they’re beside us, making sure we are supremely happy.

Yes. This is fiction, where we rarely catch fire by standing too near to the hearth, we aren’t subject to poor medical attention and even worse dentistry, and we’d do anything rather than force a poor child to climb our chimney to clean it. But, as we now have a choice about which Jane Austen’s England we’d prefer to live in, why ever would we choose the one in the Huffington Post?

Posted in Jane Austen, Regency | 3 Replies

Winner and Shoeblacks

Updated on August 5, 2013 by Diane Gaston

I am so grateful to HJ who spent a great deal of time and effort to come up with a strapline for me to send to the UK Harlequin folks for use on my author page. HJ came up with many ideas, but this one is my favorite:

Rich, ravishing, reflective – award-winning Regency romances

HJ, you definitely win the $5.00 Amazon gift card. Look for an email from me.

I looked at Chambers’ Book of Days for a blog topic for today. The Book of Days was written in 1869 and contains a “A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in Connection with the Calendar, Including Anecdote, Biography, & History, Curiosities of Literature and Oddities of Human Life and Character.” When stuck for a topic, I often go to the online version and search by the day’s date.

The August 5 entry tells about London Shoeblacks.

Shoeblacks or shoeshine boys appeared to go out of favor in the late Regency. Chambers talks of the last of the shoeblacks of that era, “as a short, large-headed son of Africa, rendered melancholy by impending bankruptcy, who might he seen, about the year 1820, plying his calling in one of the many courts on the north side of Fleet Street, till driven into the workhouse by the desertion of his last customer.”

During this time period, the shoeblack used a three-legged stool, and carried his tools in a large tin kettle which contained an earthen-pot filled with blacking (made of ivory black, brown sugar, vinegar, and water), a knife, two or three brushes, a stick with a piece of rag at the end, and an old wig. The wig was used to wipe the dust and dirt from the shoe before polishing.

Shoeblacks were seen on every corner of the street in London in those days. Apparently the manufacture of shoe polish by Day and Martin led to the demise of the shoeblack profession in London.

It was revived in 1851. Some philanthropists affiliated with the Ragged Schools had an idea to train boys who would otherwise be on the streets to shine shoes. They were dressed in red coats, attended a Ragged School at night and lived in dormitories.

During the Great Exhibition about twenty-five boys polished over 100,000 boots. During the first year the Shoeblack Society made £656.

Because of the Shoeblack Society hundreds of homeless boys were rescued from lives of privation or crime, but the occupation also became licensed and controlled. Unlicensed shoeblacks suffered harassment from the police.

Those boys who worked hard eventually were able to move on to other ventures, some even able to buy businesses of their own. After 30 years the Shoeblack Society earned almost a quarter million pounds. Their fame even reached the New York Times in 1881.

One might not find shoeblacks on every corner of London now, but you can still get a great shine from the stand at the Burlington Arcade

So…here’s my question for today. When was the last time you polished a pair of shoes?

P.S. the painting above is totally inaccurate for this post. It is called “Shoeshine Boys,” and is an 1889 painting by Polish-American artist, Karol D. Witkowski)

Posted in Regency, Research | 10 Replies

Beach Days –in Regency England

Updated on August 5, 2013 by Gail Eastwood

Do you love the beach? I do. I’m addicted! Who could not enjoy a walk on an ocean beach, with a cooling breeze and the green thundering waves dashing down into foam and then washing gently up by your feet? You walk between the wide expanse of blue sky above and the blue reflection in the smooth wet sand beneath you. Then lured into the water, you float enveloped in its clear green invigorating coolness, coming out utterly refreshed.

I’m certain that throughout human history, people who lived near beaches enjoyed them. I am lucky enough to live in a state with plentiful ocean beaches very nearby, and at this time of year I try to juggle my work schedules to find one day a week when I can go. But did you know that it was only as recently as the 18^th century that people who didn’t live near beaches began to come to visit them as tourists? Dr Richard Russell’s 1752 publication A Dissertation: Concerning the Use of Sea Water in Diseases of the Glands, about the health benefits of sea-bathing and even drinking sea water is credited with helping create what became a thriving industry, but certainly improvements in transportation in this period and the Regency also were a big factor in the development of sea-side resorts.

Just as guides to the great houses were published for tourists, guides to the beach resorts such as John Fletham’s A Guide to all the Watering and Sea-Bathing Places (1803) also became available. Jane Austen’s unfinished novel, Sanditon, is set in a small town trying to become the next popular resort, and Jane visited Brighton, made popular by the Prince Regent, as well as Worthing in Sussex and spent time in Southhampton. Competition between resorts was fierce. Jane would have heard all about Sandown on the Isle of Wight, and Bognor, and Eastbourne. Margate was famous and by 1816 so popular they had more than 40 bathing machines, and four bathhouses where patrons could relax while awaiting their turn. For an interesting discussion about whether or not Worthing stood as Jane’s model for Sanditon, check http://austenonly.com/2010/03/19/austenprose-group-read-of-sanditon-worthing-the-model-for-mr-palmer%E2%80%99s-town/.

Whether Regency people visited the shore for pleasure or for health reasons, the activities they pursued did not differ greatly –they walked on the sand, and enjoyed watching the waves and ships offshore and each other. They “dipped” in the sea (only men actually engaged in swimming). The way they dressed at the seaside is an entire fashion topic in itself. I highly recommend that you check out (or reread if you have been following our Risky blog for a while) posts from past summers made by Elena and Myretta and others here –just type “beach” into our search box and they will come up. Myretta wrote about Brighton. Elena did a terrific post that explains about the bathing machines with attendants that made it possible to be “dipped” into the ocean while preserving modesty at all costs!!

This line about sea-bathing at Ramsgate in 1811 from Memoirs of a Highland Lady by Elizabeth Grant makes me glad I am not limited by the old system they used, for once I am in, I am always reluctant to get out of the water until I am blue with cold: “The shock of a dip was always an agony: that over, we would have ducked about much longer than the woman let us.” I found this in a great article by Andrea Richards of the Jane Austen Society of Australia (http://www.jasa.net.au/seaside/Bathing.htm).

If you can’t get to the modern-day beach, perhaps you can make a vicarious trip, and go back in time as well! Besides the above, I recommend the following: http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/category/sea-bathing-during-the-regency-era/

http://www.isabellegoddard.com/sea-bathing-regency-period.html

http://austenprose.com/2010/03/19/by-the-seaside-with-sanditon-guest-blog-with-mandy-n-on-regency-era-seaside-fashions/

Are you a beach-lover? If you had lived in the Regency, would you have traveled to one of the many resorts to try the water? Have you read any Regency stories that use this setting? Jump into the comments and share!

www.gaileastwoodauthor.com

Posted in Frivolity, Regency, Research | 7 Replies