Welcome to my weekly round-up: from amorous footmen to Dickens’s shoddy treatment of his wife, the upstanding Mr. Knightley, and dieting with Jane; with further thoughts on the taxation of dogs, the Mona Lisa, dust jackets and Austen’s Sanditon – can one have a life without knowing all this??
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A new journal to be launched in April: The Southampton Centre for Nineteenth-Century Research‘s enthusiastic PhD students have just launched a fabulous new online, Open Access peer reviewed journal called Romance, Revolution and Reform: https://www.rrrjournal.com/
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If you’ve been watching Victoria on Masterpiece (and you should be…), here’s a real-life tale along the lines of The Footman and the Duchess: “The Amorous Footman”: https://penandpension.com/2019/02/20/the-case-of-the-amorous-footman/
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Mrs. Dickens (image: TLS)
So, it’s common knowledge now that Dickens left his wife for another woman – Ellen Tiernan the actress (fabulous book on this by Claire Tomalin: The Invisible Woman – if you have not read this, go out and buy it right now) – but letters recently discovered and studied by Professor John Bowen reveal that Dickens tried, like so many other men who had strayed and wanted out, to have his wife Catherine declared insane and institutionalized…https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2019/research/dickens-letters-asylum/
- and also this at the Smithsonian:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/newly-analyzed-trove-letters-charles-dickens-180971545/
Harvard University [Image: University of York]
And more on Dickens (he loved decorating his home, worked from home, had no musical talent, etc…): https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/facts-charles-dickens-writer-children-family-home/
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Aunt Busy Bee’s New London Cries (Image: Spitalfields Life)
Lovely images – Cries of London: http://spitalfieldslife.com/2019/02/22/aunt-busy-bees-new-london-cries-x/
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An archived Austenonly post on Mr. Knightley, Magistrate: https://austenonly.com/2010/01/25/austen-only-emma-season-mr-knightley-magistrate/
New book out on Jane Austen: The Jane Austen Diet: Austen’s Secrets to Food, Health, and Incandescent Happiness, by Bryan Kozlowski. See the Jane Austen VOGUE (of all places!) for an article on the author, the book, and Jane as a nutritionist! (lots of meat, lots of walking…)
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Ever wonder why the Mona Lisa is so famous?? (I wonder about this every day…) – here’s the answer: http://www.openculture.com/2019/02/how-the-mona-lisa-went-from-being-barely-known-to-suddenly-the-most-famous-painting-in-the-world-1911.html
For you Bard-Lovers out there (and who isn’t?), how about starting a Shakespeare Book Club? https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2019/02/19/shakespeare-book-clubs-austin-tichenor/
Into Dust Jackets? – here is an old essay in Publishers Weekly about a book on jackets from 1920-1970, published in 2017: (great covers here – even one by NC Wyeth): https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/75327-11-beautiful-vintage-book-covers.html
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A Cook Book we should all have, recently catalogued at the Lewis Walpole Library: https://lewiswalpole.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/the-complete-house-keeper-and-professed-cook/
Smith, Mary, of Newcastle. The complete house-keeper, and professed cook : calculated for the greater ease and assistance of ladies, house-keepers, cooks, &c. &c. : containing upwards of seven hundred practical and approved receipts … / by Mary Smith …Newcastle: Printed by T. Slack, for the author, 1772.
You can read it all here: https://archive.org/details/b21527404/page/n5
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Well, since we just got a dog (our 5th Springer Spaniel), I can’t resist passing this on from All Things Georgian – we all know of some of the ridiculous taxes imposed on the Georgians (think windows, candles, hair powder, and wallpaper, to name a few), but this one took forever to pass and was difficult to implement: Parliament going to the Dogs we could say:
https://georgianera.wordpress.com/2019/02/21/taxing-of-dogs-in-the-eighteenth-century/
Hayman, Francis; A Hound, a Spaniel and a Pug (A Portrait of a Mastiff); Norfolk Museums Service
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And because we always have to end with Jane: here are the wildly anticipated first photos of the filming of Andrew Davies’ Sanditon, Austen’s unfinished manuscript giving little direction with the plot and nearly no info on the possible Hero – so from what we DO know, who are these people??
https://www.burnham-on-sea.com/news/itv-jane-austen-drama-sanditon-filmed-brean-beach/
[Theo James here – do hope he is Sidney Parker, who I believe IS the Hero…] – your thoughts?? [image from Burnham-on-the-sea.com]
Have a good week all – send me your favorite finds on the internet!
Jane Austen in Vermont 
Snickering at the thought of the Jane Austen Diet!
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Yes, an interesting approach we have not yet seen, other than the cookbooks!
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Yes, Charles Dickens was pretty mean and, to be honest, horrible to his wife. Like many famous writers who are our heroes, what were they actually like as people? I wonder what Jane Austen was like. We may not have liked her. Her brother Henry comes across as a right twat!. The recent picture album of Jane’s nephews and nieces show some pretty austere and to put it bluntly harsh looking people.
YES!!!!! come on! EVERYBODY must love Shakespeare!!! Shakespeare, Hardy and Austen are the building blocks to my personal reading. They have impacted on my emotional, imaginative and ….. just …..everything about life!! Its difficult to express, Deb. I am getting impassioned here. Ha! Ha!.
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I do enjoy your gatherings and musings, “Deb’s Serendipitous Compendium”.
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Thanks Fran – I love your name for all this “stuff” – I might have to change the name to that! – it’s sort of like a grab-bag of curiosities… glad you are enjoying them!
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