London

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Collecting Jane Austen: Regency London

Jane Austen and London is a subject that should have its own shelf(ves). This is one of those down the rabbit hole in collecting that will either find you on a completely different path of book buying or become for you “the road not taken.” There will be many such roads if you embark on the adventure of collecting Jane Austen – as you all likely know, it is an endless morass…

Long before I began to collect Jane Austen, I started a collection of books on London – I love London for many reasons – my parents were born in England so I became an anglophile from an early age; I studied in London for a college semester (political science – don’t ask!); and during that semester met my husband, so it serves as a Romantic haven for me. I started collecting any books I could find on London – a heady task (almost as impossible as Jane Austen) – then narrowed it to children’s books about or set in London (many more than you would think) – then when Austen hit my radar I began to focus just on Regency-era London (a bit more manageable but larger than my pocket book or shelf space nonetheless). So I now have rather a mish-mash of various titles, some very collectible and some just commonplace treatises great for reference and beautiful pictures. When I began doing talks on Jane Austen and London, I found a real use for the books I had as well as an excuse to acquire more….and so you see my mighty fall into the Rabbit Hole of collecting….

Today I will just share three titles of the many, for no particular reason other than to show the diversity of what’s out there – I append at the end the very select bibliography handout for the talk I give, though is now a bit outdated and does not contain all the books I have – if you have any favorite books on London, please share the titles in the comments.

1. Regency London, by Stella Margetson. New York: Praeger, 1971 [London: Cassell, 1971].

Margetson wrote a few novels but also a number of books of English social history especially of the late 18th and the 19th-century. This book on Regency London is a short introductory text that covers the basics, with black and white contemporary illustrations throughout:

  1. Carlton House
  2. The Mercantile City
  3. Westminster and Government
  4. The Regent and the Architect
  5. High Society
  6. Entertainment
  7. The Artists and the Writers
  8. The Populace
  9. Some Visitors to London [Jane gets a few pages on her stays in London]
  10. An Expanding City

 FYI: Cassell / Praeger did a series of five books on London:

  • Roman London, by Ralph Merrifield
  • Medieval London, by Timothy Baker           
  • Elizabethan London, by Martin Holmes       
  • Regency London, by Stella Margetson
  • Victorian London, by Priscilla Metcalf

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2. The A to Z of Regency London, Introduction by Paul Laxton; index compiled by Joseph Wisdom. Lympne Castle, Kent: Harry Margary, in association with Guildhall Library, London, 1985.

This historical atlas is based on Richard Horwood’s survey of London in 1792-9 and updated by William Faden in 1813 – it shows the streets, lanes, courts, yards, and alleys, but also every individual building with its street number – the 40 sheets of the original Horwood have been photographically reduced, and the index for this edition expands the original by threefold.

The Horwood map is available online in various formats [a terrific one is here: https://www.romanticlondon.org/explore-horwoods-plan/#16/51.5112/-0.0747], but this is a treasure to have close at hand. One can easily trace Austen’s meanderings described in her letters, and follow the many characters in Sense and Sensibility – where they live, visit, and shop – her one novel where London is central to the plot (though it is also where the dilemma of Harriet gets sorted!)

For those of you who love maps, there are others to choose from in this series: The A to Z of Elizabethan London, Restoration London, Georgian London, Victorian London, and Edwardian London (there is also one for Georgian Dublin)

Horwood Map, p 13: Covent Garden

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3. One Day in Regency England, by Alastair Scott. Brighton: Robert Tyndall, 1974.

This is a children’s book, and about all of England not just London – but it is a delightful introduction to the period and filled with color and black and white contemporary illustrations; the cover is designed by Gordon King.

The book presents the day of July 20, 1813 in the lives of several characters, starting in the home of Charles Henry Longhurst – we meet him and his family and their friends and his servants, the children in school, life in the country vs. the day in the City – all presented as what goes on in these individual lives in the Morning, Afternoon and Evening. It is skillfully and entertainingly done and in 48 pages takes us in to traveling carriages, cookery in the kitchen, a dinner party and then off to Vauxhall Gardens, all the while getting a glimpse of those doing all the work behind the scenes! It is quite an exhausting day!

As you can see in the bottom paragraph in the above page image, Scott writes that Longhurst’s daughter Amelia is quite taken with Jane Austen and reading Pride and Prejudice – when suddenly her attention is drawn to the arrival of a small chimney-sweep – and thus we are privy to that bit of history, of poor, young, soot-covered boys and the realities and dangers of that job.

[This Day Book Series also includes a number of other “One Day” adventures in a variety of time periods in England and elsewhere: Shakespeare’s England, Roman Britain, Victorian, Medieval, WWI, WWII, etc.]

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As noted, this bibliography is very select but gives you an idea of the variety of works on London and specifically London during Jane Austen’s time – again, it is a bit outdated….

 ‘Jane Austen’s London in Fact and Fiction’: Select Bibliography

The A – Z of Regency London; introduction by Paul Laxton. London: Harry Margary / Guildhall Library, 1985.

Ackermann, R. The Microcosm of London, or London in Miniature. Rpt. ed. London: Methuen, 1904.

Ackroyd, Peter. London: The Biography.  London:  Chatto & Windus, 2000.

Allen, Louise. Walks Through Regency London.  UK: Shire, 2013. [2nd revised ed. 2014]

Borer, Mary Cathcart. An Illustrated Guide to London 1800.  New York:  St. Martin’s, 1988.

Byrne, Paula. Jane Austen and the Theatre.  London: Hambledon, 2002.

Cunningham, Peter. Handbook of London: Past and Present. New ed. London: Murray, 1850.

Easton, Celia. “Austen’s Urban Redemption: Rejecting Richardson’s View of the City.” Persuasions 26 (2004): 121-35.

Edwards, Anne-Marie. In the Steps of Jane Austen. 3rd ed. Newbury, UK: Countryside, 1996.

Elmes, James. A Topographical Dictionary of London and Its Environs. London: Whitaker, 1831. Google Book.

George, Dorothy.  London Life in the XVIIIth Century. London: Kegan, Paul, 1925.

Hibbert, Christopher.  London: The Biography of a City. London: Longmans, 1969.

Hill, Douglas. A Hundred Years of Georgian London from the Accession of George I to the Heyday of the Regency.  London:  MacDonald, 1970.

Hughson, David. Walks Through London. London: Sherwood, Neely and Jones, 1817.

Kaplan, Laurie. “Emma and ‘the children in Brunswick Square.’” Perusasions 31 (2009): 236-47.

Knight, Charles, ed. London. London: Charles Knight, 1841. Ebook, Tufts Digital Library < http://hdl.handle.net/10427/53832  >

Leigh, Samuel. Leigh’s New Picture of London. New ed. London: Leigh, 1827.

Margetson, Stella. Regency London.  New York: Praeger, 1971.

Picard, Liza. Dr. Johnson’s London. London: Weidenfeld, 2000.

_____. Victorian London. London: Weidenfeld, 2005.

Porter, Roy. London: A Social History.  Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1995.

Richardson, John. Covent Garden Past. London:  Historical, 1995.

_____. London and Its People: A Social History from Medieval Times to the Present Day.  London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1995.

Quin, Vera. Jane Austen Visits London. Cappella Archive, 2008.

Saunders, Ann. The Art and Architecture of London: An Illustrated Guide. 2nd ed. Oxford: Phaidon, 1988.

Stabler, Jane. “Cities.” Jane Austen in Context. Ed. Janet Todd. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. 204-14.

Summerson, John. Georgian London. New ed. New Haven: Yale UP, 2003.

Tannahill, Reay. Regency England.  London: Folio Society, 1964.

Vickery, Amanda. Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England.  New Haven: Yale UP, 2009.

Watson, Winifred. Jane Austen in London.  Chawton: JAS, 1960.

Whitfield, Peter. London: A Life in Maps.  London: British Library, 2006.

Worsley, Giles. Architectural Drawings of the Regency Period, 1790-1837. London: Andre Deutsch, 1991.

Select Online Sources:

[some are no longer available; there have been many more sources added to the internet since I first compiled this]

Austenonly [Julie Wakefield]: http://austenonly.com/ ; http://ajaneaustengazetteer.com/

Bolles Collection:  History of London.  Tufts Digital Library:  http://dl.tufts.edu/

British History Online: Survey of London:  http://www.british-history.ac.uk/place.aspx?region=1

British Library:  http://www.bl.uk/

Collage, City of London:  http://collage.cityoflondon.gov.uk/collage/app

Geograph Great Britain and Ireland. http://www.geograph.org.uk/

Georgian Index:  http://www.georgianindex.net/

Georgian London:  http://www.georgianlondon.com/

Jane Austen’s London blog (Louise Allen): http://janeaustenslondon.com/

Jane Austen’s World: http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/

JASA – Jane Austen Society of Australia.  “Jane Austen in London” Conference. March 2001.  http://www.jasa.net.au/london/index.htm [no longer available]

Lewis Walpole Library:  http://www.library.yale.edu/walpole/

London Ancestor: http://www.londonancestor.com/

London Calling [Tony Grant]: http://general-southerner.blogspot.com/

London Lives 1690-1800: http://www.londonlives.org/

London Museum: http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/

London’s Past Online:  http://www.history.ac.uk/projects/londons-past-online

Mapco:  http://mapco.net/london.htm

Mollands:  http://www.mollands.net/

Nancy Regency Researcher:  http://www.susannaives.com/nancyregencyresearcher/ [no longer available]

Old London Maps: http://www.oldlondonmaps.com/

One London One blog: http://onelondonone.blogspot.com/

Pascal Bonenfant: http://www.pascalbonenfant.com/

Regency Encyclopedia:  http://www.reg-ency.com/

The Republic of Pemberley:  http://www.pemberley.com/

Romantic London: https://www.romanticlondon.org/ [an amazing new site!]

[Compiled by Deborah Barnum. 3-24-11 (partially updated 3/2016)]

©2021, Jane Austen in Vermont
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The Pemberley Post, No. 12 (Mar 25 – Apr 14, 2019) ~ Jane Austen and More!

Just a few things of interest from the past few weeks, internet-surfing taking a back seat to Life… a few exhibitions, a bit about Bunnies, Shakespeare’s wife and her “second best bed.,” a few new books of note, the Bluestockings, a ton of reading from Women’s History month, and Jane Austen and drinking…

 

“Fans Unfolded” – an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum through January 2020: https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/calendar/whatson/fans-unfolded-conserving-lennox-boyd-collection

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You can download several projects from the Colonial Williamsburg website – here you can make your own paper carnation, based on the artificial flower making of Elizabeth Gardner Armston: https://colonialwilliamsburg.com/learn/trend-and-tradition-magazine/trend-and-tradition-downloads

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See this at the Folger’s Collation blog – “Uncancelling the Cancelled” – a fascinating look at deciphering former owner names in books…https://collation.folger.edu/2019/04/uncancelling-the-cancelled/

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10 Poems about wives at Interesting Literature: https://interestingliterature.com/2019/04/03/10-of-the-best-poems-about-wives/

Here’s my favorite, about Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway:

Anne Hathaway – maybe – wikipedia

“Anne Hathaway” – by Carol Ann Duffy

‘Item I gyve unto my wief my second best bed…’ (from Shakespeare’s will)

The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, cliff-tops, seas
where he would dive for pearls. My lover’s words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights I dreamed he’d written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer’s hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love –
I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head
as he held me upon that next best bed.

by Carol Ann Duffy – From New Selected Poems 1984-2004 (Picador, 2004). Originally published in The World’s Wife (Macmillan, 1999). http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/anne-hathaway/

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Some interesting news in the world of Calvin Coolidge: an eyewitness account to his swearing in as President in the early morning of August 3, 1923 in Plymouth, VT, this account from Coolidge’s chauffeur Joseph M. McInerney. His memoir “As I Remember” was recently acquired by the Vermont Historical Society’s Leahy Library: you can read the full document of 11 pages online here:

http://vermonthistory.org/documents/digital/McInerneyJosephMRemembers.pdf

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Margaret Atwood’s harrowing The Handmaid’s Tale has just been released as a graphic novel, illustrated by Renee Nault: https://lithub.com/read-from-the-graphic-novelization-of-the-handmaids-tale/

Handmaid’s Tale – LitHub

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From the Washington Post’s “In Sight” blog, a look at one person’s take on living in Jane Austen’s time: https://www.washingtonpost.com/photography/2019/04/05/this-photographer-hung-out-with-some-jane-austen-mega-fans-heres-what-she-saw/?utm_term=.9ba3787cfaf3

(scroll down below the comments to see the photographs)

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Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press

For Women’s History Month, the 31 daily posts on women involved in bibliography – historical printers, librarians, cataloguers, and archivists – that were posted on the twitter and facebook pages of the Women in Book History Bibliography website, are all now available on the website: “Why It Matters: Teaching Women Bibliographers” by Kate Ozment. Scroll down to read all 31 profiles – fascinating!

http://www.womensbookhistory.org/sammelband/2019/3/28/teaching-women-bibliographers

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A JSTOR essay about the Bluestockings: https://daily.jstor.org/the-bluestockings/

And more here on Richard Samuel’s painting of the “Muses in the Temple of Apollo” (1778) which depicted some of the famous Bluestockings of the time in ancient garb. https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2008/brilliant-women/celebrating-modern-muses

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Spring is here, so enjoy this from Open Culture: Bunnies gone bad, medieval-style: http://www.openculture.com/2019/03/killer-rabbits-in-medieval-manuscripts-why-so-many-drawings-in-the-margins-depict-bunnies-going-bad.html

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Bronte Sisters, by Branwell Bronte

Re: Branwell Bronte: this from Publishers Weekly: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/book-deals/article/79768-book-deals-week-of-april-15-2019.html

PW is first to report that, five days after receiving the manuscript, Atria’s Daniella Wexler preempted a debut historical novel,

Brontë’s Mistress by Finola Austin, based on the true, heretofore untold story of Lydia Robinson and her affair with Branwell Brontë. According to the publisher, “the novel gives voice to the courageous, flawed, complex woman slandered in Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë as the ‘wicked’ elder seductress who corrupted the young Brontë brother, driving him to an early grave and bringing on the downfall of the entire Brontë family.” Danielle Egan-Miller at Browne & Miller negotiated the deal for world English and audio rights.

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Austen biographer Claire Harman has a new book out: Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens’s London “the fascinating, little-known story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and Queen Victoria herself to wonder: Can a novel kill?” (how about Ulysses??)

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The American Antiquarian Society has digitized over 200 letters of Abigail Adams: http://americanantiquarian.org/abigailadams/

Abigail Adams – AAS

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And finally some items about Jane Austen:

Professor Janine Barchas has an article on the LARB Blog – her new book, The Lost Books of Jane Austen, will be out in Ocotober: http://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/marie-kondos-contributions-reception-history-jane-austen/

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A new book out which every Jane Austen book club should have!

Gin Austen: 50 Cocktails to Celebrate the Novels of Jane Austen, Colleen Mullaney shares drink recipes inspired by the novels and characters of Jane Austen. Mullaney also digs into the history of drinks that were popular during Austen’s time, like flips, juleps, toddies, shrubs and sours, and gives tips on methods to prepare them and what vessels to serve them in.

“In Austen’s 1814 novel Mansfield Park, Fanny Price outgrows her childlike timidness and becomes a modest, morally just, beautiful young woman. After enduring the rudeness of her aunt Norris, the demands of her aunt Bertram and the disdain of her cousins, she finally finds love with the dashing [?!!!] son of Sir Thomas of Mansfield Park. After all of that, who would not have need of something light and refreshing?

Host your next book club gathering with a fun drinking game and a pitcher of Fanny’s Folly, a cocktail inspired by Fanny Price.

Here’s how to play: After reading the same novel, all players should watch a movie version of the story and drink as follows:

  • A character comes galloping up or goes rushing off on horseback: 1 sip
  • A mention of marriage: 1 sip
  • A display of haughty independence: 2 sips
  • A declaration of love: 2 sips
  • A display of marriageable skills (foreign languages, playing the piano or harp, singing, dancing or embroidery): 2 sips
  • A proposal of marriage: finish your drink
  • Any player exclaims, “That’s not how it happened in the book!”: finish your drink and refill everyone else’s

From: https://parade.com/864774/solanahawkenson/host-the-best-book-club-night-with-a-jane-austen-inspired-cocktail-drinking-game/

Reprinted with permission from Gin Austen © 2019 Colleen Mullaney – You can buy it here: https://www.amazon.com/Gin-Austen-Cocktails-Celebrate-Novels/dp/1454933127

 

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A friend of mine tells me that her son-in-law is playing the Jane Austen role-playing game “Good Society” – you can too – here is the information: https://storybrewersroleplaying.com/good-society/

How come nobody looks Happy??

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And finally, break open your piggy bank for this first edition of Sense & Sensibility:

Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility anonymously issued as “By a Lady” in 1811, was her first published novel. Presented as a triple-decker in an edition of about a thousand copies, the three volumes offered are in olive drab half calf. From the Estate of Frances “Peggy” Brooks, it is a sound set, and quite scarce in a period binding (est. $30,000-40,000). At Doyle’s April 17, 2019 (tomorrow!!): https://doyle.com/auctions/19bp01-rare-books-autographs-maps/rare-books-autographs-maps

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What’s on your computer screen this week??

c2019 Jane Austen in Vermont
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The Pemberley Post, No. 8 (Feb 18-24, 2019) ~ Jane Austen and More!

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!

c2019 Jane Austen in Vermont
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The Pemberley Post, No. 6 (Feb 4-10, 2019) ~ Jane Austen and More…!

This week finds me jumping from Jane Austen’s sister-in-law Fanny Austen, to crazy bibliophiles, Rossetti’s wombats, the Coloring craze, Princess Margaret, and on to London, muons (whatever they are…), and more of course – it’s a mad world of information out there…

A new website and blog by Sheila Johnson Kindred, where she will explore Jane Austen’s naval world. Kindred is the author of Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister: The Life and Letters of Fanny Palmer Austen: https://www.sheilajohnsonkindred.com/

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This made me laugh: always great stuff on The Londonist

https://londonist.com/london/outside-london/london-paris-comparison

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The Yale Law School Library has a new exhibit on its rare bindings: https://library.law.yale.edu/news/new-exhibit-legally-binding-fine-and-historic-bindings-yale-law-library

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So, who doesn’t love a wombat?! https://publicdomainreview.org/2019/01/10/how-the-pre-raphaelites-became-obsessed-with-the-wombat/

Image: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s frontispiece, complete with wombat, for his sister Christina’s long poem Goblin Market

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A new blog on Early Modern Female Book Ownership (how nice we were allowed to have books…): https://earlymodernfemalebookownership.wordpress.com/

Frances Wolfreston

-which led me to this: https://franceswolfrestonhorbouks.com/, a blog by Sarah Lindenbaum, who is seeking to reconstruct the book collection of Frances Wolfreston (1607-1677), a gentrywoman from the English midlands with an expansive library; over 200 books have been identified thus far.

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Have you gotten caught up in the coloring book craze? Here’s some history: it’s nothing new – https://publicdomainreview.org/2019/02/06/filling-in-the-blanks-a-prehistory-of-the-adult-coloring-craze/

Image: The page from the University of Oklahoma’s colored version of Leonhart Fuchs’ De historia stirpium commentarii insignes

This is an example of how finding one interesting link leads to more and you might never get up from your desk again…

-The Folger also is into the coloring craze: Color Our Collections (was available to download Feb 4-8, 2019): https://folgerpedia.folger.edu/Color_Our_Collections?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ShakespearePlus6Feb2019&utm_content=version_A&promo=

–…which leads you to the Folgers whole collection of British Book Illustrations from the 17th century:
https://britishbookillustrations.folger.edu/?_ga=2.137070000.1247254353.1549814122-1754199278.1548275325#explore

—…which leads you to this illustration from the color week in 2017: Louis Rhead, Romeo & Juliet, for Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb—-and then back to #colorourcollections on twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23colorourcollections&src=tyah

—–and on to facebook too: https://www.facebook.com/search/str/%23colorourcollections/keywords_search?epa=SEARCH_BOX

I’m exhausted and I haven’t even begun to color yet…

Back to Jane, for a minute: A nice review of the latest Pride and Prejudice redo, Unmarriageable, set this time in Pakistan: https://writergurlny.wordpress.com/2019/02/05/unmarriageable-a-novel-book-review/

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The Museum of London has acquired an 1815 panorama of London painted by Pierre Prévost; Kelly McDonald on her Two Teens in the Time of Austen blog writes all about it: https://smithandgosling.wordpress.com/2019/02/07/jane-austens-london-1815/

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A new exhibit at the V&A on Christian Dior: https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/dior-designer-of-dreams – and https://secretldn.com/inside-va-dior-exhibition/

The exhibit includes Princess Margaret’s 21st birthday dress – read more at this Smithsonian article:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/princess-margarets-iconic-21st-birthday-dress-goes-displaystains-and-all-180971404/

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A new chamber in the Great Pyramid? If you know what a “muon” is, you might know that the use of muon technology has revealed an as yet undiscovered chamber in the Great Pyramid, where remaining treasures may lie: https://blog.oup.com/2019/02/power-mysterious-muon/

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Here’s a bit of a head-scratcher: with thanks to Tony Grant:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/transcribe-old-documents-unreadable-handwriting

The article shows a letter from Jane Austen to Cassandra that Ms. Watson has transcribed; but she states: “You can actually see how they have changed their manuscript – how Jane Austen changed Pride and Prejudice as she’s writing it… That blows my mind a bit. You see it, and you think – that’s so much better after she’s edited it than before.”

Well, I’m sorry but as far as I know there are no manuscripts of Pride and Prejudice, or any of the other 5 novels other than the cancelled chapters of Persuasion – so this is very interesting if she has been transcribing a P&P manuscript??

      An 1800 letter from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra

You can see and read all of Austen’s actual fiction manuscripts here: https://janeausten.ac.uk/index.html

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And finally, for your reading pleasure – I love finding something rather obscure: https://www.victoriansecrets.co.uk/book/dorotheas-daughter-and-other-nineteenth-century-postscripts/

“Dorothea’s Daughter is a stunning new collection of short stories based on novels by Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. They are postscripts, rather than sequels, entering into dialogues with the original narratives by developing suggestions in the text. The authors’ conclusions are respected, with no changes made to the plot; instead, Barbara Hardy draws out loose threads in the original fabric to weave new material, imagining moments in the characters’ future lives.”

The stories are:

  • Twilight in Mansfield Parsonage (Mansfield Park by Jane Austen)
  • Mrs Knightley’s Invitation (Emma by Jane Austen)
  • Adèle Varens (Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë)
  • Lucy Snowe and Paulina Bretton: the Conversation of Women (Villette by Charlotte Brontë)
  • Edith Dombey and Son (Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens)
  • Harriet Beadle’s Message (Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens)
  • Lucy Deane (The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot)
  • Dorothea’s Daughter (Middlemarch by George Eliot)
  • ’Liza-Lu Durbeyfield (Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy)

Has anyone read this? It was first published in 2011. I’ve just ordered it and will let you know my thoughts…

Thanks for visiting… and Happy Reading…

ps: just a note as to why I leave in the full url of each link: if an imbedded link goes bad or far off into cyberspace, it is easier to find it if you have the details in the url – it doesn’t look as pretty, sorry to say, but more helpful in the end..

C2019 Jane Austen in Vermont
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The Pemberley Post, No. 5 (Jan 28-Feb 3, 2019) ~ Jane Austen and More!

The Week of January 28 – Feb 3, 2019: all manner of things from Rembrandt, Vauxhall Gardens, drinking in London, to Thomas Jefferson’s books, Suffragettes, and Jane Austen, of course…

The Londonist shares London’s weird drinking traditions: http://londonist.com/london/drink/london-s-weirdest-drinking-traditions?rel=handpicked

Twelfth Night: A blend of ancient midwinter customs and contemporary festivity occurs each January on Bankside. Things kick off outside Shakespeare’s Globe with the Holly Man — the winter guise of the Green Man spotted across the nation’s pubs. He’s decked out in wonderful foliage and accompanied by the devil Beelzebub and other eccentrically-dressed associates who join together to Wassail (or toast) the people.

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Feel like brushing up on your Shakespeare this winter? Find an online course here: http://www.openculture.com/2014/04/free-online-shakespeare-courses.html

A little known fact: I LOVED Superman as a kid – spend my weekly allowance at the down-the-street soda fountain to get the latest issue (so sad I didn’t keep them) – some original movie posters will appear in a Sothebys online auction in March, superheroes included, including my favorite: http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2019/posters-sale-l19900.html?locale=en

A nice plug for the Juvenilia Press:
https://trevorcairney.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-early-work-of-great-writers.html

The BBC’s ICONS – “Exploring the achievements of the greatest figures of the 20th century. The public vote for their favourites, ultimately deciding who is the greatest icon of them all.” – you can read about it and see the results as voted by the public here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0by86tp

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One of my best memories of touring through Europe as a college student (MANY years ago) was seeing Rembrandt’s The Night Watch at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam – I knew the painting from the required art history class, but was still awed by its size. Two years ago I saw it again and reverted to those long ago days of awe – you can now see it and understand it as never before in this interactive documentary that analyzes the painting: https://nightwatchexperience.com/en/thema/geheimen

[With thanks to Tony Grant for this] – More on the ebay-found album of Austen’s Irish relatives – many pictures here – the owner and now the journal reside in Jerusalem: https://www.timesofisrael.com/jerusalem-womans-victorian-photo-album-is-surprise-historical-jane-austen-find/

Image: Wedding at Chawton House, England in 1865 of Elizabeth Knight (great-niece of Jane Austen to Capt. Edward Bradford, who lost his arm in a tiger attack and later became the head of the Metropolitan police. (Renee Ghert-Zand/TOI, © Karen Ievers)

Tony has posted about the letters on his blog London Calling (with the album owner commenting): http://general-southerner.blogspot.com/2019/01/jane-austen-family-photograph-album.html#comment-form

You should be registering for the Jane Austen Summer Program at Chapel Hill, NC – “Pride and Prejudice & its Afterlives”- Thursday-Sunday, June 20-23, 2019 – look here for the schedule: https://janeaustensummer.org/about/

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Clerkenwell workhouse – wikipedia

All Things Georgian relates a tale that would make a riveting historical fiction read: ‘A mysterious stranger in Regency Clerkenwell’ – https://georgianera.wordpress.com/2019/01/29/who-was-she-a-mysterious-stranger-in-regency-clerkenwell/

Vauxhall Gardens

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An informative look at Vauxhall Gardens in the Regency Period: https://www.regencyhistory.net/2019/01/vauxhall-gardens-in-regency.html

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See the Museum of London exhibitions on Votes for Women before they close: https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london/whats-on/votes-women-museum-london?series=Votes%20for%20Women

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Faith sites to visit in Austen’s England: https://brendascox.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/jane-austen-travel-faith-sites-in-austens-england/

Heckfield Place – a new luxury getaway in Hampshire, northeast of Basingstoke: https://www.heckfieldplace.com/ – see here for a review: http://bonvivant.co.uk/journal/heckfield-place/ – The room I like best is £2000 / nite…

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For hours of viewing pleasure – Thomas Jefferson’s Library at the Library of Congress:
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/thomas-jeffersons-library/index.html

A book in Jefferson’s library: The Uncertainly of the Signs of Death… “Because of this book, fear of being buried alive became widespread in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, though modern scholars believe it rarely happened.” Good to know…

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Embroidery/Spot motif sampler. Unidentified Maker. circa 1620.

Samplers from the Fitzwilliam Museum: https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/sampledlives

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Well, this is just plain fascinating – a Victorian literary gentleman, William Sharp, “a Scottish poet, novelist, biographer and editor who in 1893 began to write critically and commercially successful books under the name “Fiona Macleod.” He also corresponded with “her” and you can read these letters here, thanks to OpenBookPublishers [the pdf download is free]: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product.php/793?793

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Pick your favorite from these terrific images of “Fat Cats in the City [London], 1824” at Spitalfields Life: http://spitalfieldslife.com/2019/02/01/fat-cats-in-the-city-1824/

Abebooks most expensive books sold in 2018: https://www.abebooks.com/collectibles/most-expensive-sales/2018/?cm_sp=home-_-tile_2_12_cta-_-2018mostexp

  • Alas, no Austen, but a Hemingway, Dickens, L. M. Montgomery, Narnia, and Mickey Mouse…

And to top this all off – a new Austen youtube “Jane Austen – Sarcasm and Subversion – Extra History”:

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A very short reading list: Books I am reading / have just finished:

David McCullough’s The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris – fabulous, impressive, extraordinary lives.

The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock, by Imogen Hermes Gowar – interesting, and a great setting in 1780s London, which I can never get enough of – Reminded me of The Essex Serpent – would like to discuss with someone…

The great biographer Claire Tomalin’s own biography: A Life of My Own – loved this book, love all her biographies

Vanity Fair, by the wordy Thackeray – for a Jane Austen book group – I confess to never having read it, though Becky Sharp is part of anyone’s knowledge if interested in Heroines (good and bad ones)

Duke by Default (Reluctant Royals) by Alyssa Cole – I read this because it was on many lists of best books of 2018 – I don’t know why – someone explain this to me…

and finally, The Blue, by Nancy Bilyeau (I’m reading this because I am also reading the South Carolina based The Indigo Girl, by Natasha Boyd – in my humble opinion, one cannot get enough of the color blue…)

 

c2019, Jane Austen in Vermont

 

 

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The Pemberley Post No. 4 (Jan 21-27, 2019) ~ Jane Austen and More!

This week’s stash…

“Becoming Americans” at Charleston Museum tells the story of Charleston’s role in the American Revolution – including several artifacts of Francis Marion, “The Swamp Fox”: https://www.charlestonmuseum.org/exhibits/permanent/3/becoming-americans

– Also the temporary fashion exhibit on 150 years of Charleston’s children fashions… https://www.charlestonmuseum.org/exhibits/current/40/yesterday-in-microfashion

For all you lovers of mysteries with lady sleuths: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/secret-history-girl-detective-180958311/

The ever-interesting Ladies of Llangollen – as essay at the Wellcome Collection: https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/WqewRSUAAB8sVaKN (with thanks to Kelly!)

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I LOVED Beowulf when studying medieval literature in graduate school – time for a re-read (I still have my copy!), inspired by this: https://medievalfleming.wordpress.com/2017/11/14/ethel-sweet-ethel-weard-the-first-scribe-of-the-beowulf-manuscript/

  • This totally depressed me: the author of the essay writes: “I recently realized that ethel / ᛟ, the word and rune, have been appropriated by white supremacists and neo-nazis.”
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The Rice Portrait of “Jane Austen” is back in the news with more concrete evidence that it IS our Jane: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/23/jane-austen-family-say-note-establishes-disputed-portraits-identity?fbclid=IwAR2xPLDjX280sOpAtlKK_NOOr2MARgV8TiY0dl4bc4Um45OlSsmH8JRSPFg

The perfect winter repast – the Folger on an early recipe for hot chocolate: https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2019/01/15/the-american-nectar-william-hughess-hot-chocolate/

Always a good idea to check your attic: any Caravaggios? https://www.barnebys.com/blog/design/rediscovered-caravaggio-to-be-auctioned-this-spring/17550

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The Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature (at the University of Florida) – over 6,000 titles available online! http://ufdc.ufl.edu/juv

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Alexander Hamilton’s doctor and America’s first Botanic Garden: https://publicdomainreview.org/2019/01/24/flower-power-hamiltons-doctor-and-the-healing-power-of-nature/

Know what a “calenderer” did? No, I didn’t either – now you will: https://georgianera.wordpress.com/2019/01/24/find-out-more-about-the-job-of-a-calenderer-in-the-18th-century/

“Nell Gwynn” at the Folger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfrjRSpR0XU&t=16s

…and a review at The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/theater-dance/jessica-swales-historical-comedy-aims-to-restore-nell-gwynns-luster/2019/01/23/0a934558-1d9e-11e9-8e21-59a09ff1e2a1_story.html

Vic at Jane Austen’s World on the benefits of chamomile tea: https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2019/01/25/chamomile-tea-a-tisane/

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Design for GPO telephone kiosk number 2: plan, elevations and section

Sir John Soane and the iconic British telephone box:
https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/the-tomb-and-the-telephone-box-soanes-mausoleum-1816/

Jane Austen’s contemporary Marie Edgeworth – all but forgotten, and that’s too bad…: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/maria-edgeworth-was-a-great-literary-celeb-why-has-been-forgotten-1.3760188

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My new favorite how-to-waste-hours-of-your-life website: http://www.romanticlondon.org/

What has been your favorite find this past week?

c2019, Jane Austen in Vermont
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The Pemberley Post, No. 2 (Jan 8-14, 2019) ~ Jane Austen and More!

My round-up of the past week – so much of interest, from Dolley Madison to Vermont’s State House to Mike Myers!

Celebrating Rembrandt: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/the-year-of-rembrandt?&utm_campaign=uitnodiging&utm_medium=email&utm_source=20190107_Cultuurtoerist_ENG_jan

Jane Austen’s moving poem on the death of her friend Madam [Anne] Lefroy: https://interestingliterature.com/2019/01/07/to-the-memory-of-mrs-lefroy-who-died-decr-16-my-birthday-a-poem-by-jane-austen/

A Jane Austen £10 note on ebay – for £49! (others available also at various prices)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LUCKY-10-NOTE-JANE-AUSTEN-TEN-POUND-BIRTHDAY-ANNIVERSARY-31-08-61-AUGUST-1961/323639434583?hash=item4b5a69dd57:g:eiwAAOSwGW9apceW:rk:11:pf:0

“How Dolley Madison Conquered the Nation’s Capital (with great images): https://www.montpelier.org/learn/dolley-madison-becoming-americas-first-lady

Mrs. Madison’s drawing room [image: Montpelier]

 

Another First Lady – Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming is the highest selling print book of 2018, and it was just released in mid-November! https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/78941-becoming-is-top-selling-title-in-2018.html

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The Broom Brigade (there were several in Vermont – who knew??): https://www.revolvy.com/page/Broom-brigade%20/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broom_brigade

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More Vermont: the Ceres statue stop the State House in Montpelier:

Ceres statue [image: ‘Vermont Woman’]

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London’s Gentlemen’s Clubs: https://londonist.com/london/drink/the-curious-world-of-london-s-gentlemen-s-clubs

Image: Image: The Gaming House, A Rake’s Progress by William Hogarth. An early depiction of White’s which was at this time a notorious gambling den [Londonist]

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A Guardian review of one of 2018’s best books – also has the hero immersed in Emma (how many real men are out there immersed in Emma I wonder…): https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/08/normal-people-sally-rooney-novel-literary-phenomenon-of-decade

A rare Monet to be auctioned for the first time! (with an estimate of $25-$35 million) – https://www.barnebys.com/blog/art/a-rare-claude-monet-landscape-goes-to-auction/17395/

A terrific book at Open Access on Victorian newspapers and periodicals: A Fleet Street in Every Town: The Provincial Press in England, 1855-1900, by Andrew Hobbs – https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/835 [the pdf is a free download, all 470 pages!] – Hobbs has also set up a twitter account where he will post diary excerpts daily: https://twitter.com/HewitsonDiaries

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Birds of America – one of the world’s rarest books by the 19thc American artist and ornithologist John James Audubon has gone on display at Liverpool Central Library, with a “Mission Impossible”-like scenario to get it there! https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-merseyside-46820378/rare-audubon-bird-book-displayed-at-liverpool-library

The Frankenstein exhibit at the Morgan Library ends January 27, 2019: https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/frankenstein

Also at the Morgan online: two of Humphry Repton’s redbooks are available for your viewing pleasure: https://www.themorgan.org/collection/Humphry-Reptons-Red-Books

Repton Redbook [image: Morgan]

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Who knew? During a pre-Golden Globes auction, Mike Myers matched a £40,000 bid to split the prize of staying at Heckfield Place in Hampshire to get the ‘Jane Austen’ experience.’ See https://www.heckfieldplace.com/ – the story is here: https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/8174350/man-utd-julia-roberts-qatar-world-cup-tickets/

January 13, 2019 7pm on PBS “I Hate Jane Austen,” with British columnist Giles Coren: http://www.gpb.org/blogs/mygpb/2019/01/11/whats-new-next-week-january-11-2019 [I’ve taped this but haven’t watched it yet – if you have, tell me what you think…]

The all-over-the-press account of the Austen family photos found in an album on ebay: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6580879/Extraordinary-photos-Jane-Austens-family-discovered.html

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Edward Hicks, Peaceable Kingdon [image: Wikipedia]

Edward Hicks’ “Peaceable Kingdom” paintings at Christie’s: https://www.christies.com/features/Edward-Hicks-The-Peaceable-Kingdom-9632-3.aspx?sc_lang=en&cid=EM_EMLcontent04144A60D_1&cid=DM265864&bid=162201602

A collection of the wacky and weird, long before P. T. Barnum – Kirby’s Eccentric Museum, with thanks to The Gentle Author at “Spitalfields Life” (excellent images – one weirder than the next…): http://spitalfieldslife.com/2019/01/12/kirbys-eccentric-museum/

The beginnings of Bibliotourism: put your Library on here! https://libraryplanet.net/

A Slave Bible [heavily edited] on view at the Museum of the Bible: https://museumofthebible.org/exhibits/slave-bible

Slave Bible – Smithsonian

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And again from “Spitalfields Life” – Christopher Wren’s model of St. Paul’s Cathedral – awesome pictures! I had no idea this was there! http://spitalfieldslife.com/2019/01/13/inside-the-model-of-st-pauls-x/

Literary penguins! (Guess which Austen Hero gets his own penguin…): https://maryland.ourcommunitynow.com/baltimore/maryland-zoo-names-baby-penguins-after-literary-characters/

Nineteenth-Century Gender Studies 14.2 (Fall 2018) is now online: http://www.ncgsjournal.com/issue142/issue142.htm

I have long collected Robert Sabuda’s delightful pop-up books [ http://robertsabuda.com/ ]– but here’s a new entry into the Pop-Up world – by Lego! https://shop.lego.com/en-US/product/Pop-Up-Book-21315

Happy Reading!

2019, Jane Austen in Vermont
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Guest Post: Into the Shadowy World of “Regency Spies” ~ Sue Wilkes on The Cato Street Controversy

Join us today for a guest post by Sue Wilkes, as she shares one of her spy tales from her new book Regency Spies: Secret Histories of Britain’s Rebels & Revolutionaries (more information on the book below).

reg spies highrescover1

The Cato Street Conspiracy, 1820

The year 1820 began with grave news – the death of George III on 29 January, after years of illness. The King was buried a week later with great pomp and ceremony on 16 February. But his son George IV’s reign did not get off to a good start. A week later, news broke to an astounded British public of the arrest of ‘a gang of diabolical ruffians’ at Cato Street, in London. The conspirators, led by the ‘notorious’ Arthur Thistlewood, planned to kill members of the Cabinet (government ministers) while they dined at Earl Harrowby’s house in Mansfield Street (Gentleman’s Magazine, February 1820).

Arthur Thistlewood

This was no chance discovery, however. Thistlewood and his gang were well known to the authorities – the government’s spies had kept them under surveillance for years. Arthur Thistlewood, a brooding, dangerous man known to be deadly with a sword, led a group of revolutionaries called the ‘Spencean Philanthropists’.

The Spenceans were followers of the late Thomas Spence, who advocated the common ownership of all land – a truly anarchic idea in an unequal society rooted in land, wealth and property. Thistlewood first came to prominence in the Spa Fields riot of December 1816 in London. The riot was thought to be a ‘trial run’ by the Spenceans to see if they could get enough popular support to attack the Tower of London, Bank of England, and seize the city. Thistlewood and his friends were arrested and tried for treason the following year, but acquitted as most of the evidence against them was based on unreliable spy evidence.

After his release from prison, Thistlewood and his followers were constantly watched. In 1817 a spy called Shegoe reported, ‘They entertain the plan of assassination, and Lords Castlereagh, Sidmouth, Liverpool and Ellenborough have been marked as objects of their pursuit’. Some conspirators guessed that Shegoe was a spy, however, and his usefulness declined.

A new spy, George Edwards (code-name ‘W—r’ in the surveillance reports) infiltrated the gang and actively encouraged their plans. Edwards also recruited more conspirators: one of the people he ‘groomed’ was John Thomas Brunt, a shoe-maker. Another was Richard Tidd, who came from Thistlewood’s native Lincolnshire, and met Edwards through Brunt. Edwards’ actions and words were so ludicrously violent that several men he approached sent him packing, convinced that he was trying to entrap them.

Early in 1820, Edwards brought Thistlewood the news he had been waiting for: a Cabinet dinner was planned at Lord Harrowby’s house. Thistlewood and his gang rented a loft in Cato Street. They arranged to meet on Tuesday 22 February, bringing as many weapons as they could lay their hands on. But thanks to Edwards, the time and place for the planned assassination were already known to the police and Home Office. Everything was now set to nip the conspiracy in the bud.

Cato St execution - Newgate

On Monday 1 May 1820, Arthur Thistlewood, James Ings, John Thomas Brunt, Richard Tidd and William Davidson were executed guilty for high treason at Newgate. But was it really Thistlewood’s idea to kill the Cabinet – or was it the spy George Edwards’s plan, as Arthur claimed at his trial?

cato st gentmag may1820 exec1

An account of the death sentence passed by the judge, and the conspirators’ execution,
from the Gentleman’s Magazine, May 1820. (Author’s collection).

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About the book: [from the jacket]

reg spies highrescover1In her new book, Sue Wilkes reveals the shadowy world of Britain’s spies, rebels and secret societies from the late 1780s until 1820. Drawing on contemporary literature and official records, Wilkes unmasks the real conspirators and tells the tragic stories of the unwitting victims sent to the gallows.

In this ‘age of Revolutions’, when the French fought for liberty, Britain’s upper classes feared revolution was imminent. Thomas Paine’s incendiary Rights of Man called men to overthrow governments which did not safeguard their rights. Were Jacobins and Radical reformers in England and Scotland secretly plotting rebellion? Ireland, too, was a seething cauldron of unrest, its impoverished people oppressed by their Protestant masters.

Britain’s governing elite could not rely on the armed services – even Royal Navy crews mutinied over brutal conditions. To keep the nation safe, a ‘war chest’ of secret service money funded a network of spies to uncover potential rebels amongst the underprivileged masses. It had some famous successes: dashing Colonel Despard, friend of Lord Nelson, was executed for treason. Sometimes in the deadly game of cat-and-mouse between spies and their prey suspicion fell on the wrong men, like poets Wordsworth and Coleridge.

Even peaceful reformers risked arrest for sedition. Political meetings like Manchester’s ‘Peterloo’ were ruthlessly suppressed, and innocent blood spilt. Repression bred resentment – and a diabolical plot was born. The stakes were incredibly high: rebels suffered the horrors of a traitor’s death when found guilty. Some conspirators’ secrets died with them on the scaffold…

Sue Wilkes4About the author:

Sue Wilkes is the author of several works of social and family history: Regency Spies (Pen & Sword, 2016) and A Visitor’s Guide to Jane Austen’s England (Pen & Sword, 2014), Regency Cheshire (Robert Hale, 2011), The Children History Forgot (Robert Hale, 2010), Narrow Windows, Narrow Lives (Tempus, 2007), as well as guides for family historians on tracing ancestors in various UK counties and towns.

Read her blogs at:

Book info:

Publisher: Pen and Sword (February 19, 2016)
ISBN-10: 1783400617 / ISBN-13: 978-1783400614
Price: $39.95 / £19.99
Pen & Sword: http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Regency-Spies-Hardback/p/11177
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Regency-Spies-Histories-Britains-Revolutionaries/dp/1783400617

Read another post by Sue here: Regency Explorer

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Thank you Sue for telling us about one your tales! This book is filled with such – I will be interviewing Sue in the coming weeks, so please return to learn more about this world of spies in Jane Austen’s time … my first question? Whatever would our dear Henry Tilney have to say about it all?!

NA-Brock-staircase-mollandsDear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?”
[NA, Vol. II, Ch ix. Image: Mollands.net]

Image sources:

All four images from George Theodore Wilkinson, The Newgate Calendar Improved Vol. 5, (Thomas Kelly, 1836). Courtesy the Internet Archive, archive.org.

c2016, Jane Austen in Vermont
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Guest Post ~ “Encountering Jane Austen…”

Governors house

My friend Suzanne is the Innkeeper at the Governor’s House in Hyde Park, Vermont, where she four times a year holds Jane Austen Weekends for those of us who like to retreat into the early 19th century for a few days. She also offers an annual In-Character Weekend, where all manner of various Austen characters people the Inn and where one must remain in character for the whole time or risk being evicted… it is all in good fun, what with archery, and fencing, and quill-making and dancing and efforts to make bonnets and turbans , one easily forgets the call of the internet or the chatter of cell phones, and as long as a resident Lady Catherine or Mr. Collins, or a grave General Tilney do not ruin the festivities, one can really get quite lost in it all. One such weekend is coming up August 7-9, 2015 and you can read all about it here: Governor’s House-JA weekends.

But I write here today about Suzanne’s and my Love of London, discovered several years ago, and about which we have yet to stop talking… We have been there together, and alas! separately, and as she was in the UK this spring without me (I am struggling to forgive her…), I here offer a post that Suzanne wrote on her Innkeeper’s blog a few weeks ago about her latest trip and the rather alarming number of encounters she had with Jane Austen! – here is the first paragraph with a link to the rest of the post … a perfect trip for armchair travelers!

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Encountering Jane Austen

After a tough Vermont winter and a serious bout of flu what form of R and R would be good before getting back to the 24/7 business of running a small inn? As is so often the case, a little Jane Austen seemed like a good plan. I’d been noticing how amazingly often JA is mentioned in whatever I’m reading, from Mr. Churchill’s Secretary to a serious article in the Economist just last week. So I wondered how many encounters there might be as I did some walking in her part of England and decided to chronicle my adventures. And all I can say now is that it is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen truly is everywhere!

Day 1

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Arriving in London after an overnight flight, I immediately set out for a walk. First stop was Hatchard’s, England’s oldest bookshop founded in 1797. JA’s writings were well represented and it’s always a great place to look for guides to Regency London and places with literary ties, but the appeal for me is the list of authors who were also customers. Next stop was the National Portrait Gallery for “Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends”, John Singer Sargent’s striking portraits of Monet, Rodin, Robert Louis Stevenson and others, but certainly not JA who’d lived a century earlier. But returning the long way down from the third floor ladies, I came to this wall of JA’s contemporaries surrounding the tiny portrait of her we know so well.

Day 2… Continue reading at Suzanne’s blog here: http://www.onehundredmain.com/encountering-jane-austen/

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You can read more about the In Character Jane Austen Weekend for August 7-9, 2015 here: http://www.onehundredmain.com/events/jane-austen-weekends/ – it is not too late to sign up to give the performance of your life, Mr. Collins anyone?? and all you closet Mrs. Allens (dare I say Mrs. Norris??) can come and rave about your fashions to your heart’s content…

Showing off the Regency style turbans they made that afternoon in Hope Greenberg’s workshop

Showing off the Regency style turbans they made that afternoon in Hope Greenberg’s workshop

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On another note of interest to members of JASNA-Vermont – Suzanne is hosting us at the Governor’s House for an Afternoon Tea on July 26, 2015, from 2-4, where we will hear my good friend Ingrid Graff speak on “A Home of Her Own: Space and Synthesis in Sense and Sensibility.” As a member of JASNA, Suzanne is offering us this Tea at minimal cost to us, $8. / per person – reservations are required, so please email or call – invitations are being emailed later today to all on our JASNA-Vermont mailing list. Hope to see many of you there!

[Images courtesy of Suzanne B. from her Governor’s House website]

c2015 Jane Austen in Vermont
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Museum Musings: London During the American Revolution – Exhibit at The Society of the Cincinnati

The Society of the Cincinnati, at its headquarters at Anderson House in Washington DC, currently has on exhibit  “Homeland Defense: Protecting Britain during the American War” – you can view the online exhibit to see a collection of prints and cartoons that depict the various camps, soldiers, the visits of the fashionable, and other items that reflect Britain’s concern with possible invasion. We must believe that Jane Austen had some of this history in mind when she was writing Pride and Prejudice, with her soldiers, and the mad for red coats frenzy of the younger Bennet girls – and Mrs. Bennet for that matter!

“My dear Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of their father and mother. When they get to our age I dare say they will not think about officers any more than we do. I remember the time when I liked a red coat myself very well — and, indeed, so I do still at my heart; and if a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a year, should want one of my girls, I shall not say nay to him; and I thought Colonel Forster looked very becoming the other night at Sir William’s in his regimentals.” (P&P, vol. I, ch. 7)

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Mr Wickham, by Robert Ball, Pride and Prejudice (Doubleday, 1945)

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If you can get to Anderson House in DC, all the better (the exhibit runs October 3, 2014 — March 14, 2015), but visit the online exhibit here if you cannot… http://www.societyofthecincinnati.org/exhibit/current

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Isaak Jenher. ‘Plan of the Camp at Cox-Heath 1779’ [in Kent] (London, 1779)
[image: Cincinnati Fourteen, Fall 2014, Journal of The Society of the Cincinnati, vol. 51, no. 1.]

By the beginning of 1778, British hopes of an easy victory over the American rebels had vanished. The British army had seized New York City and Philadelphia, but American resistance had proven far more tenacious than anyone in Britain had expected. The costs of prosecuting the war were mounting. Shipping losses were increasing. Parliamentary opposition to the war was growing. The defeat at Saratoga had destroyed British confidence that the colonies could be conquered. Even Lord North, the prime minister, had lost hope of total victory in what he called “this damned war.”

Then in February, France completed an alliance with the rebels. For the first time in a generation, Britain faced the threat of invasion. With most of the regular army in North America, the ministry recruited militia “for the internal defence of this Country.” The army established special camps in southeastern England to train the militia along with regular soldiers, to protect the coastline, and to provide for the defense of London. A distant and increasingly unpopular war suddenly reached the British homeland.

Contemporary novels and plays about military themes, new songs and poems celebrating British strength, and popular prints depicting the camps reflected public anxiety about the threat of invasion. They also reflected contemporary British opinion about the army at a moment when failure in America exposed it to satire and ridicule. The camps had a wide–ranging influence on popular culture. Fashionable ladies, for whom visiting the camps was a part of the social whirl, sported riding habits modeled on regimental uniforms. Cartoonists, meanwhile, took delight in poking fun at preparations for a foreign invasion that never came.

[quoted from the website]

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John Collet. ‘An Officer in the Light Infantry, Driven by his Lady to Cox-Heath’ (London, 1778)
[image: Lewis Walpole Library]

 c2014 Jane Austen in Vermont