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Monthly Archives: March 2012

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth Barrett!

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March 6 marks the birthday of one of my favorite poets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning! (in 1806, so she would be, er, 206…). It also seems appropriate for a romance writers blog, since she and Robert Browning had one of the great romances in literary history…

Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett was born at Coxhoe Hall in County Durham, England, the eldest of the 12 children of Edward and Mary Barrett Moulton-Barrett (it seems like a good idea for her to just go by one of those Barretts…). The family’s fortune originated with family plantations in Jamaica, and were later reduced by a lawsuit and by the abolition of slavery in the UK. In 1809, after the birth of Elizabeth’s sister Henrietta, Edward bought Hope End in Herefordshire, and ideal place for raising a family. Elizabeth was educated at home, attending lessons with her brother’s tutor which gave her a firm foundation in languages and literature. By age 10, it was said she could recite Paradise Lost and various Shakespeare plays; her first poem was written at age 8, and by 12 she had written an “epic” poem of 4 books of rhyming couplets. At 14, her father paid for the publication of her Homeric-style poem The Battle of Marathon. During this time she was known as “a shy, intensely studious, precocious child, yet cheerful, affectionate, and lovable.” Her friend Mary Russell Mitford described her as “A slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most expressive face; large, tender eyes, richly fringed by dark eyelashes, and a smile like a sunbeam.”

But by the age of 20, Elizabeth was felled by a mysterious illness, made worse by her use of morphine for the pain. In 1824, the London paper The Globe and Traveler printed her poem Stanzas on the Death of Lord Byron, around the same time her father’s Jamaica property began to go downhill. In 1826, she published her first collection of poems, but by 1830 Hope End had to be sold and the family moved 3 times between 1832 and 1837 (first to Sidmouth in Devonshire, where they lived for 3 years, then to Gloucester Place in London, where she wrote more poems and articles). Finally they settled at 50 Wimpole Street, where a family friend, John Kenyon, introduced Elizabeth to the literary luminaries of the day, including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tennyson, Carlyle, and Mary Russell Mitford (who became her good friend, and helped her to publish more of her work).

In 1838, at her doctor’s advice, Elizabeth went to live for a time at Torquay along with her brother Edward. His death by drowning there in 1840 sent her into a terrible downward spiral, and she returned to Wimpole Street as an invalid and recluse, kept company mostly by her beloved spaniel Flush. She kept writing, though, and in 1844 two volumes were published, A Drama of Exile, a Vision of Poets and Lady Geraldine’s Courtship. These volumes made her one of the most popular writers of the time and inspired Robert Browning to write her a fan letter. Kenyon arranged for them to meet in May 1845, and thus began the most famous courtship in literary history.

She was six years his elder and an invalid, and it took some time for Robert to persuade her that his love was real. Her doubts were expressed beautifully in her most famous volume, Sonnets From the Portugese, which she wrote over the next several months. They finally eloped to the church of St. Marylebone and then ran off to Florence, with Elizabeth disinherited by her father (who did the same to all his children who dared marry!). But she had some money of her own, and they sold their poems for a comfortable life and happy marriage in Italy. Her health improved in the sunny weather, and in 1849, at age 43, she gave birth to their son Robert, always called Pen. Her writing went well, too. In 1850, on the death of Wordsworth, she was shortlisted for the position of poet laureate, but it went to Tennyson.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning died on June 29, 1861 and was buried at the English Cemetery in Florence.

A few great sources on her life are:
Life of Elizabeth Browning, Glenn Everett (2002)
Dared and Done: The Marriage of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, Julia Markus (1995)
Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning: A Creative Partnership, Mary Sanders Pollock (2003)

Who are some of your favorite poets?? What are some romantic couples in history you like to read about?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Posted in Former Riskies, Reading, Regency, Research | Tagged , | 4 Replies

Domestic Matters

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TGIF, everyone! No, it’s not Elena today, it’s me, Amanda, popping in as a substitute (I was a bit catatonic on Tuesday after a deadline…)

Even though I’ve been in my writing hole a lot lately, I have managed to get out and enjoy the early spring weather (I’ve been wearing shorts! In March!) and also reading. One book I picked up is Lucy Worsley’s tremendously fun If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home. (Worsley is the chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces, a job of which I am deeply, deeply envious). As a fan of historical domestic trivia, I gobbled it up, and I’m hoping the series that goes along with it comes out on DVD in the US soon). It’s similar to Bill Bryson’s equally fascinating At Home, but a little more fun and anecdotal. It follows the progression of 4 main living areas–bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchen–from medieval times onward. (just a quick note–while there are lots of fun facts as well as wonderful illustrations and lists of references, this is mostly “upper and middle class” life, not a comprehensive look at all classes…)

A few fun facts I gathered:

–It was 1826 when coiled metal springs replaced the old rope bed cords that had to be tightened often (and cotton replaced itchy wool as mattress covers). And did you know it took over 50 pounds of feathers for a feather mattress??

–Men’s underwear (drawers) began to appear regularly in the 17th century (William III was very fond of garish colors like red and green!), while women’s fashions “simply precluded wearing knickers. So ladies went commando and squatted over a chamber pot when required.” Regency fashions, with thinner fabrics and slimmer silhouettes, required drawers, but they were still Not Talked About. Here’s an account of what happened when, on a walk with friends, the Duchess of Manchester went keester over teakettle over a fence in 1859: “The other ladies hardly knew whether to be thankful or not that a part of her underclothing consisted in a pair of scarelt tartan knickerbockers which were revealed to the view of the world in general”

–In Tudor times, a medicinal remedy for a frigid wife was to run “the grease of a goat” on her ladyparts. This seemed to help–though probably not for the reasons they thought (that a goat was lusty, therefore this would transfer the goat’s characteristic to the people). Enemas for constipation were administered via a pig’s bladder attached to a tube–one night Henry VIII used this remedy and it was reported he gave his velvet-covered toilet “a very fair siege.”

–In medieval times people actually bathed quite frequently, washing hands and faces frequently and taking soaking baths with various herbs (bathhouses became quite popular when knights brought the Middle Eastern custom back from the Crusades). But the “dirty centuries” began about 1550 and lasted to about 1750, “during which washing oneself all over was considered …to be weird, sexually arousing, or dangerous.” Also, to get stains out of linen, a great bleach was urine…

That’s just a small touch of what can be found in this book! There is stuff about dentistry, makeup, toilets/sewers/toilet paper (“stool ducketts” were squares of linens used in Renaissance bathrooms), cluttered living rooms, heat and light sources, food and drink (the once-rare luxury of tea; the constant state of at least mild drunkeness in the Middle Ages), and so much more. It’s such a fun book.
What have all of you been reading while I’ve been buried here at home???

Posted in Former Riskies, Research | Tagged | 8 Replies

Tuesday Deadline Deadlock

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So this week I am on a very tight deadline. Basically, I have been trying to write a book in about a month–after writing a book in about two months. Over Christmas. This I do not recommend, but it is one way of making sure things get done. 🙂 This week I’m trying to get as much done as I can toward the March 27th deadline so I can take Saturday off for St. Patrick’s Day, so there is no room left in my head for blogposts. I have NO idea what to talk about.

But my friend Kathy Wheeler has a great blog post up about managing time, and making time for things that are important to us. So I’m borrowing a topic from her and telling you what I’ve been doing lately…

1) Writing (obv), while not taking breaks to eat Peanut Butter Eggs (the joys of deadline+Easter candy time) and watch Dr. Oz in order to freak about about new germy things I never thought about before

2) Thinking about washing some of the laundry that has mysteriously spread out from the laundry room onto the kitchen floor, but it will probably have to wait until I turn in the book. By then it will have taken over the living room too, and swallowed up the cats

3) I did make time to go to yoga class. When I skip it (which I’m always tempted to do) I get all twisted up into the shape of my desk chair, and then there is also the matter of the Peanut Butter Eggs, so exercise is always a must. I don’t want to finish the book, only to find that my favorite “going out and celebrating” dress no longer fits…

4) Almost setting fire to my kitchen. Unlike Kathy, who managed to get the gas stove under control, I tried to broil a steak in the oven and heard a strange crackling noise. When I opened the door, you guessed it, flames shot out. Luckily I put it out quickly, but the house smelled for days afterward, the dogs have only quit giving me scared looks, and I realized everyone is happier (and safer) when I just get Thai takeout. Yay for shrimp pad thai and chardonnay!

And the pic–well, that will probably be me, giving in to exhaustion when I hit “send” on the WIP!

What have you been doing this week?? What are some of your time-management tips?

Posted in Former Riskies, Writing | Tagged , | 4 Replies

The Alpha and The Zed

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I have this book, Brooke’s Gazeteer. The longer title is The General Gazetteer, or Compendious Geographical Dictionary containing [blah blah blah] the Known World with the [blah de blah de blah] Illustrated by 8 maps. Originally written by R. Brookes, M.D. 13th edition. 1807.

The great thing is that all 8 maps are intact.

Here is the very first entry:

Aa: a river of Dutch Brabant, which waters Helmont, and joins the Dommell, near Bois le Duc

Interestingly enough, there are five more entries for Aa. All of them rivers in, respectively, the United Provinces, Wesphalia, France, Courland, and Switzerland. But here’s a picture of the one I think they mean:

You can see this picture plus read the Wikepedia entry about it. It’s a short entry. Bois le Duc is also in the Netherlands. There is a cathedral there. (St. John’s in case you were wondering). Google is unable to provide directions from Petaluma CA to St. John’s Cathedral in the Netherlands, but here’s a map to give you an idea (you have to click through or scroll a LOT to either side to get the full distance effect):


View Larger Map

It would be a long trip for us Left Coasters.

The VERY LAST entry is:

Zytomierz: a town and fortress of Poland, in Volhinia, seated on the Circireif, 120 miles E of Lucko. Lon. 29 22 E, Lat 50 35 N.

There is a You Tube Feed for Zytomierz, which is . . . odd.

It appears that in the Regency, Zytomierz was, in fact, in Poland. Today, however, it appears to belong to the Ukraine. See this set of coordinates which is actually kind of handy and slightly amusing if you read the very very small print at the bottom.  Just who are you, Pierre Gorrison?

Well guess what? We go from the River Aa in the Nederlands to Zytomierz, the Ukraine (formerly Poland) and right back to the Nederlands.

Why, you ask? Because Mr. Gorrison is Dutch. He is also on Twitter. @PeterMcAllister AND he lists eBooks in his twitter profile bio. (We are writers and readers here at the Riskies, @PeterMcAllister. We DO eBooks in a big way.)

The only thing more 6-Degrees of Separation would be to find out that Gorrison is related to Dr. R. Brooks, 18th/19th Century Geography geek. OK, maybe it would be even weirder if he was related to the John Deane who neatly wrote his name and the year 1807 in the back of my Brooks’s Gazeteer. Or if one of you knows him. THAT would be weird.

I suspect this blog post will blow his mind (assuming he has Google Alerts). The things people Google and blog about.

I was going to blog about Regency geography, but I got distracted. Sorry. How about that Napoleon?

 

Posted in Former Riskies, Frivolity | Tagged | 4 Replies