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Queen of the Regency Goth

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Hello, Riskies!  It’s been much too long since I visited our drawing room, and once again I am on a deadline and have fallen behind (oh my!)  Let’s take a look at a re-post of a blog I did in 2009, which is just as much fun now.  Gothic writer Ann Radcliffe died on February 7, 1823, and I always like to take another look at some of her tales….they would be perfect for a Halloween theme party!

Author Ann Radcliffe died on this date in 1823. She could be called “Queen of the Gothic novel,” as many of the standard elements of her plots can still be found in novels today, such as innocent heroines, dark, mysterious heroes, dramatic settings, and wicked villains. (And she was the most popular writer of her own day, influencing Keats and Scott among others, and forming the centerpiece of Catherine Morland’s literary obsessions in Northanger Abbey).

She was born in London in 1764, the only child of William and Anna Ward, and married William Radcliffe at age 22. (Radcliffe was a lawyer, and later editor and owner of The English Chronicle). Ann was said to be shy and reclusive, so not much was known about her private life, which gave rise to many rumors. (She had gone mad as a result of her terrible imagination and been sent to an asylum! She had been captured as a spy in Paris! She ate rare pork chops before bed to stimulate nightmares for her novels!)

J.M.S. Tompkins writes that in all Radcliffe’s novels “a beautiful and solitary girl is persecuted in picturesque surroundings, and, after many fluctuations of fortune, during which she seems again and again on the point of reaching safety, only to be thrust back again into the midst of perils, is restored to her friends and marries the man of her choice.” Sounds like the Victoria Holt stories I was addicted to as a teenager

Her best known works include A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Italian (1796), and of course The Mysteries of Udolpho. She also wrote a travelogue, A Journey Through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany (1795) and various poems, which were published by her husband after her death along with the historical romance Gaston de Blondville.

More information can be found (mostly on the books, since the details of her life are still obscure–though I doubt the pork thing) in Deborah Rogers’ Ann Radcliffe: A Biography-Bibliography(1996).Have you ever read any of Radcliffe’s works? Have any favorite modern Gothic authors?? I’m thinking aMysteries of Udolpho-theme Halloween party would be lots of fun…

Have you ever read any of Radcliffe’s books? Have any favorite modern Gothic authors? And what might you wear to my Halloween party???

A Research Find! –(for Medical History)

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Origin of the Gout (artist Henry Bunbury 1750-1811), English, 1815 The perceived origins of gout may be tied more to the liquor on the table than to the more localized work of the devil.

I’m excited to share my new discovery of a great research source! (I hope I’m not the last to find out.) The U.S. National Library of Medicine has a truly awesome website offering a ton of databases and a massive library network. Its offerings on the History of Medicine include a collection of 71,000 downloadable images, and through the Medical Heritage Library, maybe one of the best collections of digitized period books on medicine –more than 9,000 books!

Does one of your characters have a medical issue? Or the need to know how to deal with someone else’s medical needs? We all know about laudanum, but how much more do we know about medicine in the Regency? I wish this goldmine had been available when I was researching my early books. Just thinking quickly through my first four stories I recall that my characters had to deal with hypoglycemia, infected wounds, psychological trauma and epilepsy –all (at one level or another) medical issues.

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The Cockpit, Battle of the Nile. London: Edward Orme, June, 1817. A view of sailors receiving medical treatment below decks.

Oh, doesn’t that make you want to run right out and read those? LOL!! Obviously, these aren’t the main focus of any of the stories –they are love stories, after all. But health and medical needs are part of everyday life, so if we want a realistic world for our characters to live in, I think we shouldn’t ignore these. Do you agree? Or do you think it ruins the fantasy?

As with any great resource, you have to be careful not to get sidetracked (or you can give in and have fun roaming)…I followed a link to the Medical Heritage Library (http://www.medicalheart_of_beauty2-192x300ritage.org/ ) and discovered they had some fascinating coloring pages to offer, and a “medical pop-up book” from the 17th century…with a video about how they handled digitizing this! So many treasures, so little time… The MHL, “a digital curation collaborative among some of the world’s leading medical libraries, promotes free and open access to quality historical resources in medicine” and as said above, has an amazing collection of fully accessible digitized material.

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The databases you can find at the NLM site include Toxnet, which can help you find info on poisons, among other useful things, and MeSH (which stands for Medical Subject Headings) where you can learn about medical terminology. And another thing they have is a worldwide map directory of where to find History of Medicine collections. Each spot on the map links to specific libraries and includes a description of their holdings. Is there one near you?

Just to give you a glimpse of the NLM site:

Digital Collections is a free online archive of selected book, serial, and film resources. All the content in Digital Collections is in the public domain and freely available worldwide.

Rare Books & Journals: Books Published before 1914: The historical book collection includes related areas of social, economic, and intellectual history. It includes over 580 incunabula (books printed before 1501), some 57,000 16th-18th century books, and 95,000 items published between 1801 and 1913, from all over the world, in many languages. Among works of popular and ephemeral interest are home health guides, pharmaceutical almanacs, patent medicine catalogs, medical equipment catalogs, personal narratives, first-hand accounts, broadsides, pharmacopoeias, illustrated herbals, and botanical name indexes (materia medica). Medical history landmarks in the collection include Andreas Vesalius’ De humani corporis fabrica (1543), William Harvey’s Exercitatio anatomica de motu cordis (1628), William Withering’s An Account of the Foxglove (1785), and Edward Jenner’s An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae (1798), as well as comprehensive holdings of the works of major medical figures such as Hippocrates, Galen, Paracelsus, Boerhaave, and Osler.

Archives & Manuscripts: Searchable database of material, most dating from the 17th century to the present (which they call “modern”).

Images from the History of Medicine (IHM): A searchable database of images from IHM including fine art, photographs, engravings, and posters that “illustrate the social and historical aspects of medicine dating from the 15th to 21st century.” (granted many of them are portraits, but I’ve included with this post a couple of the Regency images I found)

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The Physicians Friend [Charles Williams, 1797-1830, artist] England, c. 1815. In a kitchen, a fat physician grasps the hand of the cook and compliments him on his culinary abilities, which increase the frequency of the physician’s visits.

Of course, if the material you want hasn’t been digitized, you still have three recourses: 1) go to Washington DC and visit the NLM in person, or 2) see if the material is available via inter-library loan, or 3) check if the material is available at one of the History of Medicine collection locations near you (see above). The Library does not lend historical material in its original format; however, they do lend copies of journal articles, copies of selected manuscripts, books on microfilm (when available), and copies of films and videos. The Library’s interlibrary loan services are available only to libraries, not to individuals. Individuals who want to borrow NLM material should make a request through a local library.

So, what do you think? Should medical issues be part of the Regency world we recreate? How much research would you do to make sure you had an accurate portrayal of the way such things would be handled? Did you already know about the NLM?

A Stitch (or Two or Three) through Time

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"Neck-tie scarf in imitation of Indian embroidery," from The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine (1860?)

“Neck-tie scarf in imitation of Indian embroidery,” from The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine (1860?)

“We are very busy making Edward’s shirts, and I am proud to say that I am the neatest worker of the party.” ~ Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra, 1 Sept. 1796

Needlework was an essential skill for women of all classes during the Regency period, even though upper-class women would have spent more time on decorative work than on what was known as “plain sewing.” But as Jane Austen’s letter to her sister shows, even women of the gentry would have made their husbands’ and brothers’ shirts as well as their own shifts themselves. They would have also known how to mend clothes and how to make alterations.

Plain sewing was typically done in the morning before people would pay their morning calls. It was considered bad etiquette to do plain sewing in the company of visitors (unless they were close family). Instead, for such occasions, decorative needlework like embroidery was deemed suitable. Projects like embroidered shawls or slippers would also be made as gifts for friends and relatives.

Design for a Hand-screen, from The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine (1860?)

Design for a Hand-screen, from The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine (1860?)

Given the high presence of needlework in a woman’s life, it is perhaps not surprising that a lot of magazines targeted at women would include patterns — mostly decorative patterns in the early ladies’ magazines as they were targeted at an upper-class audience. Later, in the mid-19th century when the audience shifted to include middle-class women, several magazines also ran larger patterns for plain sewing.

Patterns (and sheet music) included in periodicals were meant to be used, and for that reason some periodicals like The Lady’s Magazine (launched in 1770) printed them on fold outs. This was good news for the first readers of those magazines — but really bad news for us today because many of those fold outs were indeed cut out and thus are lost to us.

This morning I stumbled across a project at the University of Kent, where three scholars study The Lady’s Magazine. When one of them, Jennie Batchelor, acquired a copy of the 1776 edition of the magazine with almost all of the fold-outs still intact, a new side project was born: The Great Lady’s Magazine Stitch-Off. They are uploading the patterns from the magazine on their website and are inviting people to use them for their own stitching projects and share pictures later on.

an example of a piece from the Great Lady's Magazine Stitch-Off

The Great Lady’s Magazine Stitch-off

Isn’t this fascinating? I think it’s a wonderful way to bring those old patterns back to life.

What about you? Do you enjoy needlework? Would you love to be able to make your own clothes? (That’s on my To Do list for the future , so far I’ve only managed a few embroidery projects as well as a few softies.)

February, 1816: A Shooting at Drury Lane Theatre

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Drury_lane_interior_1808In researching for my WIP, Summerfield sister Genna’s story, I looked into my copy of The Annual Register, Or a View of History, Politics, and Literature of the Year 1816 (Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1817) and came across this entry in the Chronicles for February 17, 1816.

At Drury Lane Theatre, at the opening scene of the farce called Modern Antiques, or The Merry Mourners, in which Miss Kelly appeared in the character of Nan, a country girl; and Mr. Knight, as Joey, a country lad; while these two performer were, according to their parts, embracing, a pistol was discharged from about the centre of the pit. Great consternation was excited on the stage and among the audience and it was not ascertained whether any person was shot, or what mischief was done. It was not known then whether the deadly attack was intended to be against Miss Kelly or Mr. Knight; but a subsequent investigation proved that it was aimed at Miss Kelly….

The shooter was George Barnett, aged 21, a law stationer who lived at No. 22 Princess Street. He was stopped and apprehended by two members of the audience and taken to the managers’ office in the theatre, where he and the witnesses were questioned by Mr. Birnie, the magistrate. Barnett would not say anything at the time, though. He was then taken to Tothill Fields Bridewell by the constables. The recovered pistols were taken to Bow Street.

Pistolet_marine_1837-IMG_6935Mr. Birnie stated that from the wild and incoherent manner in which he (Barnett) conducted himself that there is “very little doubt of his insanity.”

The account goes on:

It was with some difficulty that Miss Kelly finished acting her character in the farce. On her being informed of the man’s name, she recollected that it was the same name which she had received, signed to several love-letters, some of which contained threats, if she did not accept his offer, etc–She, not knowing the person, treated the whole as a matter of indifference…The fright had such an effect upon her that she has been much indisposed since, and was confined yesterday…

When the pistol was fired, several shots perforated through the left back scene and struck the back of the orchestra. Had it been a musical farce, members of the orchestra might have been struck.

Don’t you feel this could have happened in today’s world? So much rings familiar–shootings in theaters, obsessed fans, even brave bystanders saving the day.

Reading through the Chronicles in the various Annual Registers (I have from 1810 to 1820), I am always struck by how little some things have changed in two hundred years.

Do you have any examples?

Later today, I will be choosing a winner of Lavinia Kent’s latest book, Ravishing Ruby. There’s still time to come by and comment for a chance to win!