Sorry I missed my blog on Monday, but I have a good excuse. My husband is in the hospital with pneumonia! With luck he’ll be home for Christmas.
I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday season.
Sorry I missed my blog on Monday, but I have a good excuse. My husband is in the hospital with pneumonia! With luck he’ll be home for Christmas.
I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday season.
My WIP features a curmudgeonly hero who would rather be on his estate raising sheep than out and about among society. However, in order to make the most of his extraordinary wool, he feels he needs to get into the textile business. I know nothing about making textiles. But that’s okay, I know nothing about most of things I end up writing about until I start the research. I started my research yesterday with a field trip to The American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA. Of course, my first choice of research destination in this case is Manchester, England, but Lowell is several thousand miles closer and doesn’t involve getting on a plane.
Print Block
The ATHM is not a large facility but it has a rather targeted collection that tells the story of the textile mills in 19th and early 20th century New England. I went particularly to look at the machinery. Not only technology in all its phases a particular interest of mine, but I had a burning desire to be able to picture in detail what an early 19th century mill would look like. I was not disappointed.
The museum houses an extensive collection of textiles, including the detailed scene shown at the left, which was printed at Bromley Hall in England between 1774 and 1811 especially for export to America or other British colonies as evidenced by the blue threads in the fabric’s edge. They have a current exhibit of textiles by artists from Picasso to Warhol. This was not particularly relevant to the reason for my visit, but fun to see, nevertheless. The also have a small but wide-ranging standing clothing collection.
Carding Machine
But, as I said, I was there for the hardware. The exhibits ranged from the late 18th to the early 20th century and it was easy to imagine that changes to the machinery were mostly small and incremental. Even the with change from water power to steam to electricity the machinery function was totally recognizable. I realize I’ll have to do more research to learn exactly what the changes were and how they would have affected my characters.
If you’re in the area and interested in a larger view of the Lowell mills during the mid-19th to 20th century, I recommend including the Lowell National Historical Park in your visit. The park covers a good deal more of the life and work in the mills, including housing for “mill girls” and recreations of an actual mill, as well as canal tours of the area.
This was an excellent first look at what I need to know in order to continue with my Duke’s business plans. It made me anxious to learn more. Now, if I can only arrange a trip to Manchester.
It’s that time of year again, when everyone makes their Best-Of lists, and who am I to buck a trend? So here are some of my favorite discoveries from the many hours I spent reading, listening to podcasts, or watching TV this year. Note that they’re not necessarily from 2014–I’m always behind on my TBR or belatedly jumping on a TV bandwagon–but they’re all still available for download and waiting to become your 2015 discovery!
My 5 Favorite Romance Reads
5 Favorite Fiction Reads from Other Genres
5 Favorite Nonfiction Reads
5 Podcasts I love
Before this year I barely listened to podcasts. Now I depend upon them to keep my brain occupied while doing housework and when there’s nothing good on NPR during my commute.
5 TV Shows I Don’t Miss
What about you? What are the favorite things you’ve read, watched, and heard in 2014?
The day was actually December 16th, Tuesday, but I couldn’t let this week go by without thanking Austen and all she’s done in educating me about writing (and reading, come to that).
Here are a few things I’ve learned:
You can write very hot scenes using very proper language and vocabulary. e.g. Mansfield Park, which I guest blogged about on Jess Michael’s site earlier this week.
You don’t need excessive, if any, descriptions of people or places. Fine eyes. It says it all.
You don’t need to wrap everything up at the end of a book but if you feel compelled to do so, you may certainly leave something to be read between the lines;
Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters. With what delighted pride she afterwards visited Mrs. Bingley, and talked of Mrs. Darcy, may be guessed. I wish I could say, for the sake of her family, that the accomplishment of her earnest desire in the establishment of so many of her children produced so happy an effect as to make her a sensible, amiable, well-informed woman for the rest of her life; though perhaps it was lucky for her husband, who might not have relished domestic felicity in so unusual a form, that she still was occasionally nervous and invariably silly.
Mr. Bennet missed his second daughter exceedingly; his affection for her drew him oftener from home than anything else could do. He delighted in going to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected.
And thanks, Jane, for having such hot brothers, because I find all your portraits awful. Here’s Charles (1779-1852), one of her Navy brothers who rose to become Admiral of the Fleet. Yowsers. The nose works on him.
Have you celebrated Austen’s birthday this week? How?
This Christmas is exceptionally busy–and not with Christmas things! So I haven’t even been Christmas shopping yet. So today I went looking for an old Christmas posting and I found one!
Last week I was dreaming about shopping in Mayfair and it seems in 2011 I was dreaming about shopping in Regency England (I do a lot of dreaming, apparently).
Here’s what I said I’d purchase for my family and friends back then. Seems just as good to me now….If the year were 1819 and I was shopping in London.
If in Regency England, first place I’d go would be to the mall–The Burlington Arcade, I mean.
The Burlington Arcade is a covered shopping area behind Bond Street on what was formerly the garden of Burlington House. Lord George Cavendish, younger brother of the Duke of Devonshire owned Burlington House and wanted to do something to prevent ruffians from throwing trash and oyster shells into his garden. He hired architect Same Ware to design the arcade which had spaces for 72 enclosed shops. The arcade opened in 1819 and was an instant success. It is still the place to go for fashionable shopping in London.
On my London trip this September 2014, I walked through the Arcade and glanced at the windows of all the lovely shops still doing a thriving business.
I also used the Burlington Arcade in my 2012 book, A Not So Respectable Gentleman. Leo, the hero and brother of the Diamonds of Wellbourne Manor, runs into the Burlington Arcade to escape the bad guys….
If I can’t find all the gifts in the Burlington Arcade, I can shop at a department store–Harding Howell and Co, which sells everything from lace and every kind of haberdashery, but also jewelry, watches, clocks, perfumery and more. Harding Howell and Co. was opened in 1807 in Pall Mall, but it closed in 1820, so I couldn’t visit it on my recent trip.
I have a list to follow of what I’m looking for. (In 1819, I was organized; not so much now.)
Dear Husband: He likes gizmos. And he loves clocks. I think I’ll buy him a French clock. But he’d like a gizmo toy, too, like some kind of automaton.
Dear Daughter: She’s a music lover. I might buy her the latest piano sheet music from the music seller in the arcade although guitar is her instrument of choice. Maybe she’d play the harp in the Regency.
Dear Son: He’d probably want the latest in dueling pistols. Or the best hunting whip, although in today’s world, his shooting would be confined to video games and his vehicle accessory would probably be a GPS or cell phone holder.
Dear Daughter-in-law: (she wasn’t on that 2011 list, but I must add her now) She is an artist, so I would purchase art supplies from Thomas Hewlett Oil and Colourman near the Egyptian Hall, like Jack did in Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady.
Dearest Grandson!: (also not on the 2011 list – he’s only 17 mos. old, after all) Grandson loves cars and trucks, so I suppose in 1819, he might like a toy horse and carriage from Mr. Hamley’s toy store on High Holburn Street, the toy store where Anna and Brent bought toys for Brent’s children in Born To Scandal.
Dear Sisters: for one I’ll have to go to Jermyn Street and buy her some fragrance from Floris (where she and I shopped this past September!). The other might like a pretty new bonnet–I’d get her a Yorkshire terrier puppy (she has 3 already) but the breed won’t exist for a few years yet.
Dear Friends: Oh, I know what I’d buy them. BOOKS!!! Perhaps in 1819, I’d buy them two books in one. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, published in 1818. Sadly the author died in 1817, but she is our favorite author.
What gifts would you buy for friends and family if you were shopping in Regency England?
And, are you as ill-prepared as I am this year?