Author Archives: Sandra Schwab

I Capture the Castle….

Updated on October 15, 2022 by Sandra Schwab

… or at least I hope I will.

And not just any castle, but Castle Sooneck, one of the umpteen (and I mean UMPTEEN!) castles, ruin, and other historic sites along the banks of the river Rhine in the Upper Middle Rhine Valley. A cultural heritage organisation of the area as well as a local newspaper were looking for a “castle-blogger,” somebody to move into Castle Sooneck for six months and blog (in German and English) about life on the banks of the Rhine. The deadline for applications was at midnight on Sunday – and of course, I sent in my application. For how cool would it be to live in a castle?!?!

Well…

Let’s just say it probably won’t be all roses and rainbows: Apparently the view from the castle-blogger’s bedroom will be the (active) stone quarry next door. And down in the valley up to 400 trains a day pass by on one of the major transport routes of Europe.

Add to that that castles tend to be drafty places and that those thick walls don’t make for particularly warm rooms. What the colder season (= anything that’s not summer) can be like in a historic building is rather vividly described by the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire in the chapter about “Cold Houses” in her book Home to Roost:

“A new heating system was installed when we moved in[to Chatsworth] and it works pretty well. Even so, the wind can penetrate huge old window frames which don’t fit exactly. In September we go round with rolls of sticky brown paper to stop the gaps. When the front door is open and people with luggage dawdle, all our part of the house feels the blast so we’ve cut out a small door out of the big one and you have to enter at speed. There are zones of intense cold, seldom visited in winter: the Scupture Gallery, State Rooms and attics, where a closed-season search for forgotten furniture can feel colder than being out of doors.”

I would imagine that it’s probably different in a castle (if anything, it would be worse). But hey, that’s what woolen sweaters, thick socks, and the tea kettle were made for, right? Moreover, the scenery of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley would certainly make up for any minor inconvenience: it is one of the most beautiful areas of Germany – and Regency people were mad for it.

Tourism dwindled down during the Napoleonic Wars, but as soon as Napoleon was safely banished to his island, the British came back to the Rhine in huge numbers, undeterred by either customs stations or the German beds, which, apparently, were on the horrid side if Murray’s Hand-Book for Travellers on the Continent: Northern Germany, 1845 is to be believed:

“One of the first complaints of an Englishman on arriving in Germany will be directed against the beds. It is therefore as well to make him aware beforehand of the full extent of misery to which he will be subjected on this score. A German bed is made only for one: it may be compared to an open wooden box, often hardly wide enough to turn in, and rarely long enough for an Englishman of moderate stature to lie down in.”

No, not even the German beds could deter the British tourists. Happily, they all followed in the footsteps of Childe Harold, often dragging a copy of Byron’s work along on their journey to appreciate more fully the

blending of all beauties; streams and dells,
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine,
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells
From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells.

The ruins and castles still dwell along the Rhine, and it would be a great thrill indeed to explore (and sketch!!!) them all as the castle-blogger of Sooneck. 🙂

~~~

What about you? Would you like to live in a castle for six months? Or would all the stairs put you off?

Posted in Former Riskies, History, Regency | Tagged Castles, Rhine | 8 Replies

“One Penny Plain and Two Pence Coloured”: The Wonderful World of Toy Theatres

Updated on October 15, 2022 by Sandra Schwab

A picture of a toy theatre built by Sandra Schwab

St. George has just saved the other Champions of Christendom from the enchantment by the evil witch Kalyb

A few days ago Janet talked about paper dolls of the Regency period, and today I’d like to add to that theme by talking about another kind of toy produced from paper: toy theatres.

The Seven Champions decide to separate and seek adventures each on his own (St George is off to Egypt in a steamboat)

Toy theatres were first produced by William West in 1811. He ran a haberdashery and circulating library on London’s Exeter Street, which is conveniently close to several theatres, including the Lyceum Theatre, Drury Lane, and Covent Garden. When he first noticed how well cheap prints for children sold, he had the idea to monetize his proximity to the theatres and started to sell theatrical prints. The first of these showed eight characters from Mother Goose, a popular pantomime playing at Covent Garden at the time. Soon, other printers also joined in and sold character sheets and scenery sheets.

Having arrived in Egypt, St. George hears the most dreadful news: the king’s daughter is in grave peril

These first character sheets were not intended for playing – but it seems that this is exactly what happened: children cut out the characters to play with them. So within two years, West had also begun to sell paper theatres. The prints became ever more elaborate: clever cascading scenery was joined by sheets which enabled the reenactment of theatrical tricks.

But never fear! St. George saves Princess Sabra…

Printers typically based their toy theatre sheets on current popular plays, and they made them available in two versions: plain and colored, which led to the famous phrase “one penny plain and two pence coloured.” Putting together toy theatres seems to have been mostly a pastime for boys, and it became a matter of pride to color one’s characters, scenery, and theatre oneself.

…and fights against the terrible dragon, who was about to devour her

Before they were cut out, all parts were typically pasted onto cardboard to give them greater stability and make them more durable (though of course, cardboard would not keep the theatre from going up in flames when a particularly impressive trick involving a bang and lightning effect went wrong). Some children might have even built a wooden frame for their theatres, which would have made playing them much easier. Such wooden frames would have also enabled the young impresario to hang the scenery from the cross links rather than putting them into slits in the cardboard.

“Take that, fiend!”

To give you an idea of how elaborate toy theatre sheets could become, let us look at J.K. Green’s sheets based on the Christmas pantomime Harlequin St George and the Dragon, which was running at Drury Lane in December 1847: there were 8 plates of characters, 17 plates of scenery, 2 plates of tricks, and 5 plates of wings. (By contrast, the modern version which was published by Pollock’s Toy Theatres in 1972 and which you can see in the pictures accompanying this post, is much abridged and comes with only four plates of scenery and characters.)

Splendid tableau of past & present chivalry

But then and now, the play ends with a tableau of the victorious Wellington at Waterloo (*waving to Diane*). This way it draws an explicit comparison between chivalry of the past (St George!) and modern chivalry (Wellington, of course), which boys were supposed to emulate. So, in other words, toy theatres were not only mere entertainment, but also contained a didactic component (if you actually made it to the grand tableau without burning your theatre down, that is).

Toy theatres continue to be produced today (though in smaller numbers), several professional and amateur theatre companies are specialized in toy theatre productions, and annual toy theatre festivals are held in different parts of the world, including at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn.

Which play would you like to see on a miniature stage?

~~~~~~~~

The production of Harlequin St. George and the Dragon depicted here was arranged for you by yours truly. I also did all the (inexpert) cutting out and gluing together of the various parts of the theatre, scenery, and characters. 🙂

Posted in Former Riskies, Regency, Research | Tagged Sandra Schwab, theater, toys | 3 Replies

Ferocious Lions, Winged Bulls, & a New Novella

Updated on October 15, 2022 by Sandra Schwab

Earlier this year when I was in Berlin for the LoveLetter Convention, I visited the Pergamon Museum, which houses several truly fantastic artefacts from classical antiquity (like the huge, huge, HUUUUUUGE Pergamon Altar), among other things. I wasn’t really all that clear about those other things, so I was completely bowled over when I went through the entrance hall and up to the first floor & found myself facing the magnificent Ishtar Gate from Babylon. It is one of the most mind-bogglingly beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

But I was almost as thrilled when I found several sculptures and bas-reliefs from other ancient cities of the Near East in another suite of rooms – like Mr. Human-Headed Winged Bull here. (I might have even squeed a little.) (Quietly.) (Totally on the inside.) (I think…)

All that inside squeeing was due to the fact that the hero of my novella DEVIL’S RETURN has taken part in Austen Henry Layard’s excavations of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrod, where he would have seen the same kind of statues and bas-reliefs I was admiring in the Pergamon Museum:

So Alex told them about Layard’s latest excavations, and their plan to prepare for his visit later this year. He described the alabaster sphinx that had been found in one of the buildings of Nimroud, and the strange creatures in the bas-reliefs: ferocious lions and winged bulls with human heads, dragons and fearsome monsters with heads of lions, bodies of men, and feet of birds.

Many of the 18^th and 19^th-century archaeological excavations seem to have been done in a rather haphazard way (“Oh, look! There’s a mound! Let’s dig it up and see what’s inside!”) and very often by people who were mostly interested in the pretty things they could drag back home and show off to their friends & acquaintances. (Lord Elgin and the sculptures from the Parthenon come to mind here.) (Though, to be fair, he seems to have primarily wanted to get them for the British Museum, not for his own sitting room.)

In other cases, archaeological excavations were motivated by a desire to give the finger to Britain’s neighbors across the Channel, in particular to the arch-rival France. Indeed, securing Assyrian antiquities for the British Museum to rival those in the Louvre was one of the main reason for the British ambassador in Istanbul, Sir Stratford Canning, to finance Layard’s first excavations. In 1846 Layard received additional funding from the British Museum itself for the excavations that are briefly described in DEVIL’S RETURN. The first of the artefacts Layard found (i.e., the bas-reliefs and sculptures he had removed from the walls of the ancient city) arrived in London in 1850 and were soon exhibited at the British Museum, where, judging from the long article in The Illustrated London News, they received considerable interest.

DEVIL’S RETURN is out now (Amazon | Kobo). Follow my adventurer-hero Alexander Crenshaw from the ancient cities of Assyria to the fashionable soirées of London high society, where he will face the biggest challenge of them all: his long-lost love…

Posted in Former Riskies, Research, Risky Book Talk | Tagged Museums, Sandra Schwab | Leave a reply

Jumping into the Setting of a Novel

Updated on October 15, 2022 by Sandra Schwab

Do you know the scene in Mary Poppins where Mary, Bert, and the children jump into one of Bert’s chalk paintings on the sidewalk? Something similar happened to me last weekend, though there were no dancing penguins involved nor any chalk drawings. Nevertheless, I suddenly found myself walking through the setting of a long-time favorite novel of mine.

Now, I have visited Britain often enough to know that strange feeling of familiarity that overcomes you when you walk through Burlington Arcade or take a peek into that seventh heaven of bachelorhood of the Regency period, Albany, or visit one of Britain’s numerous country houses: as a reader of historical romance, you’re bound to recognize these places from the novels you’ve read.

But what happened to me last weekend was a bit different, more visceral, probably because it was so unexpected: as a lover of Rosemary Sutcliff’s books set in Roman Britain, you don’t really expect to be easily transported back to that time by any place given that most of the remains of the Roman empire are mere ruins. Even Hadrian’s great northern frontier wall in Britain has been reduced to a mere stubble of its former existence.

I live near the lines of another of these great Roman frontier walls, the Germanic Limes, and a mere 40-minute drive from my town lies a reconstructed Roman fort, the first of its kind, re-built in the late 19th century.

a picture of the main gate to the Saalburg

Saalburg: Porta Praetoria (the main gate)

And as I was walking amongst the reconstructed houses, past the reconstruced barracks, I suddenly remembered a passage from one of Sutcliff’s novels, about how each Roman fort looks the same no matter where you are in the empire. They might not have looked exactly like the Saalburg (all the walls would have been white – something that historians back in 1900 didn’t yet know), but still I felt this sudden, keen connection to Sutcliff’s characters.

Indeed that feeling was so strong, that the sight of the eagle standard nearly made me burst into tears because I was so touched. (Alas, the Saalburg eagle not only is a fake, but it is also anachronistic, for these forts were manned with auxiliary troops rather than legions, and the auxiliaries didn’t have eagle standards. However, Kaiser Wilhelm II, who commissioned the building of the Saalburg museum, insisted on the eagle.)

The military standards at the Saalburg

What I always find so fascinating about visiting museums and all those British country houses is that, for me, it is always the small things, the everyday items, that makes me feel a connection to the people of the past who used them. Amidst the exhibits in the Saalburg, you can also find pretty Roman shoes (which would make perfect summer shoes!), pretty dishes and vessels (have I already mentioned that I have this thing about tea sets?)….

A small Roman vessel from the Saalburg

…as well as pretty fibulae, Roman brooches. These come in all shapes, including cute, colorful animals:

a sketch of Roman brooches found at the Saalburg

Roman brooches from the Saalburg

You can just imagine a gruff Roman soldier buying such a pretty brooch for his sweetheart. (And then you start to imagine all kinds of things, and all at once your Muse is yelling into your ear how wonderful it would be to write a novel set here at the old Roman frontier, and then she forces you to buy all kinds of research books and… Oh gosh, I don’t just have a tiny problem in regard to tea sets, but also in regard to research books! *blushes*)

My Muse made me do it

Now let’s hear it: Which setting of which novel or film would you like to visit? Pemberley, perhaps?

Posted in Former Riskies, Research | Tagged Museums, Romans, Sandra Schwab | 4 Replies

Forget-me-nots & (Fake) Worry Letters

Updated on October 15, 2022 by Sandra Schwab

By now you’ve probably realized that I’m an utter geek when it comes to nineteenth-century magazines and newspapers and that I love putting all kinds of (mostly obscure) references into my stories just for the fun of it. And so, when I was writing A Tangled Web, the latest installment in my series about the fictional magazine Allan’s Miscellany, I just couldn’t resist including a reference to an advice column I had first heard about at a conference* a few years before: “Cupid’s Letter Bag” from The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine.

Launched in 1852 by Samuel Beeton, The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine was the first British magazine targeted at middle-class women (earlier women’s magazines were meant for an upper-class audience). From 1856 onwards, Beeton’s wife Isabella acted as “Editress” (and yes, that would be Mrs. Beeton from Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management). Apart from poetry, serialized fiction, articles about famous people and fashion plates, the magazine included embroidery patterns, sewing patterns, and much practical advice concerning household matters (including recipes).

And then there was “Cupid’s Letter Bag.”

If you consider the historical and social context, “Cupid’s Letter Bag” was a rather strange advice column, for rather than praising female passivity that was so much part of the Victorian ideal of femininity, it encouraged women to be more active and more intellectual.

In the November issue of 1853 one of the letters to the magazine (well, many of those worry letters were actually written by Beeton himself…) (fake worry letters!!!) started with,

“Would it be very improper for me to send a few forget-me-not flowers to a young gentleman with whom I have lately become acquainted? […] He has given me bouquets many times; and when he left, he asked me to send him a few flowers of the forget-me-not, to let him see I had not forgotten him, which I did not exactly promise to do, although I fear by my manner I led him to expect it.”

The rather blunt answer was:

“We think the vanity betrayed in the request of the gentleman is well left unsatisfied. He asked for the forget-me-nots, it appears, to let him see that ‘you had not forgotten him,’ not to remind him of you.”

This letter somehow struck my fancy, and I just had to include it in Allan’s, despite it being a bit too girly and fanciful for Allan’s. But hey, it’s my fictional magazine, so I can include whatever I want! 🙂

Now, without further ado, here’s the relevant snippet from A Tangled Web. At the beginning of the story Pel, the hero, arrives at the editorial office in a moment of crisis: the contributions of a new writer have turned out to be utter crap, and the editor (grumpy MacNeil) and his right-hand man (Robbie Beaton) are now discussing what can be used instead:

“What else have we got?” MacNeil shuffled his papers around. “A review of Gervase Carlton’s latest literary offering. A nice one, that.—An article from Our Man Abroad. More about the diggings in the Near East.” He glanced at Beaton. “We already have an Assyrian lion for that one, haven’t we, Robbie?”

In lieu of an answer, Beaton pointed at one of the woodblocks lying on the table.

“Right. Another worry letter for Cupid’s Letter Box?”

“I’ll write that one,” Beaton said hastily. “You’re such a cynic when it comes to love, Mac. Nobody wants to hear what you think about the plight of a young girl who…hm….is wondering about whether or not to send a posy of forget-me-nots to a gentleman of her acquaintance—”

MacNeil groaned. “And thus we all die from an overflow of sentimentalism…”

Unperturbed by the criticism, Beaton just grinned and shrugged. “Flo quite likes the overflow of sentimentalism. Says it gives the magazine a heart.”

The editor threw him a sour look. “Your wife’s taste is not always sound, Robbie. Just look at whom she has married!”

Whistling, Beaton gazed at the ceiling. “Which, if I’m not mistaken, was the making of our magazine.”

“Yes, yes. The search for the Mystery Maiden—all very romantic.” MacNeil made a dismissive gesture. “My brains must have been addled at the time.”

_____

* The conference in question was the 2010 annual conference of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, and the paper was Jennifer Phegley’s “Dear Mr. Editor: Courtship and Marriage Advice in The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine.“

Posted in Former Riskies, Research | Tagged Sandra Schwab, Sandy and the Periodicals | Leave a reply