Have you ever come across anything that is so bizarre in your research and then not been able to find it again? Yet it’s stuck in your mind?
I read an article a year or so ago which I thought was on the Australian Jane Austen site (a fun place to visit, www.jasa.net.au, but I couldn’t find what I was looking for so maybe it wasn’t there after all). It was an article about how a regency gentleman hired a mistress. Apparently he sent his friends in, like a boy scout field trip with a difference, to approach the lady and barter terms. I don’t know why this was considered delicate or appropriate–presumably his friends didn’t test the merchandise (unless you’re writing an erotic regency historical, in which case there are lots of possibilities).
As you’ve probably guessed, I’m a terrible researcher who doesn’t bookmark nearly enough.
Unfortunately so often these odd bits and pieces could make great stories.
And the other bizarre factoid of the day: there’s a truly ghastly movie starring Barbara Streisand called “On a clear day you can see for ever.” As far as I could tell, it was about a woman who’s a sort of plain Jane in the present, but who has a time-travel experience or something where her fingernails grow about two inches, her accent goes funny, she acquires another inch or so of make-up, her hair curls like Harpo’s, and she becomes a regency beauty. Now the interesting thing was her dress was based on the one Empress Josephine wears in the portrait used for Susan Carroll’s book (there should have been an easier way to say that) in Amanda’s posting on covers. It looked, apart from its polyester-like quality, pretty good–no visible back zipper, and somehow she managed to stay in it, always a plus in something really low cut (although Todd may disagree).
And the point of this post? Well, none, really.
And “Jane Eyre” was published on this date in 1847.
Janet
