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Category: Regency

GRAVE MATTERS

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An add from The Wooler’s British Gazette in 1822 (partial text)*:

 

“Many hundred dead bodies will be dragged from their wooden coffins this winter, for the anatomical lectures (which have just commenced)…the only safe coffin is Bridgman’s Patent Wrought-iron one… Those undertakers who have IRON COFFINS must divide the profits of the funeral with EDWARD LILLIE BRIDGMAN.”*

It seemed that the bodies of executed prisoners was in short supply, forcing surgeons and students to seek bodies by other means. This meant that if one were interred in an ordinary wooden coffin, there was a good chance that the churchyard would not be one’s final resting place.

Physicians were willing to pay a good price for dead bodies, and hence the growth of the business of the “Resurrection Men.” A body snatcher could deal his way to a higher price by threatening to sell his bodies elsewhere. On occasion, a particularly interesting specimen could bring a pretty penny…in 1783 a young Irish Giant named Charles Byrne, in the process of dying and having heard that his body was desired by a Scots surgeon named John Hunter, took every precaution to insure the safety of his body after death–but Hunter at last parted with the outrageous bribe of L500 to obtain Byrne’s body. If you would like an even more ghoulish note, so frightened was Hunter that his prize would be stolen from him in turn that he immediately boiled the flesh from Byrne’s body in the dead of night and preserved the skeleton.**

Obviously, moonlight was not the friend of the body snatcher. Complete darkness was needed to carry out the work. Additionally, it became necessary to have a scout at the gravesite, at the end of services, to spot any traps…then once it was dark, the robbers quickly dug down to the head-end of the coffin, broke through and pulled the body out head-first, disturbing the site as little as possible. One disposed of the grave-clothes also, as the punishment for being caught with a corpse wearing grave clothes was much greater than being caught with a naked body.***

But graveyards were not the only source of bodies, particularly as the demand grew and graveyards became more guarded. Bodies were obtained by subterfuge from workhouses and such places…and eventually, even by murder.

A murderous pair named John Bishop and James May worked London’s East End in 1831 until a suspicious surgeon called the police. They were tried and convicted, and their own executed bodies were delivered for dissection. **** Unfortunately for them, or perhaps because of them, the Anatomy Act passed short months later, doing away with the practice of giving the bodies of the executed to the executioner for disposal. Eventually, the practice of donating bodies for medical practice and research lost its negative connotation, and the “Resurrectionists” went out of business.

So there’s a spooky bit of history for the season…Happy Halloween!

Laurie

*Low, Donald A., The Regency Underworld (Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1999) p. 77
**Ibid p. 80
***Pool, Daniel. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993) p. 254
****Hughes, Kristine. Everyday LifeVictoriancy and vicCincinnatiand (Cincinnatti: Writer’s Digest Books, 1998) p. 65

 

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eeek…things that go bump in the night

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regency style and just in time for Hallowe’en…the gothic novel, a very popular genre that began in 1764 with the publication of The Castle of Otranto by Hugh Walpole, and ended in 1820 with Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin.

The influence of the gothic novel is still with us today; its elements creep into films and novels, and the contemporary “gothic romance” is enjoying a comeback. So what is it about gothics people liked (then and now), other than a good scare and the idea of the TSTL heroine creeping around dark passages and wearing only her nightie?

They feature exotic, often Italian settings, sinister castles and abbeys–something very popular in the regency era , when landowners commissioned picturesque ruins and follies to grace their landscape. As well as the good scare, they have a strong moral twist of justice done and wrongs avenged, with one or two people, usually the hero/heroine or a narrator (like Robert Walton, the narrator of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), who lives to tell the tale, and with whom we can identify. In some cases, as in Wuthering Heights, the matter-of-fact tone of the narrator (Mr. Lockwood) serves to strengthen the supernatural elements; if a twit like Mr. Lockwood can hear the ghostly Cathy at the window, then it must be true. The monsters, real or imagined, are instruments of justice or revenge, like Frankenstein’s monster, or Conan Doyle’s hound in Hound of the Baskervilles, written in 1902 but drawing strongly on the gothic tradition.

I have a soft spot for gothics since the hero of my book Dedication, Adam Ashworth, publishes gothic novels under the name of Mrs. Ravenwood, and I had a lot of fun creating purple passages to head each chapter. I based most of them on the work of the gothic novelist I know best, Mrs. Ann Radcliffe. She published bestsellers beginning with The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), skewered by Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. The scene where Catherine explores an ancient chest and finds a laundry list is pure gothic pastiche. And remember the horrid veil?

Ah yes, the horrid veil.

If you’ve read Udolpho (it’s still in print) you’ll certainly remember the scene where the heroine discovers the veil and draws it aside (she’s creeping around a secret passage at the time, having been kidnapped to a mysterious castle) and swoons in horror at what she sees. It’s a tremendously effective scene. Every time she remembers it, which is fairly often, there’s a frisson of terror. And so on through the book. You’re still wondering. The references to the horrid veil become less frequent toward the end and you begin to wonder if Mrs. R has forgotten about it. Oh, surely not. Because if you were a character in a gothic who was denied such knowledge you know you’d go mad, or go into a nunnery, or have to pretend to be a ghost or some such. Then, when you’ve almost given up hope, Mrs. R. delivers, sort of. Busy tidying up the odds and ends of the novel, she reveals, in one throwaway sentence, that what the heroine saw behind the veil was the wax effigy of a worm-ridden corpse. Huh? I believe there’s a reason for the wax effigy being there–possibly a warning for visitors to keep out of the secret passage–you couldn’t expect the owner of a castle in a gothic to do anything sensible like post a “Keep Out” or “Servants Only” sign.

OK, enough from me. What do you like about gothic elements? Have you used them in your books? What gothic-influenced novels do you like? Could you write one with a straight face?

Janet

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Questions from Bertram St James

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Good day! Bertram St James, at your service. As I might have mentioned before, I’m not from your time. Not by quite a bit, actually. 1812 was my year…that is, until a few days ago. (And a fine year it was, too. Excellent vintage. Turned out the best-dressed men ever seen, if I do say so myself. And I do.)

This is a drawing of me. You see how forward-thinking my fashion sense is. Always ahead of my time.

Until now. Now I fear I’m behind the times. I have just a few friendly questions, as I get my bearing in the year 2005:

1. Why do men wear so few garments? And why are they so large and shapeless? Have the Puritans taken control of government again?

2. If the Puritans are in power, why do the women wear so little? Can it be that I find myself in a land populated entirely by Puritan men, and courtesans? Or are all the women freethinkers instead?

3. How can breakfasts be so affordable, and yet duels so few? I have long thought that only the exorbitant cost of buying breakfast for oneself, one’s seconds, one’s opponent’s seconds, the doctor, and one’s heartily apologetic opponent, kept the number of duels so low. And yet this morning I discovered a public house called “Denny’s” with prices so low I feared for my life every time I inadvertantly stared aghast at yet another man wearing a badly mended tent.

4. What in heaven’s name is wrong with the tea in this century????

As ever, your faithful servant,
Bertram St James, Exquisite

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Bertram St James, At Your Service

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Good day! Or should I say, good century? I seem to have lost mine. Went to bed in the year 1812, and woke up here. Must say, I don’t care for what the gentlemen are wearing nowadays. Why are they all so ashamed of their legs? Must be a prudish century.

I do like this computer thing, though. Amazing. Is it powered by animal magnetism? Whatever makes it work, I love it. I now have an e-male account (I am male, so this makes sense–though I’m not sure what the “e” stands for. Earl? I’m not, but it doesn’t seem to care. Perhaps it means Exquisitely Dressed–which I am. As always.)

And I think “Risky Regencies” sounds like my sort of gentleman’s club. Greetings, all!

Bertram St James, Exquisite…at your service

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200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar!

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The Battle of Trafalgar was fought on 21st October, 2005. Here are some sites for your edification:

www.nelsonsnavy.co.uk/battle-of-trafalgar.html has a lot of great information on Nelson’s Navy as well as the battle itself.

www.nmm.ac.uk/ Site of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London.

And this site, http://www.trafalgar200.com/ has details of official celebrations and nifty Nelson souvenirs you can buy. I believe the official events included a re-enactment earlier this year in which the opposing sides were “red” and “blue” so as not to hurt the delicate sensibilities of the French. (Mes amis, you lost. Get over it.)

It’s possibly this event that inspired the following (sent to me from my brother in England) on why it’s a good thing the Battle of Trafalgar wasn’t fought in the 21st century…

Nelson: “Order the signal, Hardy.”

Hardy: “Aye, aye sir.”

Nelson: “Hold on, that’s not what I dictated to Flags. What’s the meaning of this?”

Hardy: “Sorry sir?”

Nelson (reading aloud): “‘England expects every person to do his or her duty, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious persuasion or disability.’ What gobbledygook is this?”

Hardy: “Admiralty policy, I’m afraid, sir. We’re an equal opportunities employer now. We had the devil’s own job getting ‘England’ past the censors, lest it be considered racist.”

Nelson: “Gadzooks, Hardy. Hand me my pipe and tobacco.”

Hardy: “Sorry sir. All naval vessels have now been designated smoke-free working environments.”

Nelson: “In that case, break open the rum ration. Let us splice the main brace to steel the men before battle.”

Hardy: “The rum ration has been abolished, Admiral. Its part of the Government’s policy on binge drinking.”

Nelson: “Good heavens, Hardy. I suppose we’d better get on with it ……….full speed ahead.”

Hardy: “I think you’ll find that there’s a 4 knot speed limit in this stretch of water.”

Nelson: “Damn it man! We are on the eve of the greatest sea battle in history. We must advance with all dispatch. Report from the crow’s nest please.”

Hardy: “That won’t be possible, sir.”

Nelson: “What?”

Hardy: “Health and Safety have closed the crow’s nest, sir. No harness. And they said that rope ladders don’t meet regulations. They won’t let anyone up there until a proper scaffolding can be erected.”

Nelson: “Then get me the ship’s carpenter without delay, Hardy.”

Hardy: “He’s busy knocking up a wheelchair access to the fo’c’sle Admiral.”

Nelson: “Wheelchair access? I’ve never heard anything so absurd.”

Hardy: “Health and safety again, sir. We have to provide a barrier-free environment for the differently abled.”

Nelson: “Differently abled? I’ve only one arm and one eye and I refuse even to hear mention of the word. I didn’t rise to the rank of admiral by playing the disability card.”

Hardy: “Actually, sir, you did. The Royal Navy is under represented in the areas of visual impairment and limb deficiency.”

Nelson: “Whatever next? Give me full sail. The salt spray beckons.”

Hardy: “A couple of problems there too, sir. Health and safety won’t let the crew up the rigging without hard hats. And they don’t want anyone breathing in too much salt – haven’t you seen the adverts?”

Nelson: “I’ve never heard such infamy. Break out the cannon and tell the men to stand by to engage the enemy.”

Hardy: “The men are a bit worried about shooting at anyone, Admiral.”

Nelson: “What? This is mutiny!”

Hardy: “It’s not that, sir. It’s just that they’re afraid of being charged with murder if they actually kill anyone. There’s a couple of legal-aid lawyers on board, watching everyone like hawks.”

Nelson: “Then how are we to sink the Frenchies and the Spanish?”

Hardy: “Actually, sir, we’re not.”

Nelson: “We’re not?”

Hardy: “No, sir. The French and the Spanish are our European partners now. According to the Common Fisheries Policy, we shouldn’t even be in this stretch of water. We could get hit with a claim for compensation.”

Nelson: “But you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil.”

Hardy: “I wouldn’t let the ship’s diversity co-ordinator hear you saying that sir. You’ll be up on disciplinary report.”

Nelson: “You must consider every man an enemy, who speaks ill of your King.”

Hardy: “Not any more, sir. We must be inclusive in this multicultural age. Now put on your Kevlar vest; it’s the rules. It could save your life”

Nelson: “Don’t tell me – health and safety. Whatever happened to rum, sodomy and the lash?”

Hardy: “As I explained, sir, rum is off the menu! And there’s a ban on corporal punishment.”

Nelson: “What about sodomy?”

Hardy: “I believe that is now legal, sir.”

Nelson: “In that case …kiss me, Hardy.”

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