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Category: Research

Posts in which we talk about research

Gobble, gobble, gobble.

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No, the English don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but they do have their own breeds of turkeys. At left, a handsome Norfolk black, and on the right, a Cambridge bronze, tho I’m afraid to me they just look like turkeys. Did you know male turkeys are called stags?
Turkeys came to England from Spain in the sixteenth century, and the aristocracy, accustomed to dining off large birds such as swans, cranes, and peacocks, gobbled them up. Turkeys were bred in East Anglia, and each year in late August thousands were herded to London to be sold–now that’s a mind-boggling thought, herding a bunch of turkeys, not the cleverest of birds–and they were fitted with little leather boots to protect their feet (aaaaw). Pepys mentions eating turkey around Christmas time, and the Mayflower pilgrims took some East Anglian turkeys with them to the New World where they were bred with the native species. Goose was still the traditional Christmas dish in the regency (along with capons, roast beef, or rabbit depending upon the family income) but was gradually phased out by the turkey–one reason for the immense popularity of goose is that since it’s an acquatic bird it has a large fat layer, much prized then for cooking and for use as a preservative.

Happy thanksgiving, everyone!

Janet

Posted in Research | Tagged | 5 Replies

Regency Shakespeare

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I find Shakespeare fascinating. Shakespeare has been hugely popular on British stages almost non-stop since his own time, and the Regency was a high point for Shakespeare in many ways. Of course, the Regency Shakespeare wasn’t exactly like our Shakespeare….and certainly it wasn’t Shakespeare’s Shakespeare…


Here we have two pictures of the reconstructed Theatre Royal, Covent Garden — where John Philip Kemble produced and starred in many of Shakespeare’s greatest works. Kemble’s sister, Sarah Siddons, was one of the theatre’s biggest draws, and had a following so passionate it was almost religious. (After the theatre pictures, we have two pictures of Kemble, one of Siddons, and one of Kean.)


What fascinates me most are the differences in the Shakespeare plays in the different periods. When I researched my workshop “The Regency Joy of Sex (Drugs & Gaming Hells)” for this year’s Romance Writers of America national conference, I was most intrigued by the changes made to Shakespeare’s text in the period — and the changes that weren’t made. In other words, what parts of Shakespeare they found taboo (or, in Regency parlance, “indelicate”), and which were acceptable for a theatre audience comprising men, women, and children drawn from all classes.


So what was acceptable? When John Philip Kemble edited Shakespeare’s text, here are some words he left in: virgin, adultery, fornicatress, naked, damned incest, bosom, virgin-violator, bastard, deflowered maid. (However, in one passage, “virginity” was changed — implying the word “virginity” was more shocking than “virgin”, which at the time didn’t necessarily have the purely sexual meaning we attach to it.)


So what was taken out? The most common change I found was the invariable changing of the word “body” to the word “person.” It seems the Regency folk didn’t really mind sex, or talk about sex, but some words they found too gross, too vulgar, too indelicate — and “body” was one of them. (Versions of the Bible in this period also took out the word “body” and similar words.)


In one passage, “virginity” becomes “honour.” The word “lechery” becomes “wenching.” One passage from “Measure for Measure” was cut and rearranged thus:

SHAKESPEARE’S ORIGINAL: Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a codpiece to take away the life of a man!
J. P. KEMBLE’S VERSION: Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, to take away the life of a man for–

Ah, yes, the telling “trailing off” trick. (Too true!)

Is anyone else fascinated by Regency Shakespeare? Any questions? Comments? Favorite plays? Plays you wish you could see the Regency versions of? Or any comments on the topic of bowdlerism in general? (Though the term did not yet exist, and Bowdler was only getting started in our period…)

Cara
Cara King, MY LADY GAMESTER — out now!!!
for more info on Regency theatre, see http://caraking.com/Theatre.html
for more info on Regency private life, see http://caraking.com/PrivateLife.html

Posted in Regency, Research | Tagged , | 11 Replies

Christmas Notions

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All right, first of all, the answers to yesterday’s quiz! They are:

1) A bag
2) A brougham (this was the one I got wrong–I thought they were ALL Regency carriages, oops)
3) Clematis
4) A library that loaned books to members who paid a subscription fee
5) To fill the page one way and then write in the spaces the other way
6) Though I was tempted to go with the decayed fruit answer, it was of course: Add decorative items to it
7) A coat
8) Stays
9) Members of Parliament
10) Poker

So–how did everyone do?

And I have been giving a lot of thought to Christmas matters lately. I took Megan’s advice and piled many of my favorite Christmas-set books in a basket, where they look all festive and beckoning! There are several anthologies there, as well as Kate Huntington’s “Mistletoe Mayhem”, Regina Scott’s “Twelve Days of Christmas”, Mary Balogh’s “A Christmas Bride”–and many others, which I’m sure I’ll talk about more as the season goes on.

When I was writing my own Christmas novellas (“A Partridge in a Pear Tree” in “A Regency Christmas”, and “Upon a Midnight Clear” in “Regency Christmas Magic”, a story that features my own personal favorite couple of my own creating, Antoinette and Mark) I did a lot of research on Christmas in the period. Of course, many of the traditions we consider to be, well, traditional come from the Victorian period. Trees, stockings, Santa Claus, though not Barnes and Noble gift cards (my own favorite family tradition!). In the Regency, Christmas was a much lower-key time, though it had its share of fun. Greenery was used for decorations, rosemary, bay, holly, laurel, mistletoe, fashioned into swags and wreaths. Here is a bit of a poem from 1825:
“Bring me a garland of holly,
Rosemary, ivy, and bays”

Gifts were probably exchanged, though not the great mountains we expect now (no Barbie dream homes and Tickle Me Elmos), maybe a few songs sung, though many of the older carols were heard more as hymns in church. There might be roving bands singing “wassail” songs from door to door, looking for food, coins, and (what else?) wassail. In London, there were often Christmas pantomimes, and it seems Astley’s Amphitheater had a Christmas show. On Twelfth Night, there were often masking parties, and cakes where whoever got the bean would then be “king of the bean” for the party.

Jane Austen, as far as I can find, only mentioned the holiday once in her surviving letters, wishing her sister Cassandra a “merry Christmas”, and saying she was invited to dine at a friends’ house (she was not going to go due to bad weather, but then it seems the weather cleared and she went after all). There are some hints in the books–“Persuasion” features a scene of Christmas at the Musgrave house, where the girls are cutting out silk and gold paper for ornaments, the small boys run riot (too much candy?), and the fire roars. Lady Russell remarks, “I hope I shall remember in future not to call at Uppercross in the Christmas holiday.” And in “Emma”, they attend a Christmas party at the Westons’. Mr. Elton says, “At Christmas everybody invites their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst weather.”

I tried to stay true to this in my own stories, while still being festive and holiday-ish (it’s a holiday anthology, after all!). My characters play games (“Partridge” centers around a sort of scavenger hunt based on the song), attend parties, and drink wassail, while finding love, of course. Which I hope you’ll have in abundance this holiday season.

Posted in Jane Austen, Regency, Research | Tagged | 4 Replies

Story of a Violin

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Well, it’s been quite a week with the great kitchen remodel and the emergency appendectomy Kelly performed, one of my many and valid reasons for going MIA last week. Thanks, Kelly, great job! How I laughed when you asked if you should wash your hands first.

Another thing that did happen last week was that my parents’ musical instruments, a cello (detail here), a couple of violins and some bows were auctioned off. It was sad because we have no string players in the family who could have inherited them, and these instruments were much loved by them. One of my earliest memories is of going to sleep listening to my dad play.

But it was also fascinating because my dad’s violin turned out to be the star of the show. And I didn’t even have to email in bids to keep the bidding going. Even though the auctioneer believed it to be a fake and thus predicted a low sell price, two bidders got into a bidding war over the violin, described as  

Violin labelled Tho. Perry & W M Wilkinson…no. 4906, Dublin 1830, no. 4906 branded on the button and branded Perry Dublin below the button.

My dad believed it to be a late nineteenth century French instrument. If it had been a fake, chances are it would have been German. But if it was really what it said it was, then the bidding war was justified. Thomas Perry (1744-1818) was in fact one of the great British violin makers of the late Georgian period who made 3,000 or 4,000 instruments (or 4,906; estimates vary) characterized by a typical rich, warm and focussed sound (grantviolins.com.au). But it’s mysterious. After Perry’s death, WM Wilkinson, his son in law, carried on the business capitalizing on Perry’s name and reputation.

Much has been made of the fact that although Perry’s firm apparently continued to trade as ‘Perry and Wilkinson’ after 1818, Perry and Wilkinson were probably never in partnership, though William Wilkinson married Perry’s daughter. The general view is that standards declined after 1818: ‘a lamentable falling-off in workmanship, modelling and tone’ (Henley). A fairer picture is perhaps that quality became much more variable. Some good work was produced from this workshop but owing to labelling problems it is not always clear what was sold after 1818 but made under Perry’s direction beforehand. From: “The Violin Family and its Makers in the British Isles” by Brian W. Harvey, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995; pp183-185. Quoted at fiddleforum.com

But if you were going to fake an instrument wouldn’t it make more sense to attribute it to the period of Perry’s lifetime?

Perry was probably of French Huguenot descent, hence the French connection, related to a Parisian instrument maker called Claude Pierray. He worked in Dublin in Temple Bar, moving to this location on Anglesea Street in 1787. Maybe my father’s family had owned the violin all along, since they came from Dublin, but more likely his father, an inveterate auction goer himself, had picked it up for a song. He probably would have approved of last week’s sale.

I’ve never attended a live auction. How about you? Do you own any family treasures?

Posted in Music, Research | Tagged , , | 2 Replies

What will I wear to that Christmas Party?

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In the mood to play dress-up? Do you have a Christmas party coming up and a hankering to attend as Elizabeth Bennett (or Darcy, for that matter)? It isn’t so very hard to put a costume together, even with the problem of obtaining period shoes, shawls, jewelry, and hats. You can do a lot by using a little ingenuity.

The easiest solution is to have your costume made. I made a quick list of costumers I am aware of. I know there are more, and a little internet searching would find them.

Seamstresses: The one I used for the beautiful gown I have and wore at a Beau Monde Function is Ute Forlano of Dragonfly Formals: http://www.dragonflyformals.com/
She still has a page showing the gown she made for me, by the way! Just click on the little purple button on the Welcome page that says “Laurie” on it.

Others are available, but of course, I have not tried them. Here are some:
http://www.regencygowns.com/index.html
http://www.earthlydelights.com.au/regency.htm
http://www.lauryllane.com/regalia/home.html
http://www.historyinthemaking.org/index.htm (includes gentlemen’s costumes)
http://stores.ebay.com/Period-Goods_W0QQssPageNameZstrkQ3amefsQ3amesstQQtZkm (An ebay store—this costumer has good feedback)

If you make the costume yourself, you will need the pattern and the supplies. If you are a novice sewer, as I am, you probably want to find a simple pattern that isn’t period authentic (i.e. regarding the cut of the garment, where the seams are, how it is finished inside, the exact style of closures, etc.). Being a dreamer (I dream that someday I will sew that gown!) I am a collector of patterns, material, trims, shawls, hat forms…you get the idea. So I thought that I would make a list of sources I have at hand.

For the pattern: the “big” pattern makers as McCalls and Simplicity have made Regency “costume” patterns, although I am not sure what ones are in print right now. It is worth a search for one. But there are other patterns available. The first that comes to mind is one which was designed by Jennie Chancey of Sense and Sensibility Patterns. http://www.sensibility.com/

The second place to identify a pattern to purchase is at The Great Pattern Review.
http://www.gbacg.org/Patterns/index.html
These pattern reviews are unfortunately not listed by period but by maker, so it takes a bit of looking to find the Regency pattern reviews. Folkware has an empire gown pattern that has been favorably reviewed, and be sure to look at La Mode Bagatelle Regency wardrobe pattern. There are many patterns in the GPR for the gentlemen, too.

You will want to do a lot of surfing to research styles if you aren’t already familiar or aren’t sure what you want, whether you plan on sewing your costume yourself or not. There are lots of sources of costume prints in the internet, and there are also period portraits—possibly the best resources of all.

Finding fabrics, shoes, hats, gloves, parasols…well, I’m afraid I’ll have to leave that for another time.

Enjoy!

Laurie

Posted in Regency, Research | Tagged | 5 Replies