Books
Let Sleeping Rogues Lie Scoop
- Go here for a picture of an ancient "French letter," complete with ribbons.
- Private menageries weren't exactly common in Regency times, but they did exist. The 13th Earl of Derby, for example, had a number of animals at Knowsley Hall, stemming from his interest in natural history. The collection eventually evolved through the centuries into Knowsley Safari Park. How cool is that?
- Originally, I'd intended to make Madeline have an interest in chemistry (like Elizabeth Fulhame, an early female chemist, who actually wrote a book about her experiments). But I just couldn't get excited about chemistry. I much prefer biology, which is why she ends up being a natural historian (the terms "scientist" and "biologist" don't come into use until later).
- Humphry Davy's tome on nitrous oxide isn't exactly riveting ... until you reach the last section, beginning on p. 497 (no, I didn't read the whole book--are you nuts? I skipped ahead to the good parts.). There's nothing like hearing Samuel Taylor Coleridge's personal account of having tried nitrous oxide to make you feel like you're right there living history.
- The things that have been done to children in the name of pseudo-science make the hair stand on the back of my neck. That was the basis for my depiction of Anthony and his hang-ups--I wanted to show how such things can affect a person deeply ... and how love can help to heal anyone who's had such an upbringing. I found some of my information about anti-onanism in French Letters and English Overcoats: Sexual Fallacies and Fads from Ancient Greece to the Millenium, by Richard De'Ath, then followed that up by doing research on Samuel Tissot. It was fascinating! Here, for example, is a scary-looking anti-onanism device from the late Victorian age. And here's another.
- What happened to Mrs. Crosby in Dr. Prescott's office was called "blood poisoning" in an earlier day and is known as "bacteremia with sepsis" or "septicemia" now. It's scary stuff even today--imagine what it would have been like back then!