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British Art Students

If you read this article in British Art Studies, you’ll discover that young women were some of the first art students to be allowed into the Charles Townley gallery to view the sculptures (a number of which are statues of men in various stages of undress). In fact, the article contains images of paintings of women viewing the Discobolus (a marble statue of a fully naked discus-thrower). Oh, my! So I figured my sculptor heroine would almost certainly have been allowed to observe the gallery on her own.

What are you Wearing to Frost Fair?

As many of you Regency lovers know, London had some very cold winters, especially in 1814, when my new book is set. That was the year of the last Frost Fair. The Thames froze so hard for four days that an elephant was led across it. Merchants set up booths with food and drink right there on the ice and it had the usual fair-type fun. There was even ice skating. Many theories abound about why it happened (the Little Ice Age, the bridges having wider supports that blocked the flow of the water) and why it never happened again (climate change, differently built bridges, the way the Thames was embanked), but no one knows for sure. Some people drowned, however, when the ice broke … and that’s how I got rid of the duke my hero inherited the title from! Don’t worry—the other guy wasn’t a nice man, by all accounts.. My hero, on the other hand … well, you’ll have to read the book!

The Shell House

Before we get into the new series, I wanted to mention one more aspect of Accidentally His: the shell house. It’s an actual place in Devonshire called A La Ronde. I happen to love seashells and still have a small collection of my favorites. I’ve always loved art made of shells, and the Parminter ladies took it to an extreme I envy. There’s a whole top floor where shells cover the walls in intricate designs. It’s a National Trust house so you can actually visit there if you want to. Check out the pictures here. I’d really like to visit it myself one day, but in lieu of that I took a video tour online. It’s amazing!

Mary Robinson

Speaking of theaters, I’ve mentioned Mary Robinson in my books, most recently in Accidentally His. (She was also the inspiration for Byrne’s actress mother in One Night with a Prince.) A fascinating Regency woman, she was Prinny’s mistress, a celebrated actress, and a trend-setter in society. Most importantly (for me), she was a published poet, novelist, playwright, and writer of feminist treatises. Her works are still studied today. She also happened to be beautiful, something which gained her four different portraits by famous artists (two by Gainsborough!). So, I had to give a little nod to her in my novels. She helped pave the way for women writers like me!

Vinegar home cure

I did end up deleting one thing mentioned in the Accidentally His garden discussion: Four Thieves’ Vinegar. While I wanted to use it in the culinary talk, it was mostly used as a home cure. It contains several herbs, plus camphor, wormwood, and campanula. You can read a period description of it here. Supposedly, it protected people from the plague. Scientists have found that the ingredients have antimicrobial properties and that the camphor and wormwood are effective flea repellents. Since the plague is carried by fleas, it might really have protected against plague! Ironically, you can still buy Four Thieves’ Vinegar online, just in case you fear being exposed to the plague. 😊

Thanks to the issues mentioned above regarding fairy tales, I had a bit of a problem when I wanted to reference one in Accidentally His. It was a Grimm fairy tale that no one had ever heard of in England until 1823. Except, of course, for people who had a facility for multiple languages (cough, cough, Rafe) or an uncle who traveled a great deal (also Rafe). Believe it or not, I had already chosen both of those things for Rafe’s character when I stumbled across the fact that the fairy tale I wanted to reference had never appeared in English in England. So, that was a nice bit of serendipity. Rafe’s facility for languages was related to his start as a spy with the Corps of Mounted … Wait, I already talked about that in a previous Regency tidbit. Oh, well. Until next time …

Bobbing for Apples

When I think of autumn and the Regency, I think of harvest fairs and harvest balls, brisk October winds, and lots of apples. But did you know that bobbing for apples was another of those romantic games where future romance was predicted? I didn’t, until I read this entertaining and thorough article about the origins of Halloween. Apparently, one variation was played the same way as it is now, except that names were carved into the apples so that whichever name was on the apple you seized was that of your future true love. Fortunately, the variation called “Snap-apple,” where a player had to seize the apple while it swung around on a pole with a burning candle at the other end of the pole, died out, or we’d not be enjoying trying to grab those apples quite so much!

Ballads

This has nothing to do with lipedema, but What Happens in the Ballroom (presently available on Kindle Unlimited, among other retail spots) has a scene where widow Eliza Harper Pierce sings several songs to entertain an audience. One of those, “The Suffolk Miracle,” is a ballad that Eliza uses to torment her papa (also in the audience) about a father who disapproves of his daughter marrying a man of a lower station. You can read the lyrics here, but I chose it by accident while looking for the ballad, “The Holland Handkerchief,” which I have on my folk albums. The two tell a nearly identical story, but “The Suffolk Miracle” is the title Eliza is likely to have heard for it. I happen to love ballads, and I learned long ago that most period ballads have multiple renditions, with variations in wording, title, and even ending. I only wish there was a version for this one with a happy ending!

St. Andrews Day

Although the Brits don’t celebrate Thanksgiving (obviously), the Scots do celebrate St. Andrews Day around that time (November 30). In fact, it’s also enjoyed with great fanfare by Eton College every year and there was at one time a Society of Scots Gentlemen in London that always held a feast on the day. But by the Regency, it was primarily a Scottish holiday, when the Saltire (St. Andrew’s Cross—a diagonal cross) was shown everywhere. I can’t confirm this, but supposedly, one superstition was that you could ward off witches if you drew a Saltire on your fireplace. I think somebody has St. Andrew’s Day mixed up with Halloween. 😊

Bath Chair

I hope my knee gets fixed before I have to resort to the Bath chair, I swear. Did you know that the Bath chair (not to be confused with the sedan chair, which was carried by two men) was an early form of wheelchair designed by John Dawson in 1783 to aid elderly visitors who came to take the waters in Bath, England? While wheelchairs were invented in China many centuries before (and paraplegic clockmaker Stephan Farfler invented a self-propelled one that was a forerunner to the bicycle), they didn’t show up in England until the 16th century, and weren’t widely used until the Bath chair came along. All of them, however, still required attendants to push the chairs. Self-propelled ones didn’t really come into use until the early 20th century. For these and other facts (and pics) about wheelchair history, be sure to visit The Science Museum’s blog.