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Archive for 2011

Child’s Regency Dress at Vintage Textile: A Superb Vintage Clothing Site

Posted in 19th Century England, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency style, Regency World, tagged , on October 15, 2011| 13 Comments »

Child's hand-embroidered dress, c 1810. Image @Vintage Textile

I love visiting Vintage Textile, one of the best, most descriptive vintage fashion sites on the Internet. The Regency era fashions are superb. Take this embroidered child’s dress, which was once white. It was made for a child around one or two years of age. The dress, which came from a New England estate, is long, like a christening dress, which suggests that the child would have been carried in it. The fabric is made of a lightweight cotton broadcloth, and the Persian-style Tree of Life embroidery design is made with wool floss. For more images and information about the dress or to purchase it, click here. 

Detail of sleeve with Van Dyke points and embroidery. Images@Vintage Textile

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Persuade Me by Juliet Archer: A Review

Posted in Austenesque novels, Book review, Jane Austen Novels, Jane Austen's World, Popular culture, Regency World, tagged , on October 13, 2011| 8 Comments »

Persuade Me by Juliet Archer is a modernized treatment of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. When I first received the book I was reminded of the Three Weissmanns of Westport, a modern take of Sense and Sensibility by Cathleen Schine. Since I wasn’t as impressed with the Weissmanns as the New York Times bestselling book crowd seemed to be, I picked up Persuade Me with a sense of “Here we go again.”

Persuade Me is the story of Anna Elliot and Rick Wentworth, celebrity scientist and best selling author of Sex in the Sea, an entertaining yet informative non-fiction book about sea animal propagation. Rick’s movie star good looks propel him to instant stardom. And thus we meet him on a book tour in England, away from Australia, his adopted country. Rick’s return to England is bittersweet. While he’s found fame, he’s never found a woman to replace his lost love, Anna, and memories keep washing over him as he visits familiar haunts. Even though the memories are sweet, Rick remains bitter, for his failed romance with Anna has spoiled him for any other woman.

Enter Anna Elliot. Softly pretty, single, and with a serious job, that of a Russian literature scholar. Her life, too, has been scarred by a love once treasured, now lost. Memories of Rick’s kisses and arms are as fresh to Anna today as they were ten years ago, before she foolishly broke up with him.

Insofar as the plot goes, Jane Austen fans know the drill. Rick meets Anna on his book tour, and circumstances serve to throw the two together physically while emotionally keeping them apart. Anna’s sisters Lisa and Mona resemble their Jane Austen counterparts, except that shrewish Mona is also a lush, a touch I loved. Sir Walter Elliot is a vain popinjay who instantly re-invites his slimy, two-timing nephew William back to the bosom of his family because he is (and here I am paraphrasing Sir Walter) a “mimick-me”. Except for William’s chin having an unfortunate tendency towards receding, Sir Walter regards the man as the perfect consort for his lovely eldest daughter Lisa.

I won’t go into more details about the plot, since that will spoil the book for you, except to make a few observations. Juliet Archer takes the reader into both Anna’s and Rick’s minds. Now, I am one of those readers who thrills in reading books in which the author does this. I am always dying to know what other characters are thinking, and Juliet has given me that gift. This works both for and against the plot. Let me explain. When Rick and Anna get together, you can cut the sexual tension with a knife. Knowing what both were thinking and why they were unable to act upon their desires kept me turning the pages.

BUT! By providing us with Rick’s thoughts, the mystery of the book is gone. Jane Austen brilliantly kept her readers in suspense about Captain Wentworth’s thoughts and how they informed his actions. We knew what emotional torture poor Anne Elliot was going through and we had to wait (with bated breaths) for the last few chapters to learn how very much Captain Wentworth had wanted her back all along. For a variety of reasons, there is no such mystery in Persuade Me. Nevertheless, Juliet Archers has given us the thrill of following Rick’s mind as he encounters Anna in Lyme and Bath and sees her with William Elliot. It helps that the author is British, and therefore can capture the nuances of speech and customs of her country perfectly. One feels that this Anna and William could have been the great great grandchildren of Jane Austen’s counterparts.

The second reason that the suspense of this tale is missing is that it is based on a beloved book that 99% of Janeites have read. We already know the outcome. Yet I found the book a satisfying read. Even though I regard its original model as nearly perfect, I give Persuade Me four out of five Regency tea cups.

Persuade Me is the second book in Juliet Archer’s Darcy & Friends series, published by Choc Lit at http://www.choc-lit.com

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A Most Arresting Image: A Shepherd on Stilts Knitting in a Field

Posted in 19th Century France, Working class, tagged , , , on October 11, 2011| 17 Comments »

They say an image is worth a thousand words. This one, drawn in 1855, made me pause. It’s from Forrester’s Pictorial Miscellany for the Family Circle by Matthew Forrester.

French shepherd sitting on raised stool and stilts. Book illustration, pen drawing. Image @Wikimedia Commons

Here’s the accompanying text (p. 65-67):

The Shepherds of Les Bas Landes.

In the south-western part of France, bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south by the Pyrenees, a chain of high mountains separating France from Spain, there is a large barren tract of land, that, from the number of its heaths, has conferred the title of Les Landes on the department to which it belongs. Being generally a level plain, intermixed with shrubs and swamps, it is naturally described as being the most desolate and dreary portion of France. A few spots, like the oases of the African deserts, are to be found at long intervals of space, and here only can rye be grown, the rest being a dreary waste, dotted with heath, firs, or cork trees.

The climate is very unhealthy, the heat in summer being scorching, and in winter the marshes are enveloped in dense fogs. From the « level nature of the land, and from the fact that a considerable portion of it is under water, the shepherds have recourse to stilts, and the dexterity which is manifested in their management has often elicited wonder and admiration from the passing traveller, who rarely meets with many traces of civilization. You will see a picture of one of these shepherds on the preceding page. There he sits from morning till night, knitting away, and watching his flock.

The shepherds in these parts are very careful of their flocks, whose docility is remarkable. Not less so is the good understanding between the sheep and the dogs. The celerity with which the shepherds draw their flocks around them is not more astonishing than the process by which they effect it is simple and beautiful. If they are at no great distance from him, he gives a peculiar whistle, and they leave off feeding, and obey the call; if they are afar off and scattered, he utters a shrill cry, and instantly the flocks are seen leaping over the swamps, and scampering towards him. When they have mustered around him, the shepherd sets off on his return to the cabin, or resting place he has secured, and the flock follow behind, like so many well-trained hounds.

Their fine looking dogs, a couple of which are generally attached to each flock, have nobler duties to perform than that of chasing the animals together, and biting the legs of stragglers. To their protection is confided the flock from the predatory expeditions of wolves and bears, against whose approach they are continually on the watch, and to whom they at once offer battle. So well aware are the sheep of the fatherly care of these dogs, and that they themselves have nothing to fear from them, that they crowd around them as if they really sought their protection, and dogs and sheep may be seen resting together in perfect harmony. Thus habituated to scenes of such gentleness and magnanimity, the shepherds themselves are brave, generous, and humane, and though, as may be imagined, for the most part plunged in the deepest ignorance, are highly sensitive among themselves to the slightest dereliction from the strict paths of true morality.

Given this bucolic description, would the shepherd’s heart be torn asunder once his sheep were ripped from his protection and driven to market?

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Jane Austen Made Me Do It: Book Giveaway

Posted in Jane Austen's World, tagged , on October 10, 2011|

Gentle Readers, Laurel Ann Nattress from Austenprose has edited a splendid new book, Jane Austen Made Me Do It, which will be released tomorrow. In honor of that event, she has begun a Grant Blog tour. Please visit my other blog, Jane Austen Today, and leave your comment if you would like to win a copy. The following authors contributed their stories:

Pamela Aidan • Elizabeth Aston • Brenna Aubrey • Stephanie Barron • Carrie Bebris • Jo Beverley • Diana Birchall • Frank Delaney & Diane Meier • Monica Fairview • Amanda Grange • Syrie James • Janet Mullany • Jane Odiwe • Beth Pattillo • Alexandra Potter • Myretta Robens • Jane Rubino & Caitlen Rubino Bradway • Maya Slater • Margaret Sullivan • Adriana Trigiani • Laurie Viera Rigler • Lauren Willig

Such fun! Click here to leave your comment. Contest is open to residents of Canada and the United States. The drawing, by random number generator, will be held on October 15th.

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Embroidered Mittens: Regency Fashion

Posted in 19th Century England, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency World, tagged , , , on October 9, 2011| 15 Comments »

Princess Charlotte's embroidered linen mittens

Among the fashion items in Kensington Palace are a pair of hand-embroidered mittens owned by Princess Charlotte, daughter of George 1V and Caroline of Brunswick  (the Princess Diana of her day) who died tragically young in 1817 while in childbirth. Read more: Mail Online

Silk 18th C. mittens. Image @Metropolitan Museum

Your average 18th century mitt would have a thumb (or rather half a thumb), but not have any other fingers. It would sometimes extend not just over the hand but over part of the fingers as well. This meant that it would keep you warm (or protected from the sun in the summer) but not hinder your movements at all. You could do things like write, draw or do needlework with mitts on. And combined with a muff, they were quite enough even for venturing outside in the winter.” – Mitts & Fingerless Gloves

18th century mittens. Image @Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mrs. Bates and Miss Bates wearing lacy mitt gloves

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