If one wanted to marry a gentleman, one must identify said elusive creature first. So how exactly could one pick out a gentleman from the rest? The nuances of social class and what makes a gentleman a gentleman remains a perennial source of confusion for Austenesque and Regency readers. The pages of Austen’s stories are littered with gentlemen, but offer absolutely no explanation of what that title actually meant. Of course, her readers knew exactly … Continue reading →
William Buchan’s book Domestic medicine or the family physician was the backbone of home medicine in Jane Austen’s day. During Jane Austen’s day, the practice of medicine as we know it today was still in its infancy. Formally trained doctors were unavailable to many either because of cost or distance. Consequently many of the curative arts were practiced at home. William Buchan’s book Domestic medicine or the family physician. Buchan’s Early Life William Buchan was … Continue reading →
What was life like for the widows of Jane Austen’s world? When a woman’s husband died, she was expected to spend a full year (long enough for a baby conceived in her marriage to be born) in full or deep mourning. During this time she was expected to dress in all black, refraining from public appearances. Movie adaptations of Sense and Sensibility portray Mrs. Dashwood in widow’s weeds. The next six months she would wear subdued colors like … Continue reading →
So what’s wrong with a little romance? According to a regency era perspective, nearly everything. It’s Valentine’s Day and there’s romance in the air. What’s wrong with a little romance, right? Especially in the pages of a good book. A regency romance; the hero and heroine looking longingly into each other’s eye, declaring their deepest love for one another. She weeps as she lets him know how she was waiting for this moment, as everyone … Continue reading →
I always love getting to ‘dress the set’ as it were of my books with bits and bobs from the era. Food is often one of those bits; the sights and smells and tastes of a place are so evocative, aren’t they? So I often find myself in a deep dive looking for what my characters would have been eating and what it would smell and taste like. In my last book, one of my … Continue reading →
