Regency Perspectives on Childhood
Prior to the nineteenth century, children were viewed as fundamentally miniature adults, not much different from their parents.
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The Birth of an Heir
Giving birth: Confinements, Lying-in and Churching
Unlike women today who often give birth in hospitals or birthing centers, women of Jane Austen’s day almost exclusively gave birth at home. Preparation for confinement fell almost exclusively to the mother.
Continue reading →Games of Jane Austen’s World: Bilboquet
Family letters and remembrances tell us that Jane Austen played a variety of games with her young nieces an nephews, and was quite good at many of them, including bilboquet.
Continue reading →Public Schools in Jane Austen’s Day
Most gentlemen were sent to public boarding schools to prepare them for university. These schools bore little resemblance to public schools today. Public schools were public in the sense that boys were taught in groups outside of their private homes, not in the sense that these institutions were funded by public funds. A number of public schools existed, but the landed elite in particular chose to send their sons to a select number of these … Continue reading →