Want to avoid bringing debts into your new marriage? Well, there was a way to shift them away … During the 18th and 19th centuries many people in the UK thought (without any legal basis whatsoever) that if a woman got married in her shift (or smock) rather than a gown then any premarital debts… Read more The Shift Marriage
Mary, Queen of Scots wed François, the Dauphin of France, at Notre Dame de Paris in a lavish ceremony (did they have any other kind for a royal wedding??) on 24 April 1558. The young couple, who had been raised together since Mary was 5 years old and the Dauphin only 4, seem to be… Read more Mary Marries Merrily
Eliza Hancock was Jane Austen’s cousin and future sister-in-law, and many speculate she was also the model for some of Austen’s most vivacious characters, including my perpetual favorite — Mary Crawford. If so, it seems to indicate that Austen loved her cousin … yet was nonetheless jealous of the attention the sparkling Eliza could command… Read more Was Eliza Hancock the Model for Mary Crawford?
The sheela-na-gig, once seen, are hard to forget. These carvings can be found on medieval churches and buildings across Northern Europe, but more frequently in the British Isles and in the greatest numbers in Ireland. A popular hypothesis is that sheela na gigs represent a pagan goddess, but academics believe the situation was more complex,… Read more Sheela-na-gig and Cultural Function
The beloved Georgina era author, poet, and editor Anna Laetitia Aikin Barbauld passed away on 9 March 1825, and she was largely forgotten until feminists dragged her work back out into the spotlight and made the literati admit that the woman was immensely talented. Her most controversial work was her epic poem Eighteen-Hundred and Eleven.… Read more Remembering Regency Poet Anna Barbauld
Edward Seymour, a man born to a mere country “sir”, became the Duke of Somerset on 17 February 1547 by a combination of ruthlessness, mendacity, ambition, and the good luck to have a sister whom King Henry VIII had wanted to boink. Jane Seymour died less than two weeks after the birth of the king’s… Read more The New Duke of Somerset
He was the best of men, he was the worst of men … Charles Dickens, who was born on 7 February 1812 in Portsmouth, was undeniably a genius. He remains one of the best know, and justifiably most lauded, writers in the English language. One of his greatest gifts was that of characterization. He not… Read more Happy Birthday to Charles Dickens
Anna Lætitia Aikin Barbauld was a renown English poet and author, and her works were eagerly anticipated. She was one of the most admired female writers in the Georgian era, and was lauded both at home and abroad. (In the below picture, Nine Living Muses of Great Britain by Richard Samuel, Barbauld is the one… Read more Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, a Poem
Jane Austen’s novel Emma was first published on 23 December 1815, just in time for Yuletide gift-giving. Emma sold well, and was giving good reviews, including one by Sir Walter Scott. Although Austen famously claimed that the title character, Emma Woodhouse, “handsome, clever, and rich,” was a protagonist that no one but the author “will… Read more Happy Birthday to Emma
Jane Austen came into the world, considerably past her due date, on 16 December 1775 at Steventon Rectory. Her parents had been expecting her arrival for more than three weeks, and since she was the seventh child the stork had bequeathed to the Austen’s, they had been sanguine about their estimation of her appearance and… Read more Happy Birthday Jane Austen!