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Last week I reviewed Vauxhall Gardens: A History by David Coke and Alan Borg. That book, while fascinating, gigantic in size and scope, and well worth its price, is rather expensive and I wanted to point you in the way of a more reasonably-priced soft cover book on the same topic, The English Pleasure Garden by Sarah Jane Downing, published by Shire.
This is not a very large book, only 64 page in all, but it manages to be a comprehensive overview on the subject of those lost pleasure gardens, which were such a feature of 18th /early 19th century life. It does not concentrate on one garden, but gives the reader a clear view of the rather short history of these gardens from their Stuart beginnings to their sad Victorian end.
There are chapters on the London gardens, and you may be interested to know that Vauxhall and Ranelagh were not the only gardens to visit. There were 64 pleasure gardens in London and its environs during this period. Here is a picture of one of the more rural pleasure gardens, Sadlers Wells, in Islington, then a small village just outside the city of London.
In the 18th century it was a place to take the waters, hence the name “wells” but today it is rather more well-known as the site of a theatre famous for staging dance in all its forms.
The seedier side of 18th century life that these gardens attracted is also addressed; here is an image from the late 18th century illustrating an intoxicated woman returning home very late (or, more probably, early in the morning!) from a masquerade. This type of image illustrated the growing concern for the immoral effect of masquerades, an entertainment that Ranelagh was famous for promoting.
A fascinating section of the book is its chapters on provincial pleasure gardens. Sydney Gardens in Bath is included, of course, and we all know that Jane Austen lived opposite them at Sydney Place when she first moved to Bath from Steventon in 1801.
But is it very interesting to read of other, less famous gardens in Norwich, Liverpool, Newcastle-upon-Tyne- so at least Lydia Wickham had one to attend to enjoy its weekly concerts!-and the lost pleasure garden of Duddeston in Birmingham, seen below, in a very rare image:
In so small a book something has to give: and that is first, the size of the illustrations. However they are many and varied and very useful. And the details can be easily seen by the use of a magnifying glass. Second, citations. It would have been helpful to have more sources listed other than the occasional acknowledgement to a museum or library. But, that would had added to both the size and cost of the book. Some things we have to forgive.
Overall, it is a very useful starting point for understanding these lost but once magical places. I can throughly recommend this book to you.
I have been bewitched by the idea of an 18th century pleasure garden for years. Too many years to comfortably remember, if I’m painfully honest. I’ve visited the only remaining one in England -the Sydney Gardens in Bath- where Jane Austen used to love to walk when she lived opposite them at Sydney Place. I’ve collected books on them, and visited exhibitions, notably The Muse’s Bower held at Gainsborough House Museum in Sudbury, in Suffolk in 1974…
and the Vauxhall Garden section of the Rococo Exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1984.
I’ve even visited the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, in an attempt to sample something of the atmosphere of the original. Vauxhall on the Surrey bank of the Thames was the first and the most famous of them all. In fact, the term “Vauxhall” became the generic term for a pleasure garden, and its successful format was copied all over England, Europe and even in early 19th century America. A new book, Vauxhall Gardens: A History has recently been published by Yale. It is published to accompany an exhibition on the garden, which will open later in the year at the Foundling Hospital Museum in Brunswick Square. Entitled The Triumph of Pleasure, I simply cannot wait to visit it ( and report back here).
This book is exactly what I have desired to find, after all these years. A comprehensive guide to EVERY aspect of the gardens: its history, the owners, The Tyers, shown below in a portrait by Francis Hayman…
The performers, especially the music and the musicians…
The art on show in the dining booths – it was the first contemporary art exhibit in the world open to the general ( paying) public…
The fashions worn there…
The way the gardens worked, the visitors..even details of the latrines or necessary houses……
it is all covered in exquisite detail, enough even to satisfy me. The book is co- written by David Coke past curator of Gainsborough’s House Museum (where he organised the Vauxhall Garden exhibit of 1978, and he also curated the Vauxhall Garden section of the Rococo exhibit at the Vand A in 1984), and by Dr Alan Borg.
They manage to capture the atmosphere of this magical place- lit by thousands of tiny coloured-glass oil lamps,where you could wander among the leafy groves, see and hear the latest art and music, and mingle with all classes of people who cloud afford to pay the entrance fee. The only exception being servants in livery- they were not admitted to teh gardens for as David Coke remarked to me yesterday,
Servants in livery were only excluded from Vauxhall because Tyers did not want any of his visitors to be seen as obviously subservient to any other visitor. Of course, it also meant that wealthy visitors could not use their own servants to serve them supper, and had to use the Vauxhall waiters, but I’m sure this was a minor consideration.
This is all very well, I hear you say, and all very interesting, but did Vauxhall have any association with Jane Austen? It did. She wrote about it in Lesley Castle when she was 16 years old in 1791. She may not have visited it personally, and there is no mention of it in her letters, but she may have known of it by repute or by reading other novels such as Evelina (1778) or Cecilia (1782) both written by Fanny Burney, one of Jane Austen’s favoured authors, and which both mention the pleasure garden. In Letter the Seventh from Miss C. Lutterell to Miss M. Lesley, Bristol 27th March, JAne Austen wrote:
In spite of all that People may say about Green fields and the Country I was always of the opinion that London and its Amusements must be very agreeable for a while, and should be very happy could my Mother’s income allow her to jockey us into its Public-places during Winter. I always longed particularly to go to Vaux-hall to see whether the cold Beef there is cut so thin as it is reported, for I have a sly suspicion that few people understand the art of cutting a slice of cold Beef so well as I do: nay it would be had if I did not know something of the Matter, for it was a part of my education that I took by far the most pains with…
This is one of the things Vauxhall was infamous for- the thinness of the cold meat served in the dining booths. As we find in the book under discussion:
It is impossible to discuss the food without again mentioning the famous Vauxhall ham; this, like the beef, was always served in notoriously thin slices. Many stores circulated about it ,and it even made its appearance in contemporary comic poetry….eventually the thinness of the ham once picturesquely described as “sliced cobwebs” became proverbial; at homes all over London if any diner was feeling abstemious they would ask for their serving of meat to be carved “Vauxhaully”…
(Page 198)
It would seem that, unlike this country gentleman, below, Jane Austen, living in rural Hampshire, had heard all about it…
I can thoroughly recommend this well-written, witty, informative and scholarly book to you, if you are at all interested in the pleasure garden, its history or how it prospered then eventually closed in 1859. I cannot envisage having to buy another book on the subject, so comprehensive is this one. I will be reporting on the Foundling Hospital Museum exhibit in the summer. But if you want to explore a little on line then do go to Dr Borg and David Coke’s website, here, to experience a little of the Vauxhall Magic.
After a week where we discussed the merits of a portrait of Jane Austen, I thought it highly appropriate to review this fascinating book, which has been recently published by Yale. It would make the prefect present for anyone interested in the history of the perceptions of female beauty, that ever-changing ideal that is almost impossible for any one woman to attain. Aileen Ribeiro, Emeritus Professor at the Courtaluld Institute, has written a thought provoking and carefully researched book on this most elusive of subjects. Though it deals with a long time period- from 1540 to 1940- the detailed chapter on beauty in the Enlightenment period is worth the cover price of the book alone.
Jane Austen lived though a period when ideals of beauty changed almost 180 degrees. When she was born, in 1775, powdered and pomaded hair, teased fantastically high, above a powered, rouged and patched face was the fashionable norm. The picture, above, taken from a fan made in the 1770s is a satire of a fashionable woman at her toilette. Jane Austen would surely have seen women who aspired to this type of beauty. Indeed, a small, delicate rouge pot is kept in the collection of the Jane Austen’s House Museum which is thought to have been the property of her fascinating cousin and eventual sister-in-law, Eliza de Feuillide . You can see it below in one of my own photographs.( Note, this is not included in the book)
However, by the turn of the century , 1800, that had all changed.
The more natural elegance of Justine Recamier, above, though no less artful, was more favoured after the upheavals of the French Revioluton and the overthrow of the old order:
Compared with the Renaissance, the eighteenth century was a period of personal comfort, of improved hygiene and of bodily intimacy, all of which turned the toilette into a high art, in which the theatre of dressing and undressing was an much an enjoyable entertainment as making up the face. The century regarded beauty as a whole, the body as well as the face…
Professor Ribeiro discusses in immense detail how (mostly) male writers sought to comment on women’s beauty and, by these means, also attempted to control their behaviour. Look at this passage about Jane Asuten’s favourite poet, William Copwer, with his somewhat familiar arguments agasint the over use of cosmetics:
The poet William Cowper pursued the idea of deceit in make up by asking how far the eye was really deceived if the face was overly made up. In France, according to his argument, woman’s use of paint was not intended to mislead because the artifice was too obvious; Englishwomen, however, tried to mislead by more subtle make up, for they wanted “to be thought beautiful and much more beautiful than nature has made them” and so they were “guilty of a design to deceive”
In the early 19th cnetury, neoclassicism and its emphasis on the natural look inspired by the Greek and Roman statuary , flourished, as personified by this portrait of Queen Louise of Prussia by Joseph Grassi ( 1804)
But it was a type of beauty that emphasised the young and the youthful. Professor Riberio notes that at this time:
Youthfulness was a crucial component of beauty-that is, a slim figure enhanced by light and simple dress and a youthful complexion that remained well beyond the juvenile age.
This print by Robert Deighton, Fashionable Lady in Dress and Undress dating from 1807 shows the sheer amount of work and artifice that was necessary to present this appearance of youthful beauty as a woman aged…
As Professor Riberio wryly comments:
Even when the vogue for the classical flourished at the turn of the century, not every woman abandoned face paint or cosmetics; make up, like certain favoured styles of dress, is so much a part of sense of self that it is often retained beyond youth, when no longer fashionable. Many women, especially those of a certain age, must have felt more comfortable when dress assumed a natural waist level, when the arms were covered and when, by using cosmetics, they could ‘ baffle time in his invidious warfare against comeliness”
What I particularly loved was the detailed documentary on the cosmetics that women have used throughout the period covered by the book. All in the hope , sometimes a desperate and dangerous hope given the ingredients used, of appearing youthful and beautiful.
The foundation for a healthy and glowing face was unblemished skin, which was softened with a scented oil or a wax-based pomade…
The pomades which would give the appearance of a youthful skin were prepared and bought by women, rather in the way we buy age defying formulas today. Fascinating.
I can wholly recommend this beautifully produced and sumptuously illustrated book to you. Professor Riberio has a great style which is entertaining, elegant and erudite. You will love this book, and reading it will give you some insights into why Caroline Bingley was so dismissive of Elizabeth Bennet’s tan ,and why, indeed, Darcy found her glowing complexion so compelling 
Yesterday an exhibition devoted to examining the life and works of the 18th century painter, Johan Zoffany, opened at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut. Johan Zoffany R.A: Society Observed will run there until the 12th February 2012, and then it will transfer to London to the Royal Academy, where it will be on show from the 10th March until the 10th June 2012.
Mary Webster, who has made a very special study of the life and works of Zoffany has written an amazing book to accompany the exhibit, and this has also been published by Yale.
I can’t review the exhibit yet, but I can write about the book, as I’ve been reading it for the past couple of months. Zoffany was born in 1733 near Frankfurt am Maim. His family was associated with the local court and then moved to Regensburg. Zoffany received his art education in Rome, which he visited on two occasions and then became court painter to the elector of Trier. Below, is his self portrait:
After his marriage in 1760 he moved to London to try his luck as an artist. He set up a studio in Covent Garden, where he came to the notice of the leading actor of the day, David Garrick. Other actors flocked to his studios to be immortalised in oils.The patronage of Garrick brought him to the attention of the powerful and the great, most notably The Earl of Bute who gave him many family commissions. The Earl was the young George III’s prime minister, and so it was probably through this link that Zoffany began to receive court commissions. It also helped that he spoke German as a first language,and he received many commissions and help from Queen Charlotte, George III’s wife, who was, of course, German.
His paintings of the royal family are very familiar- and so I will not comment on them here. What I found interesting, on reading the book, were his portraits of lesser known individuals, as below in his portrait of Charles Francois Dumergue, then London’s most fashionable dentist. Mr Dumergue, who was born in France , was Dentist to the Royal Family. The painting dates from 1780-81:
His official title was Court Operator of the Teeth. He was also dentist to the Prince of Wales from 1785 until 1814. He was a great friend of Zoffany and their friendship lasted all their lives. He was also great friend with Matthew Boulton and James Watt the inventors and engineers, and also with Sir Walter Scott. This portrait by Zoffany, below, of Sophia Dunmergue , Mr Dumergue’s daughter, dates from the same period:
Zoffany’s great conversation pieces, painted in London, are also well-known and my favourite is of the Sharpe family:
Here they all are, on a musical water party sailing on the Thames near Fulham. The family is shown as the sort of people you would love to meet: talented, musical, interesting, fun. The family included Granville Sharp ,the lawyer : he is shown holding a sheet of music for his sister,Elizabeth Prowse, who is playing the fortepiano. You can see them in the centre of the picture. Granville Sharp was of course,the principal agent in fighting the very famous case of James Somersett, the black slave, wihc was heard before Lord Mansfield, and as Mary Webster remarks:
It was in this case that Mansfield in 1772 pronounced his famous verdict that Somersett must go free since no English law sanctioned slavery. Sharp consequently founded the Society for the Abolition of Slavery…
This is all very well, I hear you say, but is there any more to Zoffany to make him an object of interest to we Janeites? The answer is, yes. Empahtically, yes. For, in 1783 he travelled to India to paint there. Professional disappointments and a lack of commissions forced him to look elsewhere than England for work. And he looked to the world of Warren Hastings, the Governor General of Bengal, shown below, in a portrait with his second wife, Marian, and her Indian servant:
Warren Hastings gave Zoffany his enthusiastic patronage. And this is the interesting link, for Hastings had many associations with Jane Austen’s family. He had known Jane’s mother’s family, the Leighs of Adlestrop since childhood. He entrusted the care of his son from his first marriage to Mr and Mrs Austen, when they were first married and living at Deane in Hampshire. Seven year old George Hastings was the Reverend Austen’s first pupil, sent back to England from India to be educated. Sadly, he died while in their care, in 1764 of a “putrid throat”.His death affected Mrs Austen dreadfully. Mrs Austen had become so much attached to him that she always
declared that his death had been as great a grief to her as if he had been a child of her own
(Quoted in Jane Austen: A Family Record by Deirdre Le Faye, page 18)
Mr Austen’s sister, Philadelphia also knew Hastings. A poor but genteel woman, she travelled to India to find a husband in 1752 and married the elderly Tysoe Hancock in 1753. Both she and her elderly husband were close friends with him. He was godfather to their only daughter, Eliza, known to us all as the glamourous Countess de Feuillide, and then wife of Jane Austen’s brother, Henry . Sadly, hurtful gossip surrounded this group of friends:
The close friendship between Hastings and the Hancock’s coupled with the fact that the latter had been childless for so long before Betsey’s birth, gave scope for spiteful gossip to suggest that she was not Hancock’s daughter. The rumour was spread by the malicious Mrs Strachey, whose husband was secretary to Lord Clive and her slander was successful in so far as Clive wrote to his wife in the late summer of 1765: “In no circumstances whatever keep company with Mrs Hancock for it is beyond a doubt that she abandoned herself with Mr Hastings, indeed I would rather you had no acquaintance with the ladies who have been in India, they stand in such little esteem in England that their company cannot be of credit to Lady Clive”
(Le Faye, as above, page 30)
Whatever the case regarding the parentage of Eliza, Zoffany’s works painted while he lived in India give us a rare glimpse into the strange world that Philadelphia Austen moved to in order to survive : and the world the the Crofts in Persuasion inhabited:
“What a great traveller you must have been, ma’am!” said Mrs. Musgrove to Mrs. Croft.
”Pretty well, ma’am, in the fifteen years of my marriage; though many women have done more. I have crossed the Atlantic four times, and have been once to the East Indies and back again, and only once; besides being in different places about home: Cork, and Lisbon, and Gibraltar. But I never went beyond the Streights, and never was in the West Indies. We do not call Bermuda or Bahama, you know, the West Indies.”
Persuasion, Chapter 8
and the place where Colonel Brandon saw active service;
But can we wonder that with such a husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or restrain her, (for my father lived only a few months after their marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies), she should fall? Had I remained in England, perhaps — but I meant to promote the happiness of both by removing from her for years, and for that purpose had procured my exchange.
Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 31.
This is a fascinating portrait by Zoffany of the Blair family , painted in 1786-7. Colonel William Blair was originally of Balthayock in Perthshire, but ,when painted with his family, was then Colonel of the Bengal Army and commandant of the garrison of Chunar 20 miles above Benares.
This is another conversation piece of the Impey family dating from 17883. Sir Elijah Impey was a lawyer and judge. Note the Indian band in the background, and just how exhausted poor Mrs Impey looks in the heat.
The chapters dealing with Zoffany’s life and work in India are fascinating.Mary Webster’s exquisite research into the lives of the sitter and the servants provides us with a wonderful and detailed view of word of the English and servants of the East India company in India. I am throughly enjoying savouring this very new topic, espaillaly as it is something that seems to have held a stung hold on the young Jane Austen’s imagination: she wrote about life in India in both her juvenilia and her adult works.
This book is worth having for the joy of reading these Indian chapters, but , as you can see from this cursory review, there is much, much more to be enjoyed. Mary Wester’s prose is very readable and informative. She gives fascinating details of late 18th century life to answer the questions that natually arise when studying Zoffany’s works in detail. It’s a heavy tome, and very expensive at £75, but I can truly recommend it to you
The National Portrait Gallery in London’s new exhibit, The First Actresses opens tomorrow and runs until the 8th January 2012. I hope I will be going to see it soon. I will ,of course, then let you know my impressions of it( you would be hard pressed to restrain me!). But today I thought you might like to read about the book that accompanies the exhibition, and you might consider purchasing it, especially if you cannot visit the exhibit in London in person.
The exhibition seeks to examine how these first actresses were portrayed, not only in the large-scale portrait but in caricatures, in prints and on such diverse goods as china figures and tin glazed tiles, and how perceptions of their reputations changed as a result. The book contains interesting essays on the lives of these early actresses. Of course, it has to be remembered that it was only after the Restoration of the monarchy under Charles II (my hero!) in 1660 that women were allowed to become professional actress and appear on the stage. The way in which their reputations, good or ill, have been portrayed by artists is certainly an intriguing subject to examine in detail. Many actresses were associated with lax morals and, indeed, outright prostitution. During Jane Austen’s era Sarah Siddons sought to establish a more serious, responsible and respectable persona for the female branch of the profession. But, of course, she shared the stage with actresses like Mary Robinson, shown above on the cover of the book, who was The Prince of Wales’ mistress, and Dorothea Jordan, shown below in a portrait by John Russell dating from 1801. She was famous for her marvellous pair of legs, revealed to the adoring public in “breeches roles” where cross dressing was allowed, even encouraged. She was also the long term mistress of the Duke of Clarence, the Prince of Wales’ brother, who pretty swiftly disposed of her servicesin the race to produce a legitimate hero to the throne after the death of George IV’s only legitimate child, Princess Charlotte in November 1817, but only after she had bourne him ten children and supported him financially.
The great serious portrait , executed by an aspiring or famous artist and exhibited in public was one way in which actresses sought to convince the public that they were to be taken seriously. John Hoppner’s portrait of Mrs Jordan as the Comic Muse, below, failed miserably in this regard as the attitude in which she was painted was thought to be too salacious and many hostile reviews resulted. The great portrait was, for both parties involved, a two-way street. If it worked, not only did the actress enhance her reputation but the artist gained fame and possibly more commissions as a result of portraying a celebrity successfully. Plus ca change….
The book contains potted biographies of the sitters included in the exhibition. The portrait of Mrs Inchblad, below, attributed to John Hoppner, is new to me and I think it is fabulous. She was, of course, not only an author in her own right but was also the translator of Kotzebue’s play, Lover’s Vows, which Jane Austen used to spectacular and revealing dramatic effect in the Private Theatricals episode in Mansfield Park.
The Chapter entitled Star Systems Then and Now written by Gill Perry is perhaps my favourite section of the book. As well as considering actresses now and how they are portrayed by artists and photographers, Gill Perry examines how non-professionals who took part in The Itch for Acting- private theatricals – an itch which infected the society in which Jane Austen lived, were portrayed by artists and the media of the day.
The painting by Daniel Gardner of The Three Witches from Macbeth, shows Elizabeth, Vicountess Melbourne, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire and Anne Seymour Damer, as they appeared at the Richmond House private theatricals which were hosted by the Duke of Richmond at his London home in a specially built theatre, and where its aristocratic cast were coached by the professional actress Elizabeth Farren. She went on to marry one of them, the Earl of Derby.
Jane Austen loved the theatre and was an acute critic of performances she attended in London and in Southampton.She would have enjoyed this book tremendously I’m sure, casting her critical eye over the many portraits, making caustic comments on them no doubt.
You ought to know that the NPG is currently offering the book at a reduced price currently: here is a link to the website should you wish to buy it from them directly, and take advantage of this offer. If you are interested in the theatre of Jane Austen’s era, then I am sure you will want to do so.
This has recently become one of my very favourite books. I received it from the publishers about six weeks ago and I have read it, and re-read it, since then. It now resides on my bedside table and I frequently take it up when insomnia strikes. It is simply one of the most well written and engaging books on Mrs Delany I have ever read. But it is so much more than that…but before I get carried away in my enthusiasm, let’s first deal with the basics.
In this book, Molly Peacock, the esteemed poet (shown above)has written a very detailed, readable and affectionate biography of that most accomplished woman, Mrs Delany. You will recall that last year I wrote about Mrs Delany, her accomplishments and her legacy to us of her copious and fabulously detailed correspondence, a boon for anyone studying domestic life of the 18th century, here
Mrs Delany is of course, now best remembered for her paper mosaiks of horticultural subjects. These amazingly accurate and detailed paper collages, now kept in the British Museum, were the work of her old age. She began making them when she was 72 and planned to complete 1000 of them. Sadly, her eyesight failed her and she put aside her work in 1783 having completed 985 of these astoundingly beautiful and accurate pieces of work.
The book is an exploration and appreciation of Mrs Delany’s life in Georgian England and Ireland. We learn all about her two marriages, the first an arranged loveless thing; the second, to Dean Swift’s friend, Dr Patrick Delany, below, which was a happier, fulfilling and companiable relationship. And then the years of her long widowhood and how her artistic gifts enabled her to live a life that was, despite the absence of her beloved Dr Delany, fulfilled and satisfying.
Molly Peacock has a immediacy in her writing so that in her company we swiftly and seamlessly time travel to the 18th century,taking in delicious details of coronations, the perils of 18th century travel,the world of the Bluestockings, and the last , productive years of the life of Patrick Delany’s widow, sympathetically befriended by George III and his wife Queen Charlotte.
But the book is also part memoir, a journey into Molly Peacock’s own life, both professional and personal. We learn of its parallels with Mrs Delany’s and how Molly’s fascination with these bewitching images has shaped the course of her life since she discovered them in the 1980s. More importantly, perhaps, she reveals to us how researching these images has affected her own attitude to life, her family, work and art. Without intending to sound too sentimental ( for this book most certainly is not prissy or sentimental at all) it is one of the most uplifting books I’ve read in years. Positive and creative. Attitudes that both Mrs Delany and Molly seem to share, and which ought to be examples to us all. To be frank I’m reminded of Miss Bates’s excellent attitude to life, as Jane Austen portrayed in Emma.If only she had had some artistic talent and a comfortabel pension….then she would not have been overlooked or patronised by anyone in Highbury society, and even our heroine might have paid her more due.
In less talented hands this could have been a disjointed, difficult book to read. But we travel effortlessly between detailed appreciations of the paper mosaiks, on to reminisces of Molly’s life, family and her journeyings(both mental and physical ); then to the minutiae of life in 18th century England and Ireland on to philosophical musings on the nature of modern life and contentment. It is an entirely satisfying and stimulating experience.
The book is also beautifully produced, reproducing 35 of Mrs Delany’s marvelous mosaiks in full colour. Link Beatrix Potter’s perfectly proportioned books, it sits perfectly in the hand and is very tactile: even the hard cover has been embossed poppy in its corner.(see above) I have adored living with this book it.
The publishers were kind enough to send me a copy, for it has already ben published in the U.S.A. but I had already ordered my own and it will be delivered when the book is published in the UK in July. As I am sure you will love this book I’m putting the publishers copy into the pile for the next Austen Only Annual Give Away in October. In the meantime,if you can’t wait for that, I urge you to buy it and savour every beautifully written word.
Where do I begin …how on earth do I review this magnificent and comprehensive book in a few words?
It is, let me stress from the outset, the book I have always wanted to read on the church in 18th century Britain. For it not only covers the history of the fabulous new builds that took place during this century, and developments in architectural trends, with enough architectural plans to satisfy even me, but it also details the life of the church and churchgoers from cradle to grave, see the Funeral Ticket of Mrs Mary Thomas,below:
and the author writes in great and easily digested detail on how the church operated on a daily basis.
The author is a noted expert on the Anglican Church in the 18th century,and one of his earlier books is a favourite of mine, shown below, but I hesitated to reckoned it to you fearing it was of specialist interest only.
Not so with this latest book newly published by the ever excellent Yale.
This is a block buster of a book, comprehensively and beautifully illustrated and very well written. Its only down side is its massive weight (I’m very glad I and it delivered and didn’t have to carry it home, my apologies my local independent bookseller).
It concentrates on the Anglican church and its life within these magnificent buildings, but does include chapters on Catholic chapels,Dissenting chapels, churches in the United States,country house chapels, such as the one at Stoneleigh,whose magnificent plaster ceiling is shown below:
and the Gothick revival chapel at The Vyne, in Hampshire,both places Jane Austen knew well.
This book is invaluable, for references to the Church in Jane Austens works abound,and if you ever wanted to know more of country house chapels the parish churhces or even the architects she mentions, then this is the book for you.
The chapel at Southerton in Mansfield Park was most surely based on the cool Palladainism of the chapel at Stoneleigh,whereas Fanny Price’s sympathies were mor in tune with ancient structures. The cover shows St Georges Parish Church, Hanover Square the church where the ever fashionably-minded Mary Crawford imagines Fanny and Henry Crawford will marry…
I am at your service and Henry’s, at an hour’s notice. I should like the scheme, and we would make a little circuit, and shew you Everingham in our way, and perhaps you would not mind passing through London, and seeing the inside of St. George’s, Hanover Square. Only keep your cousin Edmund from me at such a time: I should not like to be tempted.
Mansfield Park, Chapter 43
The book even makes mention of one of Jane Austin’s possibly less favoured architects, the architect appointed by Robert Ferrars friend, Lord Coutland, Joseph Bonomi:
“For my own part,” said he, “I am excessively fond of a cottage; there is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself down at any time, and collect a few friends about me, and be happy. I advise everybody who is going to build, to build a cottage. My friend Lord Courtland came to me the other day on purpose to ask my advice, and laid before me three different plans of Bonomi’s. I was to decide on the best of them. ‘My dear Courtland,’ said I, immediately throwing them all into the fire, ‘do not adopt either of them, but by all means build a cottage.’ And that, I fancy, will be the end of it.
Sense and Sesnibility, Chapter 36.
The book is massive - just under 800 pages- and very heavy,and comes with a CD ROM of documentation of the design and construction histories of 272 ecclesiastical buildings. An elegant solution to space constraints.
It is however packed, simply packed, with fascinating information, about the church, the churches,the people who commissioned them and built them,and the lives of the congregation and priests within the churches themselves.
I highly recommend it to anyone interested in finding out more about the Church in Jane Austen’s day, its buildings and its operation, for she was so intimately connected to it, through her own family and through the lives of her imagined character. This book clears up many misunderstandings or puzzles arising from her works. I would urge you to buy it or seek a view of it in your nearest library.
Lovers of Rowlandson’s works are spoilt for choice at the moment. Not only is there a wonderful exhibition of his works currently on show in the United States entitled, Pleasures and Pursuits in Georgian England, but also two books have recently been published; the catalogue to the exhibition which I reviewed here, and another, Regarding Thomas Rowlandson: His Life Art and Acquaintance by Matthew and James Payne.
It is sad that the catalogue writers did not have the chance to see the book before it was published, and not merely just some papers relating to it, for this now has to be regarded as the definitive book on Rowlandson’s life and works.
Gathering facts about Rowlandson is a difficult task, as the authors of this book acknowledge:
The biographer of Thomas Rowlandson encounters from the outset a frustrating deficiency of source material. Few letters to or by Rowlandons have survived. He wrote no journals. His character and activities are touched upon in the diaries and memoirs of a mere handful of his contemporaries. He surfaces only occasionally in the newspapers and pubic records of the period…..
Due to years of diligent research and painstaking tracing of his thousands of drawings, prints and engravings, the authors have been able to provide this full and interesting study of Rowlandson’s life. By referencing and putting into context hundreds of his works they have been able to trace the journeyings of his life, and they have provided a vibrant portrait not merely of the artist but of the world he inhabited.
(Rowlandson by John Raphael Smith circa 1795)
Rowlandson’s sketches are some of his most interesting pictures and, to me, are far more valuable than any of his more polished satirical works.Why? Because they give us a glimpse into the world that Jane Austen knew, and he depicted sights she saw nearly every day of her life. His rough sketches-the work of moments- have a vibrancy and immediacy and capture intimate and insignificant ( to others perhaps, but not to me) moments such this sketch of The Delay or Accident in Popham Lane 1784
Or of this simple study of his old schoolmate and life long friend the famous comic/actor, Jack Bannister having his hair dressed in his dressing room at Drury Lane theatre in London:
Whilst the more careful studies, such as this of a review of the Isle of Wight Volunteers drilling in Newport circa 1797, below, also give a flavour of a past world, and in this case an indication of how the arrival of the militia in the town of Meryton would have looked to the Bennet sisters( not to mention their mother).
The book is profusely illustrated in colour and in black and white
and shows scenes with which Jane Austen would have been wholly familiar…indeed, of some to which her characters actually refer. This print, below, is one of Rowlandson’s studies of A Register Office, probably executed in 1803, and is precisely the type of place Jane Fairfax refers to in Chapter 35 of Emma when in conversation with Mrs Elton:
“Excuse me, ma’am, but this is by no means my intention; I make no inquiry myself, and should be sorry to have any made by my friends. When I am quite determined as to the time, I am not at all afraid of being long unemployed. There are places in town, offices, where inquiry would soon produce something — offices for the sale, not quite of human flesh, but of human intellect.”
“Oh! my dear, human flesh! You quite shock me; if you mean a fling at the slave-trade, I assure you Mr. Suckling was always rather a friend to the abolition.”
“I did not mean, I was not thinking of the slave-trade,” replied Jane; “governess-trade, I assure you, was all that I had in view; widely different certainly, as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies. But I only mean to say that there are advertising offices, and that by applying to them I should have no doubt of very soon meeting with something that would do.”
By giving entertaining explanations of some of Rowlandson’s more obscure works, the authors allow us to understand the society he portrayed and satirised. This cartoon, below, entitled The Road to Preferment Through Clarke’s Passage refers to the infamous Mrs Clarke, the mistress of the Duke of York. Their scandal which broke in 1809 was due to the Duke’s misuse of patronage and corruption under her influence. He had arranged the promotion of personnel in the army and the church on Mrs Clarke’s urging.
The book is for such a serious academic study,eminently readable and enjoyable. I really enjoyed meeting the characters who surrounded Rowlandson, both in his personal life and in his career, and I especially liked the vivid descriptions of the publishing world of the late 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in relation to Rudolph Ackermann. Here is how the book relates how the Microcosm of London was conceived and executed:
He(Ackermann-jfw ) invited William Pyne to write the letterpress. The colour plates were to be designed by Augustus Pugin and Thomas Rowlandson. Augustus Pugin was a small, forty-six year old Frenchman who had fled from Revolutionary France and settled to a career as an architectural draughtsman in London. He suffered from an inflated sense of status. His pedigree might have been according to family tradition, touched a long time ago by nobility, but its lustre had rather dulled in more recent time, and although he had good humour and charm enough to satisfy society he could exhibit a brusque pomposity as he intuitively played the Gentleman…..The series remained only an unrealized fancy until in about 1804 Augustus Pugin met Rudolf Ackermann. Ackermann was inclined to take under his wing talented foreign refugees in England. He listened to the proposals of Mr and Mrs Pugin and was soon persuaded of the viability and profitability of their scheme. He would direct, commission and publish. ….Ackerman’s brain wave was to entrust to Thomas Rowlandson the figures of all those Londoners who would be seen filling Pugin’s architecture….To partner the traditionally minded “Comte de Pugin” with the comic and unruly Rowlandson was a bold stroke”
(The House of Commons from The Microcosm of London, with architectural details by Pugin and figures by Rowlandson- my collection, not in the book)
This is a gem of a book: highly entertaining, readable and so informative of Jane Austen’s times, for her life overlapped with his. I can throughly recommend it to you.
The first edition of the Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, edited by Edward Copeland and Juliet McMaster, which was published in 1997, has for a long time lived in my essential pile of books. This pile contains about 20 or so reference books I refer to constantly, and they sit in a slightly teetering pile on my desk in my study. They sometimes have to be replaced when they fall apart from overuse, as happened with my first copy of the Companion, which was held together with some pink legal tape till I succumbed and bought another copy out of shame.
It was more than a starting point for further research, a collection of seriously but clearly written essays by leading Austen scholars, which attempted to put Austen’s works into context, critically and historically. It was a great success, coming as it did in 1997 on the crest of the wave of the Austen boom in popularity, caused in the main by the very successful adaptations of the early 1990s.
A new edition has been recently published, again edited by Copeland and McMaster, and, like the first edition, I can highly recommend it, and would encourage even those who have a copy of the first edition to buy it, as there is so much new material within it to think about and internalise.
Old essays which have been retained are The Chronology of Jane Austen’s Life by Deirdre Le Faye, The Professional Woman Writer by Jan Fergus,The Early Short Fiction by Margaret Anne Doody, The Letters by Carol Houlihan Flynn, Class by Juliet McMaster, Money by Edward Copeland(possibly my favourite chapter in the book), Jane Austen and Literary Tradition by Isobel Grundy and Austen Cults and Cultures by Claudia L. Johnson.
New essays which have been commissioned are Northanger Abbey and Sense and Sensibility by Thomas Keymer, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park by Jocelyn Harris, Emma and Persuasion by Penny Gay, Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon by Janet Todd, Making a Living by David Selwyn, Gender by E. J. Clery, Sociability by Gillian Russell and a very intriguing essay Jane Austen on Screen by Katheryn Sutherland. The chapter on Further Reading originally written by Bruce Stovell has now been updated by Mary M Chan.
The Preface to the Companion has some interesting points, and it might be illuminating to consider them. One that did jump out at me and made me sit back in my chair with a little unease, intimates that the audiences at which the book is aimed- academics and the Janeites, of which I suppose I am one- are often separated /divided despite a common love of the subject:
Those people who gather to talk about Jane Austen, for example, still divide loosely into two friendly groups seeking mutual conversation, but often sailing past one another-enegertic non-academics with avid feeling for Austen and limited tolerance for bookish harangues and academics also with great love for Austen but certainly bookish and with perhaps less enthusiasm of the Janeite kind..
Hmm..I do hate the way the word Janeite has become ever-so-slightly a disparaging term….
Students who first encounter her works and even old hands who read her novels annually all sense that Austen’s culture recedes at unsettling speed. Younger readers for example can find themselves puzzled by the insistent economics of Austen’s novels or by her subtle class distinctions. They are startled to find that Austen’s works posses political resonance. The old Janeite enthusiasm “how do they make whip’t syllabub?” has altered almost universally to “why do they make whip’t syllabub”
Hmm…. I suppose here I show my amateur but lawerly colours and wonder if it isn’t better to ask both questions,and surely the answer to the former informs the latter? How sad that there is considered to be a great divide between the academic professional and serious amateur. I wonder what it says about us all….I have had little interaction with Austen academics, but I do have to say the divide between history academics and amateurs does not, in my opinion and personal experience, seem to be so marked or so jealously guarded. This does beg the question, what would Jane Austen make of it all ?
Enough of that.
Onto the new essays, my favourite being a very thoughtful chapter by Katheryn Sutherland on screen adaptations of Austen’s works. The proliferation of them in the mid 1990s is, of course, what prompted the rise in Austen’s recent popularity and was a prime reason the first companion was produced and, dare I say it, found a wide audience.
She makes the point that in the main, the adaptations do not reflect the subtlety of Jane Austen written world.When Jane Austen makes a point of mentioning a domestic object it is an alarm bell to the informed reader. Film cannot convey this. Also, modern adaptations tend to see the stories primarily as love stories, when obviously they are so much more than that. She also reviews the new packaging of Austen’s novels as modern chick lit and points out that while such books are more likely to be brought by younger Janeites, they will have first seen the adaptations, and do the adaptations colour their views of the novels, instead of the other way around? They probably do. But what now can be done, that the collective genii are out of their respective film canisters?
Her criticism of the re-invention of Darcy by the 1995 BBC adaption is very interesting and is an opinion I have long shared. And I very much like her appreciation of the new attitdue-the dirty hem look- of the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice and of Persuasion from 1995. This adaptation, which is top among my favorites, gets special praise:
The sequence of mainly silent images suggestive of the turmoil of Anne Elliot’s inner life in the opening sequence of the 1995 Persuasion works so well because we are seduced into sympathy by Amanda Root’s reticent performance. There is no intrusive voice-over, no coy Hollywood style diary-writing or mirror-gazing to bring the viewer up to speed and when she looks camera-ward her gaze is inward.
The recent biographical TV film, Miss Austen Regrets, also a favourite of mine, recieves a special mention:
Played with great assurance by Olivia Williams, this is a complicated controversially adult Austen:tart and barbed, amusing, desperately flirtatious, lonely, by turns intolerant, dependant and afraid, a complicated biographical portrait that works because film unlike words can trade effectively in since.
Of course to all this I would add the practical caveat that filmmakers, in my experience do not make films with the Austen academic or Janeite in mind. They aim for a far wider audience, and this is all done, of course, to make a profit.
The second edition of the Companion is a very useful book. It contains interesting articles, ones that provoke thought and some that inform opinion. Like the first, it tries it educate so that a better understanding of Austen is acquired. Because of the major additions to this second edition, this is now a book Janeites( ought I use that term?) should strive to read or buy. Very good value. I wonder if I will have to purchase another due to overuse in a few years time…?
This is a great year for lovers of Thomas Rowlandson’s works (of which I am one). Here he is, above ,shown at the age of 58 in 1814, at the height of his popularity. An exhibition of his work is currently available to view in the USA: and interestingly it will be on show at two venues . It is currently at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University in Chicago until the 31st March, and then it will move to the Frances Lehman Boeb art Centre at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY state, where it will be on show to the public from the 8th April until the 11th June of this year.
Sadly I have no hope of seeing the exhibit at either venues( how I do despise the Atlantic!) and so I’m pleased to be in receipt of the book that has been published to accompany the exhibit, and it is that book I am going to review today.
Rowlandson has been somewhat dismissed in the past as a prolific but crude and lewd artist. Immediately after his death his works fell into a critical decline. As Professor Vic Gatrell writes in his essay Rowlandson’s London which is contained in the book:
Manners were changing fast in the 1820s and by the time of his death in 1827 his robust humour was out of fashion. Thanks to the increasing assertiveness of the evangelical and upwardly mobile middle-class opinion makers, more domesticated and respectable tastes were gaining ground. So only one obituary noticed his passing and only Ackermann, Bannister and Angelo are recorded at his funeal.For half a century thereafter barely a handful of collectors even remembered his name.
This exhibition and book attempts to re assess Rowlandson and his work, as not only someone who was humorous, but who depicted social life in late Georgian england with a satirical but nevertheless accurate eye. Someone who had a talent for spotting and reproducing the telling details of the raw side of life in the taverns, streets and theatre of Georgian London.
Jane Austen certainly knew of Rowlandson’s works. In her letter to Cassandra Austen of the 2nd March 1814, she refers to his character Dr Syntax:
There are no good places to be got in Drury Lane for the next fortnight, but Henry means to secure some for Saturday fortnight, when you are reckoned upon. Give my love to little Cassandra! I hope she found my bed comfortable last night and has not filled it with fleas. I have seen nobody in London yet with such a long chin as Dr. Syntax, nor anybody quite so large as Gogmagoglicus.
Dr Syntax was, of course, Rowlandson and William Combe’s satirical attack on William Gilpin and his books on the picturesque. The tours of the hapless Dr Syntax mimic Gilpin’s tours around the British Isles : Jane Austen appears to have been a reader and possible admirer of both. And of course if does have to be admitted that Dr Syntax had a rather long chin….
The exhibition and the accompanying book edited by Patricia Phagan attempts to re-assess Rowlandson’s reputation, as an accurate depicter of social phenomena and the Georgian habit of mixing of social classes at entertainments in England :
The exhibition is organized around the chief forms that social life assumed in Rowlandons art: high society and politics; encounters in the street ,taverns and clubs, outdoor entertainments,the arts and sexual and romantic tangles and attachments.
He recorded a world, especially of that in London,that Jane Austen knew well, living as she did occasionally with Henry Austen at his home in Henrietta Street ,Covent Garden:
Rowlandson’s art emerged from a culture bound by a sense of irony, and independent minded society where social ranks mingled in public areas such as royal parks, pleasure gardens and in the theatrical and artistic realm of Covent Garden,but in which a hierarchy remained.
Patricia Phagan also notes that:
Rowlandson’s observations on society’s indulgent pleasures also vibrate with social tension and personal irony and it is this edge , along with his deft drawing style, that gives the artist’s work its commanding intrigue.
An essay by Vic Gatrell,author of City of Laughter (a marvellous book, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in the prints of this era and which deals in part with Rowlandson’s satirical prints, gives great insights into Rowlandson and his intimate relationship with Covent Garden in London.
Hhe also makes this plea which is at the heart of the exhibition and book:
The truth is that Rowlandson needs tobe rescued from the immense condescension of posterity. Critics and collectors over the past couple of centuries have always liked his watercolor drawings, but because they have been largely concerned with aesthetic effects and conventionally reputable genres. They have generally ignored his comic prints and deplored his ‘coarseness’. The more snobbish have sniffed at the fact that much of his market came to lie amongst people more vulgar than themsleves. Commcerically minded, indeed low-minded, Rowlandson rejected the artistic postures that would have enabled such people to approve of him more easily…
The exhibition concentrates on Rowlandson prints, including his political ones.But does not cover in depth his landscape and topographical subjects, though some , like his depiction of Winsor, below, are included.
The book includes very fine reproductions of 72 of his prints, all reproduced in full colour and having interesting and illuminating commentaries attached.
Sadly, there are few concrete facts surrounding Rowlandson’s life and the compilers of both the exhibition and this book acknowledge that did not have access to the latest research, a new publication on Rowlandson’s life which was written by the acknowledged experts, Matthew and James Pyne. Entitled Regarding Thomas Rowlandson: His Life, Art and Aquaintance I will be writing about that book very soon.
I ought to warn that some of the images in the exhibition catalogue are, as is to be expected, explicit. But then the age in which he and Jane Austen lived was a far more robust era than those that followed. Something that readers of Jane Austen find disconcerting sometimes; But if, like me, you find in Rowlandson’s drawings and prints an immediacy,which conveys something of what it was like to live in the late Georgian era, then this book is for you.
I leave you with Rowlandson’s view of Oxford undergraduates, men Jane Austen knew quite well, having two brothers, James and Henry, who were educated there
I posted a review of this book last year ,and I sadly had left it too late for you all to act on as the hardback edition was already sold out in the UK and became sold out in the USA a few weeks later.
The good news is that it has recently been released in paperback form and is now freely available from the your local bookshop, main internet book sites and the publishers,Phillimore. I should like to thank my good friend, Rae, for this information.
As I noted in my review, linked above, this is mainly a gazetteer of 190 houses and villas built as country retreats around London from the 17th century onwards, and is written with great authority and verve by the distinguished architectural historian, Caroline Knight.
If you possibly can, do not miss this chance to buy this really fantastic book. As with any gazetteer it is meant to be dipped into, not read at one sitting, and I have spent many an enjoyable evening virtually visiting some grand houses all situated within the confines of the M25 orbital motorway.
It puts into context areas of London that are now almost totally urban in character but in Jane Austen’s era were rural places, villages separated from London by great estates like Osterley and Syon . It is a great help when reading Mansfield Park and Emma: I can thoroughly recommend it to you. Get it while stocks last this time!
The festive season is nearly upon us, and so I am prompted to write about festive things in the main for the next couple of weeks before the big day itself…and things don’t get much more festive than jellies, those stalwarts of many a children’s party. Even wunderkind chef, Heston Blumenthal used one in his Victorian Feast last year- this is a slightly -ahem-”adult” video, so do be warned……
And as I haven’t written a book review or about food in the past few weeks I thought I would combine the two now in a review of a newly published book, Jellies and their Moulds by the renowned food historian, Peter Brears.
References to jellies in Jane Austen’s works are few. They were obviously served at Fanny’ Price’s Ball at Mansfield Park, for Mrs Norris ‘spunges’ the leftovers the day after the ball, supposedly to feed an ailing housemaid (a likely story):
It was a heavy, melancholy day. Soon after the second breakfast, Edmund bade them good–bye for a week, and mounted his horse for Peterborough, and then all were gone. Nothing remained of last night but remembrances, which she had nobody to share in. She talked to her aunt Bertram— she must talk to somebody of the ball; but her aunt had seen so little of what had passed, and had so little curiosity, that it was heavy work. Lady Bertram was not certain of anybody’s dress or anybody’s place at supper but her own. “She could not recollect what it was that she had heard about one of the Miss Maddoxes, or what it was that Lady Prescott had noticed in Fanny: she was not sure whether Colonel Harrison had been talking of Mr. Crawford or of William when he said he was the finest young man in the room— somebody had whispered something to her; she had forgot to ask Sir Thomas what it could be.” And these were her longest speeches and clearest communications: the rest was only a languid “Yes, yes; very well; did you? did he? I did not see that; I should not know one from the other.” This was very bad. It was only better than Mrs. Norris’s sharp answers would have been; but she being gone home with all the supernumerary jellies to nurse a sick maid, there was peace and good–humour in their little party, though it could not boast much beside.
Chapter 29.
And recently when I was visiting the Jane Austen House Museum I was pleased to find this collection of early 19th century porcelain jelly moulds in the newly restored kitchen:
We are justified in writing about them, therefore. *The author heaves a sigh of relief*.
Having made 18th century jellies on Ivan Day’s Regency Food Course, I can confirm that in the Long Eighteenth century they were then a far more sophisticated and exciting food, and were used in many different ways, much more exciting than the pedestrian way we use jellies now, and this is a point that becomes immediately clear on reading the introduction to this book:
Jellies are unique in their range of physical properties. Although they are virtually tasteless, they can instantly absorb any chosen flavour drawn from fruits and spices, as well as readily dissolving sugars, wines and spirits throughout their mass. Having no texture of their own, they can take on those of creams ,cereals,fruits purees, ground nuts and many other things or they can be whipped into foams. They can also be used to embed fresh, preserved or candied fruits or still custards and other jellies of contrasting flavour and colour. Being colourless at the outset they immediately take on the widest variety of tones, tinctures and degrees of opacity as imparted by all manner of edible liquids and colourings. They have no shape of their own but take on the shape of any mould or vessel into which they are poured. This list of attributes is already impressive but has yet to include their most important and unique characteristics. The first of these is perfect transparency..the second is dynamic movement, the wobble factor always a delight to the eye. The third …is their capacity to slowly release their flavours and textures into the mouth, prolonging the pleasure and appreciation of ingredients which otherwise would be more rapidly swallowed.
This book, which covers the history of jellies from medieval era to the 20th century is part of Prospect Books’ superb English Kitchen series of books. Go here to see a wonderful 12 Days of Christmas Page of some of the books in the series,which are on offer . These are all reasonably priced, scholarly, interesting and readable books and Peter Brears’ book on jellies, the latest in the series, is no exception.
I had the extreme pleasure of hearing Mr Brears ( seen below in his black cap before an impressive array of jellies that he made in the kitchen at Petworth House) talk on the subject of the Georgian Kitchen and the Domestic Offices in a grand Georgian House at the Costume Society’s symposium on Life in a Georgian Town which was held in Bath in 2005. He is a superb communicator, and has a wonderful grasp of all the intricate detail of his subject. If you ever get the chance to hear him talk, my advice is to go. Just go.
The book is not solely concerned with our era, but the chapter on Georgian Jellies is 34 pages long and gives in great detail a plethora of recipes from the era for such wonderful and now sadly forgotten confections such as playing card jellies, a nest of eggs jelly, moon and stars in jelly and Oranges en Rubans or Jellies a la Bellevue. These are, in fact, small clementines or tangerine skins filled alternately with red wine jelly and white flummery, shown below in an illustration from the book….
…and below you can see, in one of my photographs of them taken by me on the Regency Cookery Course, just how these beautiful jellies are made, layer upon layer producing the striped effect,then once they are completely set, they are cut open to reveal the jolly stripes.
Peter Brears is also a very accomplished artist, and throughout the book has illustrated jellies and moulds in exquisite detail in black and white pen and ink drawings. In the Georgian Jellies chapter he gives detail information on wooden, tin and porcelain jelly moulds which were all in use throughout the era.
Below is his delicious drawing of a selection of jelly moulds made by Josiah Wedgwood (please do click on the illustration to enlarge it and see the amazing detail)
This is a suburb little book, an ideal and inexpensive stocking filler for anyone interested in the foods of the past, and especially for anyone interested in the very different and accomplished jellies of the Gregorian era. It is written in Mr Brears’ usual lucid, knowledgeable and enjoyable style. It is illustrated profusely and with brio. It is a gem. Buy it.
or so the saying goes…..
I am about to confess some recent antiquarian book purchases to you. In my defence, I will, of course, be sharing the contents of them with you in due course, so I’ve not been that extravagant. In truth I haven’t …I managed to purchase these books at quite amazing prices considering the contents. Of course some of them are not in very good condition,but as it is the content that I seek, I simply don’t care about aesthetics.
The first is a very good world gazetteer, Geography Illustrated on a Popular Plan for the Use of Schools and Young Persons by the Reverend J. Goldsmith
This is fabulously intact, still illustrated with many maps and engravings of places mentioned in the text.
Above is its view Kamskatchkan travellers. Kamskatchka was of course a place with which Jane Austen was very and amusingly familiar, using it as she did in her Plan of A Novel, as possibly the furthest place from England that she could imagine. She wrote her furious and funny attack as a result partly of receiving “helpful” suggestions of plots for novels from the Reverend Stanier Clarke etc etc
At last, hunted out of civilized Society, denied the poor Shelter of the humblest Cottage, they are compelled to retreat into Kamschatka where the poor Father, quite worn down, finding his end approaching, throws himself on the Ground, and after 4 or 5 hours of tender advice and parental Admonition to his miserable Child, expires in a fine burst of Literary Enthusiasm, intermingled with Invectives against holders of Tithes.
A real find in a local second-hand bookshop was this set of five volumes of the Middlesex volumes of The Beauties of England and Wales by Edward Wedlake Brayley and John Britton (1800-1815).
Ex-Library copies, their bindings are not the best, but they contain the most detailed descriptions of the topography and history of the counties of England. Middlesex is a marvellous county to have , for it included London and most of its environs in Jane Austen’s era, and so there are detailed descriptions of most of the places in London that Jane Austen knew and wrote about in these volumes. I’m enjoying dipping into them at the moment….
Amazingly, because they command reasonable prices on the print market, most of the engravings are intact in these volumes. Here is one of the Herald’s College.
And finally, the last volume to be added to the AustenOnly library is the Reverend Richard Warner’s book, Excursions from Bath (1801).
This is an immensely interesting book, delineating four excursions from the city of Bath, with very detailed and idiosyncratic descriptions of the interesting places to be found en route. Each of the four exclusions is illustrated by a charmingly naive map: this is the route of the first excursion:
It also has great significance for those of us interested in the contents of Jane Austen’s library, for she actually owned a copy of this book. David Gilson in his Bibliography of Jane Austen describes the copy now owned by the Jane Austen Memorial Trust at the Jane Austen House Museum, which was annotated bythe Reverend Geroge Austen and was probably given by him to Jane.
I shall enjoy reading these books with you here and I shall be posting about them from time to time over the next few months. Do join me, won’t you?
this is
As Jane Austen knew well, a house in town (London) was the “pineapple of perfection”, “Everything that is charming!” to quote Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, a distinctive social marker of the most financially secure of her male characters and the highest social aspiration for many of her female characters( though I always feel that Austen herself preferred the safety and security of country society to that of town, that Scene of Dissipation of Vice). As Professor Edward Copeland writes in The Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, in the chapter on Money:
In terms of consumer show any income over £4000 a year is characterised by its ability to provide a house in London for the social season, the beguiling consumer temptation that brings romantic disaster to both Mary Crawford and Maria Bertram.
After the devastation of old London in the fire of 1666, the development of the fashionable west end of London- Mayfair and its surrounding districts-far away from the fire devastated City- saw a major period of building of grand town house, squares and crescents, with which we visitors to, or inhabitants of London are now totally familiar. This building gradually spread northwards from the streets around St James’s Palace in the first decades of the eighteenth century, and by the mid 17690s there were extensive developments built to the west and north of Cavendish Square in Marylebone, in the streets bounded by Oxford Street, the New Road (which is now known as the Euston Road)to the north and Portland Place to the east. At the same time, the Bedford Estate was being developed with the establishment of the squares and streets of Bloomsbury, and there were other isolated developments, such as the Adelphi, south of the Strand near the river Thames, that were attracting fashionable tenants.
(Adam House Adam Street Adelphi,London a survivor of the ill-fated development designed by Robert and James Adam, circa 1770,and which the eaged -eyed amongst you will recognise as the location used for Mr and Mrs john Dashwood’s town house in the film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility 1995)
Much of the land was owned outright by aristocratic families –The Russell’s of the Bedford estates, the Grosvenors of Mayfair etc.,etc.,- and was therefore entailed and could not be sold, or it was in the hands of corporate landowners who developed it to provide a long-term steady income: a result of this prime ownership was that most houses were held on leases and building was large-scale and uniform, despite the occasional individual house built for a very rich patron.
Rachel Stewart’s book, The Town House in Georgian London addresses the development of this phenomenon from the view of the architect and his patrons, male and female. She explains with wonderful clarity the role of these houses, and why the location, planning, furnishing and finish of a house was of vital importance, something with contributed seriously to the image of the owners/lesees.
The finances involved in buying and affording a house in the West End is one of the most revealing and informative chapters in the book, and the financial crises of George III’s reign make for uncomfortable reading bearing in mind our current troubled times. She also includes fascinating chapters on 18th century architectural design and practices , explaining the use of pattern books and the development of the design of the town house as an architectural entity in its own right, complete with is own characteristics and formulae:
The typical town house in practice was never the country house built small, but many pattern book designs for town houses seem more or less interchangeable with those for country houses of equivalent size, both in external appearance and planning….A five bay house calculated for a large family town situation could easily be taken for a modest country house with its pedimented central section and balanced disposition of rooms either side of a corridor running backwards a form the central entrance…Where authors suggest that the same design can be used for a house in town or country, this interchangeability is often questionable.
The book is wonderfully produced by Yale Publishing and illustrated beautifully, generously and very appropriately. There are enough reproductions of plans of houses to satisfy even me.
(Ground and first floor plans of Wynn House 20 St James’s Square designed by Robert Adam, 1771-4)
This is a readable and enjoyable book, full of interesting detail, and for those of us who have ever wondered what Darcy’s house in town looked like, reading this book will enable our speculation to have some sound basis in fact. I highly recommend it.
For most of Jane Austen’s characters a parsonage or rectory was a familiar piece of architecture. As it was, of course, for Jane Austen , born into a clerical family at the Rectory at Steventon.
And she was used visiting them all her life: rectories near to home, as at Ibthorpe to see her friends the Lloyds, and those further apart in Devon, at Colyton
(Colyton Church, Devon, circa 1820 from my collection)
for example to visit the family friend, the Reverend Richard Buller the incumbent, and to those occupied by clerical relatives at Great Brookham in Surrey and Adlestrop in Gloucestershire.
A rectory was not as desirable as a Pemberley House perhaps, but when allied with a hero such as Henry Tilney, well then, a well-built ,well proportioned, modern rectory could become quite the object of much Austenian feminine interest (with the dishonorable exception of Mary Crawford)
(Yaxham Rectory,Norfolk from The English Parsonage in the Early Nineteenth Century)
Catherine Morland was innocently entranced by Henry’s substantial and newly-built stone rectory with its unfinished decoration at Woodston
Catherine’s mind was too full, as she entered the house, for her either to observe or to say a great deal; and, till called on by the general for her opinion of it, she had very little idea of the room in which she was sitting. Upon looking round it then, she perceived in a moment that it was the most comfortable room in the world; but she was too guarded to say so, and the coldness of her praise disappointed him…The room in question was of a commodious, well–proportioned size, and handsomely fitted up as a dining–parlour; and on their quitting it to walk round the grounds, she was shown, first into a smaller apartment, belonging peculiarly to the master of the house, and made unusually tidy on the occasion; and afterwards into what was to be the drawing–room, with the appearance of which, though unfurnished, Catherine was delighted enough even to satisfy the general. It was a prettily shaped room, the windows reaching to the ground, and the view from them pleasant, though only over green meadows; and she expressed her admiration at the moment with all the honest simplicity with which she felt it. “Oh! Why do not you fit up this room, Mr. Tilney? What a pity not to have it fitted up! It is the prettiest room I ever saw; it is the prettiest room in the world!”
“I trust,” said the general, with a most satisfied smile, “that it will very speedily be furnished: it waits only for a lady’s taste!”
“Well, if it was my house, I should never sit anywhere else. Oh! What a sweet little cottage there is among the trees — apple trees, too! It is the prettiest cottage!”
“You like it — you approve it as an object — it is enough. Henry, remember that Robinson is spoken to about it. The cottage remains.”
Northanger Abbey, Chapter 26
Fanny Price is first settled at 8 miles remove form Mansfield at the rectory at Thornton Lacey a place by no means as desperate for “improvement” as Henry Crawford would have us believe ,and then finally at the Parsonage at Mansfield Park:
On that event they removed to Mansfield; and the Parsonage there, which, under each of its two former owners, Fanny had never been able to approach but with some painful sensation of restraint or alarm, soon grew as dear to her heart, and as thoroughly perfect in her eyes, as everything else within the view and patronage of Mansfield Park had long been.
Mansfield Park, Chapter 48
Edmund Bertram and Henry Tilney are of course, lucky second sons who were able to improve their residences, using family funds (eventually, in the case of Edmund and Fanny). Mr Collins, however, is lucky too for, due to the superintendence of his noble patroness Lady Catherine, his rectory- his humble abode- has been fitted out with every modern convenience, even down to shelves in the closets
As for the odious Mr Elton in Emma, his vicarage at Highbury, save for the yellow curtains that entranced the stupid Miss Nash so much, seems to have been a pitiful place, in need of much redesign:
…about a quarter of a mile down the lane rose the Vicarage; an old and not very good house, almost as close to the road as it could be. It had no advantage of situation; but had been very much smartened up by the present proprietor; and, such as it was, there could be no possibility of the two friends passing it without a slackened pace and observing eyes.
Emma, Chapter 10
His new wife’s fortunes –as many thousands as will always be called ten- will no doubt be used to beautify and improve that place.
But what of the poorer parson ? With no wife’s pretty dowry to help improve his home and no family money and/or living as incentive to improve it either, what could he do?
Until the late 18th century there was little he could have done to improve his dwelling and many were in a parlous state.
However, a spate of legislation, beginning with the The Gilbert Acts, enacted from 1777 onwards, allowed the governors of the Church of England access to the fund known as Queen Anne Bounty in order to lend money to the clergy for the repair and/or rebuilding of existing parsonages, using their income from tithes as a security.
The rush to build new style parsonages also coincided with the social status of the clergy becoming more and more important, and the houses built in the early part of the 19th century, for those who benefited for Queen Anne’s Bounty and/or from their own family wealth, reflected this.
This situation was also echoed in Jane Austen’s family, for after her death, on his son becoming rector of Steventon, Edward Knight, Jane’s brother, commissioned the demolition of Jane’s birthplace and a replacement modern rectory, shown above, to be built on a site just across the valley (see this old AustenOnly post here for details)
This book, The English Parsonage in the Early Nineteenth Century by Timothy Brittain-Catlin, explores the extraordinarily rich archive of architectural pans and drawings this rush to build produced, and follows the development of the parsonage from the small Georgian villa of the period 1800-1820, to the large, grand, substantial gentleman’s residences they became during the middle of the 19th century.
The book is wonderfully produced, and is extremely well and clearly written. Profusely and well illustrated it has reproductions of ground plans to satisfy even me( for you do know I love to study a set of plans for a house).
Individual parsonages are studied in some detail, one of my favorites being Walkerinham Vicarage in Nottinghamshire, shown below.
Mr Brittain-Caltlin details the changes in architectural fashions during the first half of the 19th century as reflected by the designs for parsonages by such famous designers as Loudon, Blore and Pugin. This is a fine book, and a useful one for Janeites to refer to,the parsonage playing as it does so important a part in her life and in the lives of her characters.
Desirable residences still, this book is a fabulously detailed examination of the type of building-the parsonage- that has become an important part of English country life. And if you want to speculate on what Mr Elton did with his Augusta’s lovely money, then this book is the perfect place to start
A confession: I have had this book on my To Be Reviewed Pile for far longer than I ought to have done. For months and months in fact(as you can tell by the rather battered front cover which I scanned, above) The paperback version is soon to be released in the UK…Goodness..How tardy. I do apologise. As we have been gadding about too much recently I decided to give you a book review on serious topic today, and leave the country houses till later in the week. A change is after all, as good as a rest…
In fact, this book was transferred from my To Be Read pile some months ago, for as soon as it arrived I devoured it. I am a complete fan of Dan Cruickshank’s works. His book on the buildings of a Georgian town and how they functioned, Life in the Georgian City, co-written with Neil Burton, is one of my favourite books on this era.
His latest book, The Secret History of Georgian London is a fascinating and very detailed history of the sex industry in the long 18th century in Georgian London. It is thoroughly readable and enjoyable- if enjoyable is entirely correct word for what I think is a tragic subject. And being an architectural historian he takes a lively interest in the buildings that housed the Georgian sex industry and the areas of London where they were mostly congregated. I’m not completely sure that he really proves his premise that the city was shaped by the development of the sex industry, but some of his conclusions will startle; for example, the number of people involved in it will undoubtedly shock many of you. He give us a very detailed account of that world, one that it is all too easy to forget existed side by side with the glamour we often first associate with the Georgian era-the beautiful houses and dresses etc
But what does all this have to do with Jane Austen, I hear you ask. She was actually very aware of the dangers to poor, unprotected women of the predatory nature of the London sex industry. As is evidenced from her novels and letters. In Pride and Prejudice, the spiteful old ladies of Meryton were also well aware to the fate reserved for those who publicly strayed from the strict moral path and were most disappointed when Lydia, happily living in sin with Wickham in London, was retuned, safely married, to the Longbourn fold.
The good news quickly spread through the house, and with proportionate speed through the neighbourhood. It was borne in the latter with decent philosophy. To be sure, it would have been more for the advantage of conversation had Miss Lydia Bennet come upon the town; or, as the happiest alternative, been secluded from the world, in some distant farm house. But there was much to be talked of in marrying her; and the good-natured wishes of her well-doing which had proceeded before from all the spiteful old ladies in Meryton, lost but little of their spirit in this change of circumstances, because with such an husband her misery was considered certain.
The phrase “to come upon the town”, was of course referring to a woman involvement in prostitution, a fate to which many fallen women, without the support of the Bennet family and the perseverance and long purse of Darcy, were subject.
The melodramatic story of Eliza Brandon the sad, adulterous wife of Colonel Brandon’s less honourable brother in Sense and Sensibility, is one echoed in many tales of fallen women in this book.
Jane Austen was well aware of the reputation of London and its dangers: in her letter written to her sister Cassandra from London dated 23rd August 1796, she refers to London as
This Scene of Dissipation and Vice
And in her letter 18th September 1796, again written to Cassandra, this time from Rowling in Kent, Jane Austen makes this throw away remark, referring to her aborted plan to visit the Pearsons, the family of Henry Austen’s then fiancée, alone:
I had once determined to go with Frank tomorrow and take my chance etc; but they dissuaded me from so rash a step-as I really think on consideration it would have been : for if the Pearsons were not at home I should inevitably fall sacrifice to the arts of some fat Woman who would make me drunk with small beer…
She is here clearly referring to one of Hogarth’s prints of the seedier and dangerous die of London Life, as depicted in his series of prints The Harlots Progress
The first of these shown above depicts the arrival in London of an innocent country girl, here being befriended by, in Jane Austen’s own words, a fat Woman. This was none other than one of the most famous, or should I say, notorious procuresses of the Gregorian era, Elizabeth “Mother” Needham and this must be the source for Jane Austen’s interesting remark.
So, having established the London sex trade of the Georgian era as a legitimate topic of Austenian conversation, let’s now turn to the book in question.
There have been many ,many books on the Georgian sex industry published in the last few year, notably those written by Hallie Rubenhold,viz, The Covent Garden Ladies
and Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies: Sex in the City in Georgian Britain.
a fact ruefully acknowledged by Dan Cruikshank in his preface to his book.
His book adds, however, a different perspective, for being an architectural historian he has been able to research and describe the buildings and settings used by the sex trade. His chapter on Bagnios and how they operated is an eye opener. It is also very comprehensive, discussing moral and political attitudes towards prostitution as well as documenting the trade, its vicious ways, and the people engaged in it.
Though he is clearly primarily interested in the buildings , he never loses sight of the human stories trapped by the walls of these same edifices. He has a compassionate and vivid story telling manner and recounts the tale of many crimes, such as the stories of the murder of Anne Bellwith sense and compassion. He includes interesting chapters on mens’ then attitude towards women(very enlightening, indeed) and on the Evangelical campaign against prostitution. We are also shown the results of the trade on buildings and institutions: the human stories behind the founding of such institutions as the Foundling Hospital to take in the unwanted by-product of the trade-illegitimate babies, of the Lock Hospital for the treatment of venereal disease, and of the Magdalen Hospital built to house penitent ex-prostitutes.
The grand courtesans are not forgotten: we are given interesting descriptions of the lives and loves of Mrs Abington
and Kitty Fisher,
both associated with Sir Joshua Reynolds,who painted their portraits, above.
It is a marvelously detailed book, such as I have come to expect from Dan Cruickshank, and one that I can heartily recommend, as providing a vivid background to what we can often forget was a difficult life for the poor and the unfortunates: and was also the fate of those females-some elite women, note- who transgressed the strict moral code that prevailed in Jane Austen’s era and who had no supportive family or a Colonel Brandon or a Mr Darcy to rescue them, as well Jane Austen knew.
Laurel of Austenprose has kindly asked me to contribute some posts for her Pride and Prejudice Without Zombies Group Read. Today I am writing about Country House Tourism in the early 19th century,and next week will be writing about William Gilpin’s influence on Jane Austen’s writings…So let’s apply to the housekeeper, shall we? I’m sure she has some interesting tales to tell…
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Tourism in the United Kingdom, visiting grand country houses and the untamed countryside, developed apace in the 18th century. The diaries of the period reflect this trend containing as they do many, many accounts of visiting differing parts of the country, and of course, the trip that the Gardiners and Elizabeth Bennet make to Derbyshire in Pride and Prejudice is an example of the typical tour that those who could afford to would want to make. Their original destination,The Lakes of Cumberland, Westmoreland and Lancashire, were terribly popular.
The Gardiner’s second choice, Derbyshire, was almost as celebrated.
Why this growth in domestic tourism? First, because of the developments in travel: if you couldn’t “get” to a country house/pleasant vale easily you simply couldn’t visit it. Improved roads-both routes and road surfaces- and the system of posting horse and carriages for hire, made travel easier for those who could afford it. Secondly ,The Grand Tour of Europe , as undertaken by Edward Knight, Jane Austen’s brother, was tourism on a grand lavishly expensive and foreign scale, but it became impossible to complete. The wars with Napoleon curtailed safe travel to Europe to a large extent, and so people turned to touring England and Wales for leisure and educational purposes.
The interest in viewing country houses and their grounds increased as the concept of ‘taste” was taken up in England . Originating in 17th century France, taste, -le gout- and by that I mean the idea of expressing one’s superior education and good breeding by one’s possessions, house and gardens, was taken up rather rapidly by the English, of nearly all classes.
If you were unsure as to what actually constituted good taste help was at hand. Edmund Burke, in his book, “Philosophical enquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful “(1757) and Jane Austen’s favourite, William Gilpin, with his series of books on The Picturesque-the correct way to view landscape and country houses,as compositions for pictures,- led the way in explaining what was de rigueur.( More on Gilpin from me next week, by the way)
As Adrian Tinniswood comments in his wonderful book on the history of country house tourism, The Polite Tourist, when talking about visiting Lord Scarsdale’s magnificent house, Kedleston House, also in Derbyshire:
It is no coincidence that Kedleston Hall should have been the most consistently praised of all new houses in the later 18th century. It conformed absolutely to the educated classes’ conception of what modern architecture ought to be : costly, but not showy; elegant but not effete; convenient and in line with the accepted canons of classical taste, but at the same time spectacular enough to stand out from the mass of country houses. Together with its collection to became a symbol of the ideal: and by noticing and approving of the paintings, the proportions and the grandeur of the whole, tourists could share in the owner’s statement of his culture and taste. They were able to demonstrate that they belonged to that collective elite which constituted polite society at the end of the 18th century.
Provided people were correctly attired, polite and genteel and could travel, then, by the early 19th century the cultural world of the English country house was open to them. The English began to explore their own country and its contents, equipped with these sophisticated guides for the evaluation of art, architecture and the natural scenery around them. It gave people an opportunity to develop and exhibit their own sense of “taste”, something Elizabeth Bennet quite naturally does while walking around Pemberely House and its grounds.
The housekeeper came; a respectable-looking elderly woman, much less fine, and more civil, than she had any notion of finding her. They followed her into the dining-parlour. It was a large, well-proportioned room, handsomely fitted up. Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went to a window to enjoy its prospect. The hill, crowned with wood, from which they had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance, was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and she looked on the whole scene — the river, the trees scattered on its banks, and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it — with delight. As they passed into other rooms these objects were taking different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be seen. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of their proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of splendor, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings.
Pride and Prejudice Chapter 23
In order to be able to criticize Darcy’s taste Elizabeth needed to be able to understand what was acceptable and correct,and more importantly, what was not. Something she did with ease, though she found criticising oil paintings in the Pemberley gallery rather more difficult. An example of Mrs Bennet, yet again, failing her daughter in her education: even if masters were to be had, they had patently failed to provide Elizabeth with an education in the appreciation of art.
I’ve dealt with some aspects of opening these country houses to the pubic in the 18th and early 19th centuries -the problem for visitors and owner alike and the role of the housekeeper in an old post here on Austen Only, which I do invite you to read, for in this post I want to concentrate on a different aspect of country house visiting: the practicalities of such tourism, and to answer such questions as how did the visitors find out about these houses and estates? And what was on show once they were there?
To the first question. Obviously the houses in one’s locality would be known to the prospective country house visitors, but when travelling how did the traveller know where these places were to be found, especially if you were not in the company of a knowledgeable former resident like Mrs Gardiner?
The answer again is to be found in books. Detailed publications like John Britton and Edward Baylake Bayley’s The Beauties of England and Wales; or, Delineations, Topographical, Historical and Descriptive of each County ,
Or, John Cary’s Traveller’s Itinerary,
proliferated in the early 19th century to guide the determined traveler, and are one of my favourite types of antiquarian books collect. The one probably of more use to us today was written by a woman, Georgiana Kearsley whose Traveller’s Entertaining Guide Through Great Britain is a favourite of mine.
Cary’s book is a masterpiece detailing all the roads and cross roads in England and Wales ( with some of the main routes in Scotland)
and he does give some descriptions of houses –the seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen – to be seen along the route you are taking while riding in your comfortable carriage or hired post-chaise. Both books, note, contain a chapter amounting to 60 pages each, giving details , set out alphabetically, of most of the known country houses in the kingdom
(Do note that you can enlarge all the photographs of the pages of the books in order to be able to read the detail:
I do recommend it as I find them fascinating.)
But Georgiana Kearsley’s book is far more detailed. For example, on this page we have her version of part of the route from London to Manchester, passing through the towns of Matlock, Darley, Rowsley and Bakewell in Derbyshire.
The entry for Bakewell, is very useful for the traveler, and tells him all he really needs to know:
Bakewell is the best town on the north side of the Peak, on the Wye. It is supposed to have been a Roman town, because of altars dug up near it at Haddon-house. Three miles on the r. is Chatsworth a magnificent seat of the duke of Devonshire. It is reckoned among the wonders of the Peak. It is a most magnificent house, built of stone dug on the spot and is a most beautiful structure. This was one of the prisons of Mary queen of Scots. On the road, three miles on the r. is Hassop, F. Eyre esq.
Inns: George, New George.
Let’s deconstruct this entry.
She tells us a little of the ancient history of the place, important for the early 19th century traveller as interest in antiquities was then a very gentlemanly pursuit. Then she informs us of the direction to Chatsworth, with details of what might attract us there and a little of its history.
And finally Georgiana points out another house where we might want to apply to the housekeeper to see its gardens and contents. Then once we have decided to linger in Bakewell to see these attractions we are told of the two inns where we can stay overnight, or refresh ourselves and our horses on the way. All very useful information, I’m sure you will agree.
Once the travellers arrived at a country house, what would they see? Well, of course, the route and content of such a tour depended on the owners of the house or the housekeeper’s patience or desire for a gratuity. We know that Elizabeth Bennet’s tour of Pemberley House included viewing the hall, dining parlour,other rooms,including Georgina Darcy’s sitting room, the picture gallery and some bedrooms.
Was this typical?
Lets compare it to a tour of Osterley House just outside London, the home of the wealthy banking family, the Childs, which was made by Sophie von La Roche, the German authoress in 1786. The house was originally a Tudor building which was aggrandized in the 18th century by Robert Adam. Her account is full of delicious detail and prefect for our purposes today and here are some extracts from it, illustrated with pictures of the rooms she is describing:
Today we made a pleasant trip to Osterley Park, Madame Child’s country seat, widow of the late banker of this name, whose property amounted to 500,00 guilder. We would never have imaged such a place had we not seen it It lies eight miles from London, in the county of Middlesex almost opposite the Duke of Northumberland’s fine property Sion House, and indeed they are the joint owners of equal shares of the Sion Monastery estate….
As friendly Mr Burth, whom I met at Count Reventlow’s had sent us a ticket admitting five people, we were led into the breakfast room until the caretaker arrived. Where we looked at some nice pictures, had a view on to the park and the very portion of the wood where the fallow deer were and had the pond on one side and some field and Richmond hills in the distance on the other.
Fr0m here the friendly woman conducted us into the magnificent library….the dining room is very large with delicious decorations and looks out onto flower beds…
From here we came through a fine tapestried apartment into a gallery 130 feet long with large windows onto the garden…
This gallery led into the drawing room, where are some superb hangings and chairs of Gobelin Tapestry
We entered a green bedroom next,
Then one where all the draperies and curtains are richly yet prettily embroidered. Another lovely room follows and yet another called the Etrurian cabinet since its wall paintings are copied from one similar found in Pompeii…
Upstairs we saw Mrs Child’s apartments; she is away in Switzerland at the moment. These are dainty boudoirs contining all the most delicate porcelain, gold and silver ornaments and miniatures. More especially a collection of enamels being the portraits of the Child family and a number of them by the famous Petitot.
I was pleased to find my “Sternheim” in English translation amongst Mrs Child’s book and on the fly leaf I wrote down something of the joy and pleasure I had experienced at Osterly Park- in English too as well as I was able…
We went down to the very lowest floor where are all the sevants quarters-kitchen,
bake-house, laundry housekeeper’s lodge- all as spruce and clean as I myself could have desired my whole life long
The dairy and milk room however surpassed all my expectations. There was an entrance in which milk and milking pails and butter tubs stood in splendid array al white with brass rings gleaming like gold; then down a step into the dairy where the milk was standing in large flat china pans, especially made with broad spouts for pouring off the milk, around the four walls on grey marble tables….we were brought each a glass of cream with bread and butter in it…
And the housekeeper led us on though the poultry run and across a fine spot reserved for the washing, bleaching and drying back to her own part where we had to partake of some cherry brandy and very good cakes so that the milk should not chill in our stomachs..
We visited the garden especially the Chinese summer-house where all the furnishings come from China…
Into a vegetable garden there again were whole hosts of a thousand different flowers besides the vegetables; hot houses containing hundreds of pineapples of unusual size; one for growing rapes…Beehives made with particular care so that their work should always be visible.
Sophie’s tour was long and more detailed than Elizabeth’s. Viewing the domestic offices is an unusual thing to do for the time, as was being offered refreshment. But I can’t imagine Mrs Reynolds allowing visitors -even celebrated authors- to deface her mistresses’ book….In the last few years many people has asked me if bedrooms would really have been on show at Pemberley, as they felt that this would have been too intrusive. I think you can see that it was clearly not an outrageous thing to have done when compared to the extensive tour of Osterley house,which included both state and private bedrooms,and so the answer is, “yes’.
So there you have it-the practicalities of touring a grand country house in the early 19th century. Sophie von La Roche’s tour compared rather well with Jane Austen’s imaginary tour of Pemberely as experienced by Elizabeth Bennet, but of course it had one vital difference: she didn’t manage to marry the intriguing owner of the estate…. I do hope you have enjoyed this post and it will add a little something when you tour Pemberley in the company of the Gardiners and Elizabeth Bennet in Chapter 42.
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If you are intrigued by this subject and want to know more I can do no better than recommend my Twitter Buddy and fabulous historian, Adrian Tinniswood’s great and entertaining book( to which I referred above ), The Polite Tourist.
Sadly, it is currently out of print and quite hard to find secondhand, but Adrian tells me he has six copies of the book and he is willing to sell his remaining copies to the first comers.You can contact him here: he is a wonderful author and a smashing chap so do try and get his book (s) if you can. You wont regret it 
I do apologise for not having reviewed this book before. I received it as a present at Christmas and always planned to tell you all about it…I left it until now and, sadly, I find it is currently out of print in the UK but is available in the US. Go here to visit the Amazon.com site where it can be purchased. I have found it is a very useful entertaining and delightfully produced book about the type of houses -country houses- that surrounded London from the 17th century until the present day.
The author, Caroline Knight has used a modern edifice, the M25 –the orbital motorway that encircles London – as the cut off point.
And it might surprise you to find that even in these days of crowded housing developments around the capital that she can find over 80 first class houses and over 30 minor country houses to chronicle within that circle, and that is still not exhaustive.
The first part of the book is a very readable and scholarly explanation as to why these houses were built; not far from London -within an easy distance- they provided a healthy country lifestyle to many rich merchant sand aristocrats, who though in possession of smart town houses also felt the need to escape to the nearby countryside as often as they could, without necessarily having to travel to their far-flung large country estates.
Caroline Knight also explains why many of the country houses fell foul of the growing suburbs of London and disappeared in the 20th century, as well as being demolished due to fortunes waning and the social change after the two world wars which left many families with no option but to sell.
But it is the Second and Third parts of the book that I adore: a parish by parish directory of the best houses ( Part Two) and in Part Three a selection of over 30 minor country houses organised on the same manner.
These brief vignettes are written with verve and style and it is the perfect book for dipping into.
You can learn all about Moor Park in Rickmansworth(above) -where Mrs Norris’s apricot originated (or not as I do suspect Dr Grant was correct, and she, or rather Sir Thomas’s purse, was imposed upon)which is now a golf course
You can also see some of the types of houses -or more correctly villas that peppered the scenery around fashionable Richmond, where Mrs Churchill spent her last days in Emma
Or the type of house you could expect to find in Twickenham, like Marble Hill above, or Orelans House, below
Twickenham was of course where Mary Crawford’s evil uncle had a “cottage”.
The descriptions of the houses are very entertaining: each is given a concise history complete with many fine illustration, plans of estates , gardens and the ever absorbing( to me at least!) floor plans.
She also gives interesting details about the opening of these house to the public in our era. Osterly Park the home of the famously rich
(Osterly Park- illustration not included in this book)
banking family, the Childs, was visited by Sophie von La Roche, a German visitor who recorded her visit in her diary as thus:
(The State Bedroom at Osterly Park)
A friend had sent her “ a ticket admitting five people.” She saw the gardens and all the state rooms but also went upstairs where she was shown Mrs Child’s aprtments. She nosed around the room and found “my “Sternheim” in English translation among Mrs Child’s books and on the fly-leaf I wrote down something of the joy and pleasure I had experienced at Osterly Park- in English too as well as I was able.” What did Mrs Child make of this, I wonder?
I’m certain Mrs Reynolds would not have tolerated such behaviour!
I really do recommend this fabulous book to you. My only gripe is that I would have preferred more illustrations to have been reproduced in colour, but this is a minor quibble.
I do hope it is either reprinted or issued in paperback soon, or that you an find it in your local library,and I apologise for my tardiness in recommending it to you.
I recently attended this fascinating exhibition which is being staged at the Victoria and Albert Museum. I say staged for it is a magnificent theatrical evocation of all Walpole’s interests, which were many and varied, collecting together, sometimes for the first time in over 100 years, objects associated with Walpole and his Gothic confection of a house at Twickenham, Strawberry Hill, here depicted by Paul Sandby. (and please note you can enlarge all the illustrations here merely by clicking on them)
Horace Walpole (1717-1797) was the youngest son of George II’s powerful prime minister, Robert Walpole. He was an MP for over 20 years but it was not his political causes which remain of interest to us, but his artistic endeavours.
For anyone who studies the 18th century, encountering Horace Walpole is inevitable. He was a prolific author of many fascinating letters(collected in 48 volumes!) full of waspish comment; he moved among the highest social circles and his impressions of his world and the many, many people he encountered are engagingly reflected in his papers. He was an avid art collector and an antiquarian, an amateur architect and landscape gardener , and importantly for admirers of Northanger Abbey, was the father of the Gothic Novel, being the author of the first of the genre, The Castle of Otranto.
The exhibit, which is contained just in a series of ten sections all dealing with different aspects of Walpole’s life and interests is fascinating. I am even considering revisiting it as I don’t think I really managed to see and appreciate everything despite spending a long time there( luckily my companion is as interested in the 18th century as I!)
His house at Strawberry Hill- which is undergoing a thorough and needed restoration and will re-open in the autumn -and its contents is at the heart of the exhibit.
Apart from the connection with Otranto,there is another Austenesque connection with Walpole: Horace, along with his circle of friends including John Chute
of The Vyne in Hampshire, were very influential in reviving interest in the aesthetic aspects of the Gothic era. Indeed a common name for this revived architectural style is Strawberry Hill Gothic. The Chute family - though the next generation on from Horace’s friend, John, were friendly with the Austen family ( especially Jane Austen’s eldest brother James who was vicar of Sherborne St John, the parish in which The Vyne is situated )
Horace consulted them closely on all aspects of the exterior and interior decoration of his house. Here, as an example of the interior, is the wonderful gallery complete with papier mache fan vaulting
If you go here you can view a short video of the exhibit and Strawberry Hill’s restoration, which I hope you will enjoy.
It is difficult to isolate pieces in the exhibit for mention here they were so many and so magnificent: a locket containing Mary Tudor’s hair, a Cardinal’s hat believed to have been owned by Wolsey…..many wonderful things: so I’ve decided to show you a few items that I found particularly interesting.
Horace Walpole was fascinated with the romantic aspects of the past: his collection of 17th century miniatures included these of the Digby family, Sir Kenelm Digby and his wife, Venitia. They were Catholic supporters of Charles I and Sir Kenelm is now remembered as the author of one of my favourite antiquarian cookery books The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digby kt Opened(1669)
These miniatures, wonderful though they appear, are enclosed in an equally magnificently enamelled case:
Sir Kenelme’s wife died suddenly in 1633, and Sir Kenelme commissioned Sir Anthony van Dyke to capture her appearance on her death bed which was copied in this miniature
Another article I found fascinating was this cabinet, decorated with panels drawn by Lady Diana Beauclark,whose scandalous divorce from Visccount Bolingbroke after her adulterous affair with Sir Topham Beauclerk made her a sensation and outcast from her class.
She also designed the Wedgwood plagues used to decorate the interior of the cabinet
The relationship between Horace and disgraced women like Diana Beauclerk is an intriguing part of his personality . He never married and speculation on his sexuality rages today.
His home in the fashionable village of Twickenham was derided by the purist Gothick admirers of the 19th century, most importantly and prominently, Augustus Pugin. But recently it has regained its rightful place as part of the history of design. If you cannot visit the exhibition which ends in July, then I strongly recommend the sumptuously illustrated catalogue of the exhibition edited by Michael Snodin the director of the Strawberry Hill Trust, published by Yale.
I recently went to the Victoria and Albert Museum to see one of their current exhibitions, Quilts 1700-2010.
It was a fascinating exhibit not concentrating so much upon the mechanics of quilt making, but on the history and inspiration behind the older quilts, together with some inspiring modern quilts, some especially commissioned for the exhibit. As someone whose hand quilting days are over (and does not really approve in a very unreasonable and irrational way of quilting by sewing machine) I found some of the old quilts quite moving and admirable. However, I also loved the floral Liberty print quilt, consisting of pastel floral union jacks,called Liberty Jack by Janey Forgan and which was made in 2008
If you cannot visit the museum for the exhibition, which runs until the 4th July of this year, then I do recommend the accompanying book/catalogue by the curator of the exhibition, Sue Prichard.
The quilts I found most interesting were those from our period (now, there is a surprise, I hear you say ) and I’d like to share some of the details of them with you now, if you’ll allow.
Women and politics is a theme very much in vogue in academia at the moment and this exhibition was no exception.The quilts I was most intrigued by were not only from our era but they also expressed, with however small a “p”, political thoughts by the women who made them.
The first was made in 1799 and shows George III inspecting his volunteer troops in Hyde Park.
The centrepiece was clearly inspired by a print of the event made by John Singleton Copley.
As the catalogue states:
This seemingly inconsequential and unheroic event was in reality a vital display of domestic military strength during a period of perpetual threat of invasion. In 1799 Britain had been at war with France for six years. ..The scene at Hyde Park represented represented not just the physical protection of the king and his subjects against French aggression on home soil but the preservation of the British settlement and the body politic.
Around the edge of the quilt, as you can see ( and do remember you can enlarge this and all the other illustrations in this post merely by clicking on them) are scenes representing military and naval events: the whole quilt is a piece of home propaganda if you like, supporting the armed forces and volunteers protecting the nation in time of war.
I’m sure Anne Elliot would have approved…
Another of the quits which was intriguing was a bedcover dating from around 1820
and which has as its centre piece a printed cotton portrait of Queen Caroline of Brunswick, the wife of George IV.
Jane Austen was of course a supporter of Queen Caroline in all the Royals well-publicised disputes and wrote about her as follows in her letter to Martha Lloyd dated 16th February, 1813:
“I suppose all the World is sitting in Judgement upon the Princess of Wales’s Letter. Poor woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a Woman, & because I hate her Husband — but I can hardly forgive her for calling herself “attached & affectionate” to a Man whom she must detest — & the intimacy said to subsist between her & Lady Oxford is bad — I do not know what to do about it; but if I must give up the Princess, I am resolved at least always to think that she would have been respectable, if the Prince had behaved only tolerably by her at first. –”
No doubt she would have approved of this bedcover too…..
These type of block printed commemorative panels were very popular in the early 19th century. Here is one commemorating Princess Charlotte’s marriage to Prince Leopold of 1816:
And here is a purely floral one dating from 1816:
This is similar to the centre piece of Jane Austen’s own quilt, which is still on display at the Jane Austen House Museum in Chawton:
This is the quilt that she made as a project with her mother, Mrs Austen, and with her sister, Cassandra. Here she is writing to Cassandra about it in her letter dated 31st May 1811:
Have you remembered to collect pieces for the patchwork? We are now at a stand-still.
No imagery of political leanings here, sadly: but that may have been due to it being a shared project. After viewing these politically inspired quilts, I would loved to have seen what Jane Austen might have embroidered, left to her own devices……
