A Review of Vignettes!

The September/October edition of Jane Austen's Regency World has this fantastic review of Vignettes! A big "Thank You" to reviewer Jocelyn Bury! The magazine also includes my article

Caroline of Brunswick.

on marriage and divorce in Austen's day, plus an exclusive look behind the scenes of the new TV adaptation of Sanditon, Jane Austen's last unfinished novel.

VIGNETTES - My New E-book!

I'm very pleased to announce that I've just published a new book on Amazon Kindle: 'Vignettes: Literary Lives in the Age of Austen'.

Here's a copy of the blurb:

'Jane Austen lived in a ground-breaking era for English Literature. This was the age of William Wordsworth, Percy and Mary Shelley, John Keats, and others. Austen herself drew inspiration from the writers who came before her, like Doctor Johnson, Thomson and Cowper. She faced stiff competition from the rival novelists of her day like Ann Radcliffe, Mary Brunton, Fanny Burney and Walter Scott.
Away from the novelists’ world, writers like Mary Wollstonecraft argued passionately for women’s rights, and Parson Malthus, Robert Owen and Thomas Bernard discussed how best to deal with the poor.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld.

Based on the author’s previously published articles in Jane Austen's Regency World magazine, this lively exploration of Austen’s times also looks at popular literature. How did our tradition of Christmas ‘annuals’ begin? Were female novel-readers really the ‘slaves of vice’? Find out more in 'Vignettes'. '

Statue of Dr Johnson, Lichfield.

The book also discusses the career of poet Robert Burns, writer Robert Southey, and publisher Rudolph Ackermann. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I've enjoyed researching the stories of all these wonderful writers over the years!

1812 Food Riots

A belated Happy New Year to you all! I have been 'tied by the leg' like Mrs Croft in Persuasion as I broke my ankle just before Christmas. But happily I am on the mend now.

My latest feature for Jane Austen's Regency World is on the 1812 food riots in the West Riding of Yorkshire. This year also saw the Luddite disturbances in the manufacturing counties, and you can find out more about the Luddites in my book Regency Spies, which is currently on offer at a special sale price on the Pen and Sword website.

Mourning Customs

My latest feature for Jane Austen's Regency World magazine (the bicentenary issue) is on mourning customs in late Georgian times.

Because mortality rates were much higher than today, people were used to seeing processions of funeral vehicles every day.

When a young girl died, one pretty custom in some counties like Derbyshire and Hampshire was the carrying of a ‘maiden’s garland’ or ‘virgin’s crown’ (‘crants’) by girls dressed in white, as part of the funeral procession.

There are still lots of events ongoing to commemorate the bicentenary of Jane Austen's death, and there's a round-up here on the Jane Austen 200 website. 

A maiden’s garland at Holy Trinity church, Ashford-in-the-Water. © Sue Wilkes.




Princess Charlotte’s funeral procession. Memoirs of her late Royal Highness Charlotte Augusta, Henry Fisher, c.1818.

A Cheshire Cinderella

In a letter to Cassandra (8 January 1801), Jane Austen mentioned that their sister-in-law Eliza Austen had met Lord Craven at Barton, and found his manners ‘very pleasing indeed. The little flaw of having a mistress now living with him at Ashdown Park seems to be the only unpleasing circumstance about him’.

 

Although Jane does not mention it in her surviving letters, the adulterous love affair with Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton caused a sensation even in a society which often turned a blind eye when a married man kept a mistress. 

Emma’s story began in rural Cheshire. The daughter of a blacksmith, Henry Lyon, she was baptised Emily in the spring of 1765. Henry died when Emily was very young, so she was brought up by her grandmother at Hawarden (on the Welsh border) while her mother Mary went out to work. 

At some point Emily changed her name to Emma Hart, and her mother took the name Mrs Cadogan; they both moved to London. According to a scurrilous, anonymous early biography, Emma found work as nursery-maid to a respectable family in Leicester Square (Memoirs of Lady Hamilton, 2^nd edition, 1815). 

By the early 1780s, Emma’s amazing beauty procured her a less exceptionable role at Dr Graham’s infamous Temple of Health ‘in the Centre of the Royal Terrace, Adelphi’ in London (Dr Graham, Medical transactions, 1780). Graham’s ‘Celestial Bed’ purported to help couples achieve healthy offspring. Emma was one of the exhibits. She displayed her figure draped with fine gauzes, posing as the Goddess Hygeia. (Although fencing master Henry Angelo later loyally asserted in his Reminiscences (1830) that Emma was not the female in question).

Sir William Hamilton.

After a brief spell as the mistress of Sir Harry Featherstonehaugh of Uppark in West Sussex, Emma was befriended by Sir Charles Greville, the Earl of Warwick’s son. She had a little girl (probably Greville’s) who was sent to Hawarden to be cared for by her great-grandmother.  Greville, a parsimonious gentleman, settled down with Emma in a house on the Edgware Road. Her mother was housekeeper and kept the accounts with strict regularity. Greville allowed Emma to visit her daughter in Wales now and again, but to her grief, refused to let her stay in London. 

Two years later, Emma was introduced to Greville’s uncle, Sir William Hamilton, the British ambassador at the court of Naples, and a noted collector of antiques. Greville hoped to inherit his estates.

Emma loved the cold, calculating Greville with all her heart. She had no suspicion of his real motives when he suggested she and her mother visit his uncle’s residence at Naples for a holiday. Emma had a fine singing voice; she could have the benefit of the best Italian masters there.

  

But Greville wanted her out of his life. He was on the lookout for a respectable bride. When Emma realized that Greville had sent her to Naples to warm Sir William’s bed, she was completely heartbroken. But Sir William courted her with kindness.

Marylebone Church.

Emma behaved like a woman of spirit. Reader, she married him – although it took her several years. Sir William and Emma wed at Marylebone Church on 6 September 1791. The newlyweds went to Naples, where two years later, Emma met a dashing naval Captain Horatio Nelson, commander of the Agamemnon. And the rest, as they say, is history. You can find out more about the very public love affair between Lord Nelson and Emma in my latest feature for Jane Austen's Regency World.

Images

Emma, Lady Hamilton. Heroes of the British Navy, Frederick Warne & Co., c. 1900. Nigel Wilkes Collection.

The Cheshire seaside resort of Parkgate, where Emma Hart stayed in 1784. Illustration by Roger Oldham for Picturesque Cheshire, Sherratt & Hughes, 1903. Author’s collection.

Old Marylebone Church, c.1750. Emma Hart married Sir William Hamilton here on 6 September 1791; her daughter Horatia Nelson was baptised in the same church in 1803 (the present structure on Marylebone Rd dates from the following decade). Old and New London Vol. IV, (Cassell, Petter & Galpin, c.1890). Author’s collection.

Sir William Hamilton. An elderly Sir William Hamilton inspects his antiquities, all of which refer to his wife, Lady Emma Hamilton and her lover, Lord Horatio Nelson. Courtesy of Library of Congress: LC-USZC4-8796.   

A Frivolous Distinction

Promenade dresses, 1812.

The latest issue of Jane Austen's Regency World includes my feature on going shopping in Jane Austen's day. And if you love Regency-era fashion, my new book A Visitor's Guide To Jane Austen's England includes detailed fashion advice for genteel ladies and gentlemen.

Hogarth's Moral Tales

William Hogarth (1697–1764) British artist and engraver, died over a decade before Jane Austen was born, but she would have been familiar with his brilliantly observed illustrations of high and low life.

William’s ‘Modern Moral Subjects’ are among his most famous works. Each series started out as a set of paintings, which were then engraved and sold as prints. The Harlot's Progress (1733–1734), The Rake’s Progress (1735) and Marriageà la Mode (1745) were made as affordable as possible so they could reach a wide audience.

Hogarth’s prints were still widely available in Austen’s day; Romantic poets like William Wordsworth owned copies. Industry and Idleness (or adaptations of it) was so well-known that it was a popular teaching aid for children. You can find out more about Hogarth's life and his possible influences on Jane Austen's work in my latest feature for Jane Austen's Regency World. 

 

Self-portrait of William Hogarth and his dog Trump (left, above).John Ireland and John Nichols, Hogarth’s Works, First Series, Chatto & Windus, c.1874. 

‘Industry and Idleness’, Plate III (left, below) – The Idle Apprentice at play in the churchyard during divine service.

‘Idleness’ (right), Henry Sharpe Horsley,The Affectionate Parent’s Gift, T.Kelly, 1827.This illustration for a children’s book in the 1820s is clearly inspired by the Industry and Idleness above.