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Thanks, Mary Balogh, for Your Delightful Stories!
Here's a confession: I have read Mary Balogh's novel Slightly Dangerous for the second time this year. That's not a particularly embarrassing admission, for my log indicates that I first read it in February or thereabouts, and finished reading it again last week,...
Surgery Was Also Awful for Regency Surgeons
Regency-era surgery was awful for patients, but it was also awful for surgeons. Surgeons performed operations to save lives, even while knowing their skill caused extreme pain. Surgery without Anesthesia During the Regency era (which lasted from about 1789 to 1830)...
Quotations Used in My Novelette Cousin Anne
Quotations Used in My Novelette Cousin Anne In this blog I list the quotations used in my novelette Cousin Anne. I posted them here instead of adding them to the back matter as I usually do. Choosing this route avoided any worries about altering the book cover's...
Regency Surgery Was Awful
There is no question about it: Regency surgery was awful for patients. An observer in 1828 described an amputation in this manner: “But, oh, how my feeling recoiled at the sight! To behold the keen shining knife drawn around the leg severing the integuments, while the...
My Regency Website Has a New Look!
My website has a new look! The featured image on my redesigned homepage is Issac Robert Cruikshank’s drawing titled “Characters on the Steyne, Brighton,” published in 1825. I love it because it’s just so Regency!
Body-snatching in the United States
The business of body-snatching thrived in Jane Austen's England. It also flourished in Scotland (1), Ireland (2), on the continent (3), and in the United States (US) and Canada. The success of the body-snatcher or Resurrection man (as he was sometimes called) arose...
Elizabeth Bennet Made Me Write a Trilogy
Nearly everybody has heard of Elizabeth Bennet, the spunky young lady in Jane Austen's beloved novel Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth is so popular that she has her own Wikipedia page, where curious persons can read a detailed analysis of her character. Known for her...
Book 1 of My Trilogy Is Live Online
Book 1 of my Surgeon's Duty trilogy -- titled Ravaging the Dead -- is live and can be found as both a paperback and a Kindle eBook on Amazon. It can also be found as an eBook on Smashwords. The trilogy tells a tale of body-snatchers and surgeons in Jane Austen's...
Body-Snatchers Dug Up the Dead
A previous blog described some of the lessons I learned researching and writing about body-snatchers (1). In Jane Austen's day (particularly the early 1800s), body-snatchers dug up the dead at night and delivered the fresh cadavers to the surgeons at London's anatomy...
Four Things I Learned Writing a Trilogy
My trilogy is finished. The series--titled Surgeon's Duty--is set in Regency England (specifically 1816 and 1817) and follows a hospital surgeon and several body-snatchers (a.k.a. resurrection men). The body-snatchers dig up newly buried bodies and sell them to the...
Recipes for Brewing Flaxseed Tea
Are you wondering how to brew flaxseed tea? Then you've come to the right place. The impetus for this blog was a query posted by a reader who brewed some flaxseed tea and found it too goopy to stir. Her request for an explanation of why her flaxseed tea was so gummy...
A Bit of Regency Dash for My Blog
When I first started blogging some five years ago I happened to buy Vic Gatrell's book City of Laughter: Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London at a local discount bookstore.1 I have never been the same since. Gatrell introduced me to the world of...
Regency Women Who Inherited Real Property (Part 2)
My previous blog provided short biographies of three women who inherited real property—by which I mean land, houses, farm buildings, and the like: Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth Doughty, and Mrs. Eleanor Frances Dixie Pochin. Here are short...
Some Regency Women Owned Property (Part 1)
In 2014, when I started this blog, I had published my first novel, Rosings Park—a story about Anne de Bourgh. Miss de Bourgh, you may know, is a character in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Her claim to fame is that she was expected to marry her cousin Fitzwilliam...
The Bluestocking Story: Facts and Fogs
Nearly three years ago (in October of 2015, to be precise) I posted a blog titled "I Am Illiterate by Regency Standards." Even though I consider myself reasonably well educated, I have not been educated according to the standards of the 18th and early 19th centuries....
Maryville Book Club DiVAs Read Rosings Park
Last Sunday afternoon I spent a delightful hour as the guest of the Maryville Book Club DiVAs. The ladies had read my novel Rosings Park and invited me to meet with them after their discussion to answer questions. I had such fun! Below is a photo from the event. I can...
The Regency World’s View of Viruses
This year's flu epidemic has been extremely challenging, with a high number of hospitalizations and flu-related deaths. The influenza or flu is caused by a virus, a teeny, tiny infectious agent smaller than a bacterium, as can be seen in the illustration below. The...
Fitzwilliam Darcy, Esquire?
Of late I have been wondering about Esquires. What, precisely, is an Esquire? Might Fitzwilliam Darcy, he of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice fame, be such a man? We can be certain that Darcy isn't a Peer, since no one addresses him either as "Your Grace" (signaling...
On Jane Austen’s Birthday: It’s All About Books
Today, December 16th, is Jane Austen's birthday, and I am thinking of books … not Austen's books, much as I enjoy them, but other books, the ones I download for free from the internet and store on my computer in a folder labeled "BOOKS" (yes, a clever title in capital...
Surgeon Sentenced for Manslaughter in a Midwifery Case
A previous blog described a case of crim. con. "Crim. con." is short for criminal conversation or adultery. The accused adulterer or defendant in the case was a member of the clergy, one Rev. Mr. Bate Dudley. I read the case only because Mr. W. Musgrave's signature,...
Use Any Form of Flax Seeds When Making Flax Tea
The statistics for my Wordpress website show that several people have landed on my blog while browsing for information about making flaxseed tea. They are asking this question: Do I have to grind flax seeds when making flax tea? The answer is: you can if you want to,...
Rev. Mr. Bate Dudley Accused of Crim. Con.
For seven or eight years I have been downloading and reading books published during the Regency era—by which I mean the "long" Regency era running from about 1780 (before the French Revolution) to 1830 (the year King George IV died). Books published during these...
Jane Austen’s English: Thoughts for JAFF Writers
Today, July 18, 2017, is the 200-year anniversary of Jane Austen's death. Would she have been astonished by the popularity of her novels and the events honoring her passing? Would she utter a pithy comment to a Tennessee blogger writing about her use of adverbs and...
Anne de Bourgh’s Rheumatic Affection
My previous blogs about Anne de Bourgh's health asked these questions: What illness made Anne sickly? and Might Anne have had scarlet fever? You may recall that Anne de Bourgh is the heiress of Rosings Park in Jane Austen's beloved novel Pride and Prejudice. In...
Regency Dietary Treatments for Scarlet Fever
Regency-era doctors threw all sorts of treatments at their patients with scarlet fever: gargles made with hydrochloric acid; gentle potions made with antimony—a compound used to promote perspiration (today antimony is used mainly in industrial processes); and caustic...