Tidbits from Johnstone’s London Commercial Guide
Diane Morris | Thursday, March 9th, 2017 | Life & Times, Regency clothing | No Comments
My previous blog described Johnstone’s London Commercial Guide,1 published in 1818. The guide includes a street directory showing which individual or business worked at a specific address. I had been browsing Johnstone’s guide to find surgeons who were practicing in London around that time. Here are a few other tidbits I found in this interesting tome. […]
Read More »Matthew Flinders: A Regency Officer Remembered Today
Diane Morris | Thursday, September 8th, 2016 | Life & Times, Regency Research | No Comments
Recently I happened to be perusing the 1816 volume of The Gentleman’s Magazine. I was photocopying the meteorological tables, beginning with March, so that I would have a sense of the weather conditions for the months in which several characters in my new novel are encountering unexpected headwinds. In most issues, the weather tables appear just […]
Read More »I Am Illiterate by Regency Standards
Diane Morris | Thursday, October 8th, 2015 | Life & Times, Regency Gentleman, Regency Research | 5 Comments
The first lesson I learned researching the Regency era is that it’s hard to get the history right. The second lesson learned is this: if I were a man living in Jane Austen’s day, I would be considered illiterate. This point is driven home whenever I read a popular periodical or a book on medicine, […]
Read More »Researching the Regency: Looking through Vic Gatrell’s Eyes
Diane Morris | Thursday, August 20th, 2015 | Life & Times, Regency Research | No Comments
I began researching the Regency era in earnest on August 1, 2009. I had written a story board outlining the plot for Rosings Park, my novel based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. (I later discarded the story board because my protagonist, Anne de Bourgh, refused to cooperate on the issue of her marriage. She can […]
Read More »Researching the Regency: Looking through Boswell’s Eyes
Diane Morris | Thursday, August 6th, 2015 | Life & Times, Regency Research | 2 Comments
In my previous blog post, I mentioned two books that changed my view of the Regency period. The first of these was The Heart of Boswell: Highlights from the Journals of James Boswell, edited by Mark Harris. I bought it for $.75 at my local used bookstore, thinking it would be a good introduction to […]
Read More »Linseed Tea: Popular in Jane Austen’s Day and Today
Diane Morris | Thursday, October 9th, 2014 | Jane Austen, Life & Times, Medicine | 4 Comments
During Jane Austen’s day, linseed tea and other preparations made with linseed were prescribed by doctors and apothecaries to treat a variety of aliments. A simple recipe from Dr. William Buchan’s popular book Domestic Medicine was among those medicines commonly used in 1811: “linseed, an infusion of 1 ounce to a quart of water, may […]
Read More »Mr. Darcy Was a Second-Class Citizen
Diane Morris | Sunday, August 10th, 2014 | Life & Times, Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice | 7 Comments
Fitzwilliam Darcy was the handsome, wealthy gentleman who fell in love with the sparkling Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth’s mother was confounded and amazed to hear that her daughter would marry a man of fortune, especially as she at first thought Darcy was “a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing, […]
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