Wife Number Two

I'm over at Austen Authors writing about someone you might not expect: Anne Boleyn. Why her? I recently made a connection...

I Tried to Write Like Jane Austen for a Day – Here’s What Happened

In which I put a possibly crazy idea I've had for a while into action. You should go over to Austen Authors to read the initial post, then come back here for the videos and supplemental materials below.

Videos

I did a short series of video blog-ish things through the course of the day:

Pen tests

The next day I took a look at the first page of the chapter I'd written with the original quill pen, and decided to do some tests with the other quill pen and other options I had, to see how they compared. Because, you know, my thumb didn't already have enough needles of pain in it.

Original chapter, from the original quill pen.

With the Colonial Williamsburg pen. 

 With a souvenir dip pen. I much preferred this to the quill, but metal-tipped nibs weren't commercially produced until 1822.

With a ballpoint pen. I've never been a fan.

Pentel EnerGel 0.7 mm. The most comfortable.

Pentel EnerGel 0.5 mm. A little more efficient than the 0.7, but surprisingly not the MOST efficient, which was...

 Historic dip pen that came with my writing slope. It got the most text on the page, but at the expense of spattering tiny little drops everywhere, and looking like it was written by a mouse!

Total output

The two chapters I wrote through/wrote:

Boxing Day

I'm back with another post at Austen Authors, a bonus look at the origins of Boxing Day.

An overwhelming assembly

Was Mr. Darcy a highly sensitive introvert? I'm sharing my own experience as one and examining that question in my latest post for Austen Authors.

An impressive collection of carriages

I'm over at Austen Authors today with a look at an amazing carriage museum that totally had me fangirling!

A few Pride and Prejudice chapters, a little talk about sex

I'm over at Just Jane 1813 today as part of the "We Still Need Her" event, talking about chapters 47 and 48 of Pride and Prejudice, and sex in the Georgian era.

A little anecdote about house visiting

Hi dear readers, sorry I've been scarce around here lately. I promise I am still hard at work editing and writing!

But I thought I would just drop by and share a little anecdote that I've been meaning to share for some time. This comes from a previous trip to England, when I was able to visit St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall. It's a former monastery perched on the hilltop of an island that is linked to the mainland by a causeway (it's walkable at low tide; boats run when the tide is high). It became a family home and was in the St Aubyn family for many years (it's now in the hands of the National Trust and the family leases it).

 As you can see, much of the interior is quite genteel for such an imposing exterior.

Back to the anecdote. House visiting had already become quite a thing during the Georgian and Victorian eras. You can see this in Pride and Prejudice, of course, when it's not thought to be a big deal to go to Pemberley and have a look around. Some houses even had formally scheduled days for visiting, and had handouts printed for visitors. And housekeepers often made quite a lot of money in tips from the visitors they showed around.

I'd sometimes wondered just who was doing this visiting. How high up the social scale did it go?

The answer is, all the way to the tippity top. Because while the owners of this house were out, Victoria and Albert popped by for a visit! This was not a formally arranged royal visit -- they showed up in much the same way Elizabeth and the Gardiners did at Pemberley. (Although the royal couple had quite a lot more stairs to climb to get to the house.)

This anecdote has always amused me, because I can just imagine how it went when the family finally returned. Can you imagine being the housekeeper and having to tell them that while they were out, the queen stopped by for a visit?