February 10th, 2010 — A-C, Great Britain, Guest Blogger, Time Travel
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by Laurie Brown, guest blogger and author of What Would Jane Austen Do?
1. No planes, trains or automobiles -
So that means the main mode of transportation would be horses. Beautiful to look at, but smelly. Lots of horses in London meant lots of you know what in the streets. Also a horse drawn conveyance would be so slow by our standards. If I had to ride in a carriage to work it would take me four hours to get there.
2. No electricity -
No computer, no television, and no electric lights. Instead there would be a number of oil lamps and candles. If you've ever tried to light up a room enough to read during a blackout, you know how many candles it takes. The fuel in the lamps would be fish oil, olive oil, whale oil, sesame or nut oil. All of which would leave a lingering scent, especially since household fabrics in drapes, rugs, and in furniture was seldom cleaned and only 'aired out' once a year. Gas lighting using coal oil was invented in 1804 and a few houses and streets in had been converted but it was still advanced technology.
3. No cell phones -
The main method of communication (for messages traveling farther than across the room) was letter writing. A lost art, true, but immediate contact has so many advantages. It doesn't take days (or even months across the ocean) to send a message and get a response. A loved one could die before others even knew they were ill. Postage was expensive because independent agents delivered the letters. The recipient paid for the service. Rates became standardized when the fist stamp wasn't issued in 1840. The cost decreased, transit times reduced, and mail volume increased dramatically. But it still isn't as fast as picking up the phone to tell your best friend that Bloomies has just marked down a ton of designer shoes. Imagine having to send a letter.
4. Lack of modern dentistry -
Not just the fact that medically trained dentists were rare but that the barber or blacksmith was considered an appropriate substitute. There were toothbrushes of a sort. Some were mass produced as early as 1780 but were generally made of boar's hair and wood. (I didn't even know boars had hair.) Toothpastes were unknown but toothpowders were made by the household or by an apothecary. The powders might contain bicarbonate of soda, charcoal, salt, sugar, burnt alum, cinnamon and/or cloves. They might also contain brick dust, crushed china/earthenware, ground cuttlefish, or dragon's blood. No wonder there was such a market for false teeth.
5. Lack of modern plumbing -
Chamber pots. Outhouses. No toilet paper. No sanitary products. Need I say more?
6. Lack of bathing -
I know this relates to plumbing, but it goes beyond the sheer lack of running water. They had tubs that were laboriously filled by buckets, but people of the early 1800's just didn't believe in bathing. Some even thought it was dangerous to your health to get wet all over. Others believed a wash once or twice a year was sufficient. No need to wonder why heavy perfumes and nosegays were popular.
7. No modern medicine -
Sort of along the same lines as dentists, but so much more encompassing. Doctors of the day were no fonder of bathing than their patients. Until Florence Nightengale noticed during the Crimean War (c.1854) that cleanliness increased the odds that a patient would survive, doctors rarely washed their instruments between patients much less sterilize them. Medical knowledge was so far behind what it is today. Many children died in infancy, and many women died in childbirth. Jane Austen died in 1817 at age 41 from a disease that didn't even have a name, wasn't recognized. Today a diagnosis of Addison's Disease is serious but not a death sentence.
8. Uncomfortable clothing -
If they didn't complain of being uncomfortable that's just because they didn't know anything else. Girls were put into corsets as young as the age of two. Many women wore stiff corsets 24 hours a day because after so many years their muscles could no longer hold them upright without support. Shoes had no left or right but were made the same for both feet. Unless they were made of the softest leather or fabric, they just had to have rubbed blisters. There were few sizes to choose from and if your feet were in between the lasts, (as a cobbler's shoe-making forms were called, generally made of wood) then you could either stuff the toes with cotton or suffer the pinch of a too tight fit. If you were rich enough you could have your shoes made to a personal last that had been carved to match your foot. The same went for men. Many men wore corsets and padded clothing. Fashionable collars were stiff and came up around their ears so high that they couldn't turn their neck.
9. So Not Equal Rights -
Women were rarely educated except to entice a husband, and to run his household after marriage. Although women could own property, if they married, all control went to their husbands. Arranged marriages were considered not only acceptable but desirable. A woman was expected to grow to love her husband after marriage and children. Not the plot of a good romance novel that's for sure.
And the #1 reason for not traveling back in time even if it were available--
No Chocolate -
At least not as we know it. They did have a bitter hot cocoa beverage that was served in the coffee houses and some homes (nothing like the modern version) but chocolate as in candy bars was not invented until 1847.
[insert shameless plug here] In What Would Jane Austen Do? Eleanor Pottinger faces all of the above and more when she travels back in time. Does meeting the hero, Lord Shermont, make it all worthwhile?
Thanks reading my reasons for not going back in time. Do you have others?
Originally posted 2009-04-29 05:28:46. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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January 27th, 2010 — 4.5 Stars, A-C, ARC, Contemporary, Dukes and Earls, Entrepreneur, Ghost, Great Britain, Jane Austen, Memory Loss, Regency, Rogues and Rakehells, Scarred Hero, Survival, Teacher, Time Travel
WWJAD is quick fun read. The story is flirty and cute just like the hero, Lord James Shermont. Read it in the bathtub, on the beach, while waiting in line at the post office, wherever, it’s sure to make you smile and leave you eager to turn the page.
Eleanor Pottinger (yes it is unfortunate that is her real last name) is a fan of Jane Austen. We meet her trying to get a room at a Jane Austen convention only to be told the room she booked has been given to somebody else. Luckily there was a newly renovated suite that was available…if she didn’t mind ghosts!
Of course Eleanor changes her mind about ghosts the minute they materialize. Sisters Deidre and Mina from the time of Jane Austen need Eleanor’s help. They are stuck as ghosts and can’t move on without her help. Eleanor jokingly offers to help if they can guarantee she can meet Jane Austen. They agree and before Eleanor can cry “Just Kidding!” Deidre and Mina have transported Eleanor back into the past.
When Eleanor wakes up she is stuck in the Regency era and is believed to be the girls’ widowed cousin Ellen who was arriving from America. Eleanor plays along and gets away with it because they haven’t seen the real Ellen since childhood. The ghosts tell Eleanor her tasks are to keep them out of the clutches of Lord Shermont, a rakehell of the worst sort, and to make sure their brother, Teddy, doesn’t enter into a duel with Shermont over their reputations.
Eleanor was once foolish enough to try and make a Mr. Darcy out of a Wickham, is she smart enough not to do the opposite? What would Jane Austen do?
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Buy: What Would Jane Austen Do?
Originally posted 2009-04-28 05:47:31. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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May 4th, 2009 — A-C, Author Interviews, Jane Austen
Keira: I noticed that the title What Would Jane Austen Do? appeared a few times in the book. Was this your original title? If not, what was it? What were some other titles that were possibilities?
Laurie: Yes, that was the original title. I don't think any others were considered.
Keira: What was your inspiration for WWJAD?
Laurie: I was having coffee with several writer friends when the topic of conversation turned to "If time travel were possible, would you go?" I really had to think about that. Aside from missing my family and friends, there are so many things not available in the Regency that I consider absolute necessities. Although tempted, I realized I'm a modern woman through and through. I'd like to go for short time, like going on a camping trip, but for the rest of my life? I don't know. And so the idea of a heroine who loves Jane Austen's books and the fashions of the Regency gets a chance to go back in time where (among other things which I hadn't figured out at the time) she has to come to term with her modern-ness.
Keira: How did you come up with the names for your characters?
Laurie: Characters names seem to pop into my head in all different sorts of ways. Sometimes, I can see them, or hear them and their name seems obvious. If not, I have a number of name books that I flip through until the right name jumps out at me. I wanted the heroine in WWJAD to feel a bond to JA, so I named her Eleanor after Elinor Dashwood in Sense & Sensibility
. I changed the spelling in case I wanted to use a quote from Elinor later in the book.
Keira: Speaking of characters, did you draw their appearances based on anybody in particular and do you have pictures?
Laurie: I don't have pictures of them except in my head, and I don't consciously model them after anyone in particular. Though I admit that occasionally there must be a subconscious association. My hero in Hundreds of Years to Reform a Rake
looked suspiciously like Hugh Jackman in a high crowned hat, snowy cravat, buff riding breeches, and tall Hessian boots.
Keira: When you started writing WWJAD did you know anything about the JAFF (Jane Austen Fanfiction) community? How do you think the community will receive your offshoot?
Laurie: Actually I didn't know much about it. After I sold the book I got an inkling of the enormity of the fan base and the variety of fiction that is out there, but by then I couldn't read any of it for fear that someone else's vision might color mine. I've added a few titles to my TBR pile but I haven't had much reading time lately.
I sincerely hope the members of the community will enjoy reading my story even though it's not technically fan fiction. None of JA's famous characters are characters in the book. It's more fiction that incorporates a real life person into the story. The heroine recalls bits of her favorite JA stories to help her survive culture shock when she travels back in time to 1814. And she gets to meet Jane Austen in person.
Keira: What are some challenges in writing Austen based romance?
Laurie: When Eleanor meets the real Jane Austen, I had to be careful to remain true to historical fact. For instance, my description of JA's dress is based on her own words when she describes her dress in a letter to her sister Cassandra. When JA mentions having been in Bath the previous April, she really was in Bath then.
In 1814, Jane Austen was nearing forty, had had two books published, and another soon to be released. My heroine wants to ask her where she got the inspiration for Mr. Darcy, hoping he was based on a real person, and that she will get to meet him at the ball. But because JA had not publicly admitted she was the author, Eleanor had to be circumspect in her questioning, and I had to be very careful constructing that scene.
Keira: What's one of your favorite Jane Austen inspired novels?
Laurie: I have Pemberley Manor
and The Darcys & the Bingleys
in my TBR pile. I'm looking forward to the Sept. release of Marilyn Brant's According To Jane
.
Keira: Who are your favorite authors besides Jane Austen?
Laurie: I'm going to take a pass on that question because I'd like to list all my friends who are writers. And if I missed one I'd never forgive myself.
Keira: How do you define love?
Laurie: Love is being the wind beneath each other's wings.
Keira: What makes a great (written) bedroom scene?
Laurie: I personally like the characters to have some doubts going into the situation. Not necessarily performance issues but questions about the wisdom of continuing. I like female characters with some doubts about their bodies/attractiveness when naked, male characters who second guess their decision/motivation. I'd like the characters to know beforehand that making love will change the relationship, then make the decision to go ahead anyway. I want them to be swept away physically and emotionally like never before. Along the way I like a bit of humor here and there. When it's over, I want to see that making love has changed everything.
I just reread that paragraph and it sounds rather dry. Maybe I should have just said, I want a love scene to make me smile and leave me breathless.
Keira: Is there anything else you'd like to share with us?
Laurie: Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to tell you about my new book. It's been fun. One last plug: What Would Jane Austen Do? May 2009. Hope you enjoy reading it.
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