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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by Jane Odiwe, guest blogger and author of Willoughby’s Return
Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to talk to you all about my new book. One of the things I enjoy about writing my Austen sequels is the research I have to do for each novel. I love to set each major scene giving clues to how places looked at the time, as well as considering sounds and smells! Jane Austen did not devote much of her writing to descriptions of places and scenes as she took it for granted that people would know what she was talking about, but I think it is important that I transport my reader back to the 1800’s especially if they know little about the era.
I have Marianne and Colonel Brandon go to London for the season. I read everything I could about shopping, amusements and entertainments of the time and it is very fortunate that so much of the part of London I was researching still exists even if some of the buildings have changed. Helping to transport me back in time was a map from 1803 that I downloaded from the internet. Off I went on the tube to stand in Oxford Street and Bond Street trying to imagine that the cars roaring by were carriages and that the sounds around me were different again.
I wanted to give an idea of how exciting it would be for Marianne’s sister, Margaret, to come to London for the first time. She is a young lady who has grown up in the relative quiet of the countryside:
Fascinated by everything she saw, marvelling at the shops on every side, Margaret exclaimed at all she witnessed. Watchmakers, silk stores, and silversmiths displayed their wares behind sparkling glass, illuminated by the amber glow of oil lamps. Exotic fruit and towering desserts in the fruiterers and confectioners formed a dazzling spectacle; pyramids of pineapples, figs, and grapes cascaded from porcelain epergne. Marchpane castles, rosewater creams, and fruited cake vied for attention on platters of every shape and size. And the crowds of people stretching across the wide pavements, the ladies gathered outside in admiration of the linen shops, draped with silks, chintzes, and muslins were a sight to behold; such fashionably dressed gentility as Margaret had never seen before… After the relative quiet of life in Devon and Dorset, she could not believe how noisy London was to her ears; not only the sound of rumbling carriages and carts, but the clatter of patterns on pavements and the distinctive cries of street sellers rang everywhere about.
I love writing descriptions of interiors. When Marianne and Colonel Brandon visit his sister, Lady Lawrence, at Whitwell, it gave me an opportunity to ‘paint’ the setting. We know from Sense and Sensibility
that Brandon’s sister spent some time in France and I decided that her taste in design would have been influenced by her travels abroad.
The Brandons were shown into a large salon, filled with the most beautiful fittings and furniture. The style was French, the room ornate with gilded chairs, pier glasses, and chandeliers of the finest crystal. The silk-covered walls glowed with coral shades and iridescent hues of shell pink, further illuminating the room in flowing drapes at the floor-length windows, in the decorative ceiling, and in the Aubusson rug, which burgeoned with fat summer roses and green leaf garlands.
Lady Lawrence sat upon a velvet sofa, bolstered with pads and rolls, guarded by golden lion heads on either arm, which seemed ready to spring into life and leap out at anyone who might come to disturb her apparent idle repose. Despite the warmth of the day, she was covered to her waist by a heavy coverlet fringed with gold braid. She did not get up when they entered but excused herself, claiming that the damp of the day was responsible for her inability to stand.
Whilst writing Willoughby’s Return, I celebrated a special birthday and was lucky enough to spend a few days with my family in the house where Sense & Sensibility 
1995 was filmed! It was great fun walking in the footsteps of Marianne and Elinor Dashwood, seeing the spot where Willoughby pulled up in his curricle and where Colonel Brandon helped Marianne cut reeds in the estuary. It was such an enormous treat and great inspiration for my writing.
I had a wonderful time researching Willoughby’s Return. If you could go back in time and star in your own Austen fantasy, where would you like to go? Would you prefer experiencing a vast country house, a grand ball, or perhaps an evening at a Georgian circus like Astley’s?
WILLOUGHBY’S RETURN—IN STORES NOVEMBER 2009
A lost love returns, rekindling forgotten passions…
In Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, when Marianne Dashwood marries Colonel Brandon, she puts her heartbreak over dashing scoundrel John Willoughby in the past.
Three years later, Willoughby's return throws Marianne into a tizzy of painful memories and exquisite feelings of uncertainty. Willoughby is as charming, as roguish, and as much in love with her as ever. And the timing couldn't be worse—with Colonel Brandon away and Willoughby determined to win her back, will Marianne find the strength to save her marriage, or will the temptation of a previous love be too powerful to resist?
Buy: Willoughby's Return
About the Author
Jane Odiwe is an artist and author. She is an avid fan of all things Austen and is the author and illustrator of Effusions of Fancy, annotated sketches from the life of Jane Austen, as well as Lydia Bennet's Story. She lives with her husband and three children in North London. For more information please visit Jane’s website and follow her on Twitter.
Giveaway: One lucky commenter will win 1 copy of Willoughby's Return. Open to US and Canadian readers only. Enter by answering Jane Odiwe's question about your own Austen fantasy. Increase your chances by reading Jane's interview and asking her a question. Ends: November 18, 2009.
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