Breakfast Links: Week of June 25, 2012

• A merry life and a short one! The Drunkard's Coat of Arms, 1707.
• Captain Wentworth as the Old Spice sailor? Jane Austen's Persuasion, 1960s style.
• More Viagra in your marmalade, sir? Historical foods and carnality.
• Classic Victorian murderess. Method: poison. Motive: money. Unique feature: blaming the wallpaper.
• Truly unique (and spooky) US National Park: an abandoned fort floating on a desert island.
• 'The making of a the silhouette': slide-show of 19th c corsets.
• Richard Topcliffe, Queen Elizabeth I's torturer.
• The art of Edwardian conversation.
• Oh, applesauce! Flapper slang and fab pictures from 1920s.
• Letter by Benjamin Franklin lists eight advantages of an older mistress.
• Was there really a 19th c hotel for prostitutes in Coney Island shaped like a giant elephant?
• The medieval Pied Piper.
• Queen Charlotte's Arcot Diamonds.
• Beard lore: Victorians thought shaving a "fatal fashion" that caused high rates of murder, suicide.
• The circus comes to town: photos from 1891.
• Dozens of historical embroidery patterns, newly scanned and on-line.
• Where to eat in London...224 years ago? The hottest London Eats of 1788, mapped via Google.
• Finally! The collections of the Museum at FIT are online and searchable.
• All fine and dandy: gentleman's fashions, c 1787.
• A "vampire-slaying kit" bought by the Royal Armouries museum.
• Dolley Madison story of saving the White House portrait of George Washington, 1814.
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