Fashions for March 1824

1824 Morning Dress

 Loretta reports:

Last month we looked at fashions from 1812.  This month we advance to the 1820s. By this time, the waistline has dropped, with a snug-fitting bodice, and the hems tend to be richly trimmed.

I chose these fashions from Ackermann’s Repository for March 1824, because the artist was showing figures in motion, which I think allowed the dresses to more closely approximate what they would have looked like in real life.

Unfortunately, with fashion illustrations, we tend to get a very stiff, almost cartoon-like image, while portraits as well as clothing in museum collections often show a softer flow, and fabric clinging more gently to the figure. (Some Wikipedia examples here, here, and here.)

1824 Dress Description

1824 Evening Dress

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"A Reckless Desire" On Sale Today

Isabella reporting,

March is roaring in like a noisy lion, and with it comes a new historical romance from me. A RECKLESS DESIRE is on sale today, everywhere and in every format - ebook, print, and audiobook.

This is the third and final book in my Breconridge Brothers trilogy (the other books are A WICKED PURSUIT and A SINFUL SEDUCTION, which are both still available), but since each one is a stand-alone book, you won't feel lost if you jump in now - although of course I hope you'll want to read all three.

A RECKLESS DESIRE is my take on Pygmalion and My Fair Lady. Set in Georgian England, it's a story of transformation: by dreams, by hard work, and by love. Lucia di Rossi dreams of becoming a great actress and escaping her dreary life as a serving-maid in her family's dance troupe. One night backstage, an expansively drunk Lord Rivers Fitzroy makes a wager with a friend that he can transform any woman – even the mousy Lucia – into the queen of the London stage. When Lucia appears on Rivers' doorstep the following morning, ready to begin her training, he has no memory of either her or the wager, although he is intrigued by Lucia.

But what begins as a drunken bet and an intellectual challenge soon grows into something more - much more. Rivers isn't prepared for Lucia's raw talent or her fierce determination, and Lucia in turn is blindsided by just how attractive her bookish tutor turns out to be. And neither of them expect the fireworks that result when his intellectual reserve meets her impulsive emotions, or that the love and passion that result will change both their lives forever.

I'll be sharing some of the inspiration behind A RECKLESS DESIRE in future blogs - including the answer to that always-asked question "Where do you get your ideas?" - which in the case of this book, actually happened right here in plain sight on this blog.

You can buy A RECKLESS DESIRE, in both paperback and ebook formats, from Amazon here, from Barnes & Noble here, from Books-A-Million here, and Powell's Books here. You can also order both paperback and ebook editions directly from Random House here.

For those of you in the UK, A RECKLESS DESIRE is published by Headline Books/Eternal Romance, who is offering it for sale here. It's also available from your local bookseller, as well as from AmazonUK here.

Answering Nature's Call in Paris in the 1800s

Domed cast iron urinal

Loretta reports:

This article* about public urinals in Paris reminded me—again—of the emphasis on beauty as well as utility that prevailed well into the early part of the 1900s. Even factories made of plain red brick had their artistic flourishes and touches. If you’ve ever been inside an old factory building, you might have noticed the effort to add beauty to elevators, handrails, and so on. Structures built for utilitarian purposes might feature stained glass or elaborate cast iron work.

I suppose the modern styles of urinals are easier to maintain and keep clean, but I find myself wishing a way could be found to make them add something to the aesthetics of the street.

Urinal with eight stalls

Photographs by Charles Marville (1813-1879). Above left: Cast iron urinal with domed roof, on curb of street, Place du Théâtre Français, Paris, France, circa 1865, courtesy State Library of Victoria under the Accession Number: H2011.126/33. Below right: Urinal with eight stalls surrounded by shrubbery screen, a lamppost with single lantern at each end of stalls, Jardins des Champs-Élysées, Paris, circa 1865, courtesy the State Library of Victoria under the Accession Number: H88.19/2/107a. Both images via Wikipedia. (If you click on the Wikipedia link, you'll find a direct link to the State Library of Victoria image.)

*Sent to me by my alert-to-nerdy-history husband.

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Breakfast Links: Week of February 22, 2016

Breakfast Links are served - our weekly round-up of fav links to other web sites, articles, blogs, and images via Twitter.
• The enduring appeal behind an iconic Boston painting.
• "Under the influence": mesmerism in England.
• Tickets on the royal dime: a tattered document tells what royal mistress Nell Gwyn saw at the playhouse.
• Skiing through the Depression (and colorfully, too.)
• How the Spirella Corset Company forever changed women's undergarments.
• The latest technology in 1790: George Washington ordered these argand lamps for Mt. Vernon.
• Scottish myths: Wulver the kind-hearted Shetland werewolf.
• Image: 1911 census page where a suffragette refused to complete: "no vote no census."
• How the wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert was celebrated in India.
• Preserving and displaying a pair of Egyptian curtains from 6th-7thc AD.
• While Charles Darwin was writing hist masterpiece, his children were drawing on it.
• Belinda's petition: how an ex-slave successfully won a case for reparations in 1793.
• Sex in the Middle Ages.
• Eighteenth century families on terraces and out-of-doors in art.
• Image: Waiting for parcels of food, Cheapside, London, 1900.
• Harry Stokes and "female-husbands" of the 1800s.
• How Catherine de Medici made gloves laced with poison fashionable.
• "She was both poxt and clapt together": confessions of sexual secrets in venereal cases.
• Ancient Pompeii lives again as Italian officials unveil six more restored ruins.
• What makes Franz Liszt still important?
• Pocket Books and Liquid Bloom: advertising in the 18thc Lady's Magazine.
• Image: What the Victorians threw away: alphabet cup.
• The strange and mysterious history of the ouija board.
• Scientist Mary Somerville will be the first woman other than a royal to appear on a Scottish banknote.
• Mrs. Abigail Norman Prince and her French evening shoes, 1875-1885.
• Crime keeps you young - or maybe not.
• Pancake Day in the Georgian era.
Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.
Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring. Private collection.

Tudor Era Cleanliness

Frances, Lady Bridges 1587

Loretta reports:

Looking at the title of this post, some readers will wonder what cleanliness has to do with the Tudor era. It tends to be assumed that our forebears were dirtier and smellier than we are.

As has been pointed out in a number of 2NHG posts,* this may not be the wholly correct picture. It turns out that the lives of our ancestors are not always what we supposed they were. Sometimes our assumptions are mostly true, sometimes there’s an element of truth, and sometimes what we take to be true is, essentially, historical myth.

How To Be a Tudor

Certainly, this piece by historian Ruth Goodman, on Tudor-era cleanliness, made me rethink my ideas about the Tudor era. I offer it in place of the Friday Video.

Ruth Goodman, by the way, has written other books about her experiences living the life of the past. How To Be a Tudor  is the most recent. How To Be a Victorian is next in line on my History Books TBR shelf.

*Some samples of our posts about cleanliness are here, here, here, here, and here.

Image: (Unknown artist) Frances, Lady Bridges 1587, courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

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