Mr Darcy, Faeries and Cowslips

It's my pleasure to welcome Brooke West and Beau North to the salon, with a tale of cowslips!

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Thank you, Catherine, for hosting this stop on our blog tour and inviting Beau and me into your salon! 

If you have read The Many Lives of Fitzwilliam Darcy by now, then you understand why we are obsessed with cowslips! The cowslip scene (which I will spoil for you below -- you have been warned!) is one of the examples of how our Darcy’s hardships have transformed him. After working through his ordeal, Darcy begins to really look at the people around him and connect with them. He takes a small moment that many would have ignored and from that extrapolates a grand, romantic gesture to his beloved.

With their simple but undeniable beauty, cowslips are a fitting symbol for our Elizabeth. The cowslip is a common flower, sweet-smelling and low-growing but vibrantly colored and impressive in its profusion. They have been admired and used for centuries for their culinary, medicinal, and even magical qualities.

The flowers and leaves are mildly narcotic, which is why they have been used for making both a delicate wine and a calming sedative tea. I expect Darcy would attest to Elizabeth having an intoxicating effect on him!

Aside from medicinal purposes, the beauty of the cowslip has inspired some belief that the flower can imbue this quality on others. Nicholas Culpepper, a renowned 17th century English botanist, claimed that women could make themselves more beautiful by using a distillation or ointment made from the perennial. Indeed, it would not be an unusual ingredient to find in modern skincare due to the cowslip’s cleansing properties.

Cowslips were often associated with the faeries in England. Some say the faeries used the cowslips to become invisible, or that the presence of cowslips indicated the presence of faeries. In Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare invoked the cowslip as a favorite of the Fairy Queen, Titania:

And I serve the fairy queen

To dew her orbs upon the green.

The cowslips tall her pensioners be.

  In their gold coats spots you see.

  Those be rubies, fairy favors.

  In those freckles live their savors.

  I must go seek some dewdrops here

  And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear

Conversely, cowslips also were used to protect one’s home and cows from faeries. Even as belief in faeries died away, rural folk would keep cowslips by their door to prevent unwanted visitors.

The supposed magical properties of these flowers align with the lightly supernatural element of The Many Lives of Fitzwilliam Darcy. I like to think that cowslips always remind Darcy of the days in Hunsford, and that the following scene, which occurs on Elizabeth’s first visit to Darcy House, is the first of many times Darcy fills his house with the delicate flowers in honor of Elizabeth: 

She curtsied and said his name in an unsteady voice. He would not allow the brevity of her greeting to deter him and he was determined to make her feel welcome in his home.

“Miss Elizabeth, I am pleased to see you among the party tonight.”

She did not meet his eye, focusing instead on the vase to his right. Every vase in the house was bursting with yellow cowslips, the only tribute he could give her without openly declaring himself.

“Thank you for inviting us,” she said in a subdued manner.

And thank you, Catherine and her loyal readers, for indulging us in talking about our latest collaboration, The Many Lives of Fitzwilliam Darcy. We look forward to hearing from you and your readers!

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Meet the Authors

Beau North is the author of Longbourn’s Songbird and a contributor to the anthology Then Comes Winter. Beau is a native southerner who now calls Portland, Oregon home with her husband and two cats. She attended the University of South Carolina where she began a lifelong obsession with Literature. In her spare time, Beau is the brains behind Rhymes With Nerdy, a pop culture podcast and website, and a contributor at the San Francisco Book Review.

Meet Beau on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, newsletter, podcasts, Goodreads and Amazon.

Brooke West is a contributing author to the anthology Then Comes Winter. Brooke has a naturally creative soul that pulls her into myriad artistic endeavors.  While writing fiction always has been her life’s passion, Brooke also finds joy in silversmithing, sculpting, and costuming. Between projects, she runs and practices yoga.  She lives in South Carolina with her fiancé, son, and three cats.

Meet Brooke on Facebook, Twitter (@WordyWest and @BrookeWest), Goodreads and Amazon.

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THE MANY LIVES OF FITZWILLIAM DARCY 

“He could no longer claim to be Fitzwilliam Darcy of Derbyshire, brother to Georgiana, master of Pemberley. In that moment, he was but a man. A man filled with more frustration than most souls could bear. A man torn asunder by his desperation, his fruitless dreams and desires.”

After Elizabeth Bennet rejects his marriage proposal, Fitzwilliam Darcy finds himself in the most unusual of circumstances. At first believing the extraordinary turn of events has granted him an inexplicable boon, he is eager to put the humiliating proposal behind him.

He soon discovers that he is trapped in the same waking dream with no end in sight and no possible escape. All that he holds dear—his name, his home, his love—remains ever out of reach. How will he find his way back to his normal life? Will one mistake haunt the rest of his days? It will take all of his fortitude to weather the storms of his strange new fate, and all of his courage to grasp the promise of his future.

 October 8/ My Jane Austen Book Club/Launch Post & Giveaway

October 9/ Just Jane 1813/Interview with Beau and Brooke

October 10/ Pemberley to Milton/Book Review & Giveaway

October 11/ A Covent Garden Madame Gilflurt’s Guide to Life/Guest Post

October 12/ Austenesque Reviews/ Excerpt & Giveaway

October 13/ Margie’s Must Reads/ Book Review & Giveaway

October 14/ Babblings of a Bookworm/ Book Review & Giveaway

October 15/ The Calico Critic/Excerpt & Giveaway 

October 16/ Obsessed with Mr. Darcy/ Guest Post 

October 17/ Diary of an Eccentric/Book Review & Giveaway

October 18/ My Kids Led Me Back to Pride and Prejudice/ Book Review & Giveaway

October 19/ More Agreeably Engaged/ Fitzwilliam Vignette 

October 20/ So Little Time… So Much to Read/ Excerpt & Giveaway

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For readers who wish to vote in our The Many Faces of Fitzwilliam Darcycontest, the choices are shown below:

To vote for your favorite image of Fitzwilliam Darcy from the images shown above, go to The Many Faces of Fitzwilliam Darcy Contest Link. The winning image and the winner will be announced on October 20, 2016, at our last blog stop, So Little Time… So Much to Read.

Anglomania, hats and English ladies of the 1780s

It's my pleasure to welcome Virginia Hill of www.fashionarchaeology.com for a look at hats and English ladies in the 1780s!

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Joshua Reynolds, Lady Skipwith, 1787, Frick collection, USA.
Lady Skipwith wears an English gown.

There are moments in history when fashion and art just come together in the most splendid way imaginable. The period running from the late 1770s to the late 1780s is one of these. The art of portraiture was living a glorious epoch with the likes of Gainsborough, Reynolds, Romney and Raeburn, and fashion was living its heyday of Anglomania. London was, for a brief moment, the international fashion capital  for women’s fashions. Paris was taking its cue from English tailors regarding the riding coat (la redingote) and the English gown (la robe a l’anglaise) but above all it was soaking up every aspect of English culture, from literature to politics, to the idiosyncratic ways of the British aristocracy.  

Attributed to John Downman,
Miss Beloe, 1760s

The English upper class lived in the countryside and liked to dress sensibly for it (unlike their French counterpart who repudiated contact with nature in favour of the artifice of life at court). Hence the English lady took up wearing her riding clothes not just to sit on a horse, but also to go walking, shopping and do any practical activity which involved staying outdoors, requiring a certain degree of comfort in cut but also in fabric due to the uncertainties of the British climate. 

George Haigh, Countess of Effingham with gun and dogs, 1787, 

Yale Centre for British Art, USA

These clothes were not only practical they were also very masculine in nature. Their cut and fabric derived from the male coat and traditionally their construction was reserved for male tailors (i.e. the tailors of men’s clothes).

Print showing ladies practicing a  sport

Henry Pickering, Miss Dixie,
1750-55c, Nottingham Castle

The other very characteristic British element of fashion of this period is the hat. Continental women had not been particularly interested in hats in, in fact head coverings (especially wide brimmed ones) had been associated with the lower classes, particularly peasants working in the country side, up until this time.  English ladies made hat wearing an art in the second half of the eighteenth century. But from the 1750s onwards it became indispensable for a fashionable country lady to wear a light weight straw hat decorated with a coloured ribbon (later also feathers, flowers, etc.) . The trend soon spread to the city and hats were worn throughout the day. 

Even with the rising hairstyles of the later 1760s and the towering ‘heads’ of the 1770s, the hat wearing persisted. 

Gainsborough, Georgiana,
Duchess of Devonshire, 1787

In 1778 Evelina, the heroine of the Fanny Burney’s delightful novel by the same name, comes up to London for the first time and is introduced to the delights of shopping by her more sophisticated hostess. Evelina is particularly taken aback by the experience of going to a classy milliner’s where she is surrounded by ladies so dressed up  “I should rather have imagined they were making visits than purchases”. But what really astonished her was the presence of  male shop assistants “such men! So fisical! So affected!” and their arrogance regarding fashion “they recommended caps and ribbands with an air of so much importance, that I wished to ask them how long they had left off wearing them” (a veiled criticism of their effeminacy should be noted here).  In fact Evelina had unknowingly walked into the new craze that would take over London and indeed the world over the next few years: hats!

John Hoppner, a lady, 1786c, National Gallery of Victoria, Australia

By the 1780s hats were not just made of straw but of wool felt and beaver fur, the techniques generally used for male hat making were now applied to making huge, wonderful, show stopping creations for women. The bigger the better. 

George Romney, Lady Milnes, 1789c, Frick Collection, USA

Written content of this post copyright © Virginia Hill, 2016.

The Time In Between: the Era of William IV

It's my pleasure to welcome Caroline Warfield to the salon to discuss William IV!

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What do you call the era of William IV, sandwiched as it is between the Georgian and the Victorian? It may be short, but it can't be dismissed. William warrants attention in his own right.

A note about eras: the Covent Garden Gilflurt's Guide to Life covers all things Georgian, that long and glorious era of the four Georges, a time of social and economic change and literary flowering. Its extent is almost always defined as beginning with the accession of George I in 1714 to the death of George IV in 1830. (That ubiquitous period, the Regency, is a subset of Georgian and refers, of course. to the period in which the future George IV served as regent for his father, George III.) The Victorian Era began when Victoria came to the throne June 20, 1837 and lasted for over sixty years until her death in 1901. 

That leads to my question, what do you call the years 1830 to 1837? Occasionally, but not often, those years are lumped into the Georgian. That may be because William was the brother of one George and the son of another, or because his reign is too short to bother naming. In writing two novels set in that stretch of time, I've come to think of it as the Time In Between. It belongs to William alone.

When William was born in the Queen's House (later Buckingham Palace) in 1765 he was considered, as a third son, an unlikely candidate to accede to the throne. He entered the navy at aged thirteen and soon after served in New York during the American Revolution, just escaping a plot to kidnap him. He is generally considered to have been a good and well-respected officer, numbering Nelson among his friends. He left the navy in 1790, however, and, when he sought a command during the Napoleonic Wars, he was denied one.

After being made Duke of Clarence, he lived for twenty years in a domestic arrangement with the actress Dorothea Bland, "Mrs. Jordan," with whom he had ten children, all given the surname Fitzclarence. By all accounts it was a happy household, but the relationship came to an end when William sought a rich wife as a way out of financial difficulties. Wealthy fathers kept a tight hold on their daughters, however, and William was only successful after the death of Princess Charlotte when he became heir apparent.

Unlike his older brothers, William appears to have been a domestic soul. His marriage to Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, while an arranged one, was reputed to be as happy as his long arrangement with Mrs. Jordan. Adelaide was kind and welcoming to the Fitzclarence children, all of who came into William's custody after the death of their mother. Unfortunately, none of his legitimate children survived infancy, leaving the daughter of his younger brother, Victoria, as his heir.

As king, William has been described as unassuming and disinterested in pomp, and as hard working and conscientious. He had to be persuaded to have a coronation ceremony and, even then, put the event on tight budget in deliberate contrast to George IV. The Duke of Wellington claimed to have gotten more done with William in ten minutes than he had with George IV in ten days. William, who had generally supported the Whigs as a young man, tilted toward conservative as king. He supported the Duke of Wellington and the Tories but they lost control soon after William took the throne.

The loss pushed the country toward the Reform Crisis. Lord Grey, Wellington's Whig successor, introduced the Reform act, which sought to reform the electoral system. It eliminated "rotten boroughs" (those with few voters and multiple MPs controlled by peers); broadened voting rights to include shopkeepers, small landowners and tenant farmers; created new constituencies; and almost doubled the electorate. The bill passed only after much struggle in Parliament and riots in the streets. Grey prevailed upon William to create sufficient new peers to ensure passage in Lords. He agreed reluctantly, but Lords caved in and passed the bill. Because the act had no impact on the poor and the working class, many thought it didn't go far enough. Widespread dissatisfaction ultimately led to Lord Grey's resignation. William's early popularity never recovered.

William's politics were complicated. He supported Catholic emancipation but opposed the abolition of slavery. He distrusted foreign governments, particularly the French, yet sought to improve Anglo-American relations. 

In addition to the first reform act, other events during William's reign include:

• Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire
• The Factory Act of 1833 prohibited the employment of children less than nine and reducing the hours of women and older children.
• The New Poor Law of 1835 passed.
• The Tolpuddle Martyrs, a group of Dorset agricultural laborers, were transported to Australia for taking a secret oath to form a trade union. It sparked a massive nationwide protest.
• Fire destroyed the Palace of Westminster and a new London Bridge opened.
• Laws passed requiring the registration of births, deaths and marriages.
• The last person in England to stand in a pillory did so, the first policeman killed in the line of duty died, and the last two men to suffer capital punishment for homosexual acts were hanged.
• Charles Darwin embarked on and returned from the voyage of the HMS Beagle with the notes from the Galapagos Islands that would like to his work the Origin of the Species.
• Ross led an expedition to the magnetic North Pole.
• Michael Faraday demonstrated electromagnetic induction and constructed the first dynamo.
• Charles Dickens earliest writings, including Oliver Twist, which shed light on the plight of the poor, were published. 
• Sir Walter Scott died.
• Alfred Tennyson's Lady of Shallot was published.
• Harrods was founded. 
• The East India Company lost its China monopoly.
• The Rideau Canal, a Unesco World Heritage site, connecting Kingston in Upper Canada to Montreal in Lower Canada was completed.

The Time In Between isn't an era that can be brushed aside. William lived long enough to see his niece Victoria reach her majority, and thus out of her mother's control, as he had hoped, but only by a few weeks. He died June 20, 1837, and so began the Victorian Era.

For more information see

"The Reform Act of  1832," British Library: Learning, http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/struggle/chartists1/historicalsources/source2/reformact.html

"King William IV (1765-1837)," BBC: History, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/william_iv.shtml

"William IV," Spartacus Educational:  British History>The Monarchy, http://spartacus-educational.com/PRwilliamIV.htm, 

"The Reform Act of 1832," UK Parliament official website, http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/houseofcommons/reformacts/overview/reformact1832/

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My interest in "The TIme In Between" comes from researching the first books in my new series, Children of Empire. The first in that series, The Renegade Wife begins in Upper Canada in 1832. The second, The Reluctant Wife (due April 2017) begins in India in 1835. 

About The Renegade Wife

Betrayed by his cousin and the woman he loved, Rand Wheatly fled England, his dreams of a loving family shattered. He clings to his solitude in an isolated cabin in Upper Canada. Returning from a business trip to find a widow and two children squatting in his house, he flies into a rage. He wants her gone, but her children are sick and injured, and his heart is not as hard as he likes to pretend.

Meggy Blair harbors a secret, and she’ll do whatever it takes to keep her children safe. She’d hopes to hide with her Ojibwa grandmother, if she can find the woman and her people. She doesn't expect to find shelter with a quiet, solitary man, a man who lowers his defensive walls enough to let Meggy and her children in.

Their idyllic interlude is shattered when Meggy’s brutal husband appears to claim his children. She isn’t a widow, but a wife, a woman who betrayed the man she was supposed to love, just as Rand’s sweetheart betrayed him. He soon discovers why Meggy is on the run, but time is running out. To save them all, Rand must return and face his demons. He follows her to Portsmouth and Bristol, still reeling from the Reform Crisis riots.

Available now for pre-order

https://www.amazon.com/Renegade-Wife-Children-Empire-Book-ebook/dp/B01LY7IRT6/

About the Author

Traveler, would-be adventurer, librarian, technology manager—Caroline Warfield has been many things, but above all a romantic. She is now a writer of historical romance, enamored of owls, books, history, and beautiful gardens, who sits in an office surrounded by windows and lets her characters lead her to adventures in England and the far flung corners of the British Empire. She nudges them to explore the riskiest territory of all, the human heart.

 Find her at 

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Written content of this post copyright © Caroline Warfield, 2016.

Othello's Guilt

Othello's Guilt, a monologue from William Shakespeare 

Adapted by Roberto Cavosi

Starring Marco Gambino

Directed by Roberto Cavosi

20 September to 1 October 2016

Tuesday to Saturday at 7.30pm (Sunday Matinees at 3.00 pm Only) 

No Monday Performances

Tickets - Full ￡15 / Concessions ￡12 (OAP, Student or Equity) 

£10 Friends of The Rose and Southwark Residents (Only available directly from The Rose, there are a limited number of tickets available for each performance.) 

http://www.wegottickets.com/f/101

Please note all performances are in English except on Tuesday 27 September when the performance will be in Italian with a post-show talk with Prof. Sonia Massai from King's College and Actor Marco Gambino.

Othello and Iago fuse to become a single force bent on self-annihilation.

A highly-wrought, interior and poetic study of personal anguish and self-destruction.

Othello and Iago fuse to become a single force bent on self-annihilation. The two characters constantly mirror each other, as if Othello’s jealousy needs to be fed by Iago’s inner voice. Jealousy is a monstrous interior force, which can devour anyone. Iago represents this cannibalistic energy and will that ends up devouring his own double: Othello. A highly-wrought, interior and poetic study of personal anguish and self-destruction.

Roberto Cavosi’s work absorbs and transforms the psychological intensity at the heart of modern and contemporary theatre, from Pirandello to Beckett. Othello’s Guilt is a monologue adapted and directed by Cavosi inspired by Shakespeare’s play.

The production is a 50 minute monologue with actor Marco Gambino, who returns to The Rose Playhouse after performing a brief extract of the play at The International Voice in Shakespeare conference on Six Characters in search of author. He has recently received international acclaim after appearing in popular Italian television series Squadra Antimafia, and Inspector Montalbano. 

The Rose Playhouse, Bankside’s first theatre, 1587. 

The Rose is an indoor archaeological site, it is advisable to dress with an extra layer as there is no heating. There are also no toilets so please use Shakespeare’s Globe just a few hundred meters away.