Today my dear Gentle Reader, I have a collection of stuff (all the stuff!) I thought might be of interest. Have fun!
Some stuff about the Victorians and Food!
Two of my most favorite subjects rolled together like a pig in a blanket.
“As, for the fashionable, dinner moved later, after-dinner tea was no longer necessary to bridge the gap until bedtime. Instead it moved forward, to fill in the longer period between luncheon (which in families without children was a light meal) and dinner, and to greet the office worker on his return home. This took time to be assimilated. In the 1850s the Carlyles still invited people to tea after dinner, at about seven o’clock: this was thriftier than having them for the meal itself, and made an evening entertainment.”
~ The Victorian House by Judith Flanders
“It is well, while at table, to avoid any discussion of the demerits of the dishes. On the other hand, you may praise them as much as you please.”
~ The Ladies’ Guide to True Politeness and Perfect Manners or, Miss Leslie’s Behaviour Book by Eliza Leslie (American 1864)
“For a large company, a table with tea, coffee, and cakes, may be set in the ladies-room, women being in attendance to supply the guests with those refreshments before they go down.”
~ The Ladies’ Guide to True Politeness and Perfect Manners or, Miss Leslie’s Behaviour Book by Eliza Leslie (American 1864)
“Eliza Acton, in her cookery books at the beginning of the century, was the first person to write a recipe more or less as we would recognize today, by separating out the ingredients from the method, which no one that thought of doing before. No longer was a cook told to take ‘some flour’ or ‘enough milk’, but now quantities and measures were introduced.”
~ The Victorian House by Judith Flanders
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| Les Modes Parisiennes Date- Thursday, March 1, 1855 Item ID- v. 37, plate 52 |
- Dinner in the Early 1800’s: What & How to Serve
- Working Class Dining Rooms, Glasgow 1863
- Victorian History: A Fast Food Generation
Matters of Etiquette
- Parasol Drills
- The Lost Language of Italian Parasols and the Men Who Made Them
- How to Travel Like a Victorian Lady
- When “Flirtation Cards” Were All the Rage
- Advice to Young Ladies in 19th Century Ireland
“When you purchase an umbrella, desire that, before sending it home, your name be engraved on the little plate at the termination of the handle, or else on the slide. “To make assurance doubly sure,” you may get the name painted in full in small white or yellow letters on the inside of one of the gores of silk.”
~ The Ladies’ Guide to True Politeness and Perfect Manners or, Miss Leslie’s Behaviour Book by Eliza Leslie (American 1864)
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| Robe à Transformation 1855 The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
Random Moments of What?
- Cat Show at the Crystal Palace
- Death Rays the Victorians Used to Conquer the Moon
- 18th & 19th Century: Carriage Accidents and Remedies
- Victorian Cryptographic Love Letter
- 5 Things Victorian Women Didn’t Do (Much)
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via historicaltimes tumblr Two couples at Niagara Falls, 1855 via reddit
A bunch of fun Victorian Photo Resources:
- A million stunning, copyright-free antique illustrations released by the British Library
- Historic England – archive of photos from 1850-1990
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Long Lost Victorian-Era Portraits of Black British Citizens Revealed in a New Art Exhibit
Le Bon Ton Date- Sunday, June 1, 1856 Item ID- v. 38, plate 53
On the classic Victorian concept of the sickly maiden or spinster:
“Illness was a way of putting achievement definitively out of reach. This is not a twentieth-, or twenty-first-century interpretation of nineteenth-century situation. Her brother Henry wrote later that ‘tragis health was, in a manner, the only solution for her of the practical problem of life’.”
~ The Victorian House by Judith Flanders
“The English are “starved with cold”—Americans only starve with hunger.”
~ The Ladies’ Guide to True Politeness and Perfect Manners or, Miss Leslie’s Behaviour Book by Eliza Leslie (American 1864)
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| Le Bon Ton Date- Tuesday, July 1, 1856 Item ID- v. 38, plate 65 |
And some fashion links!
- Women in Mourning Dress from Victorian Era
- Riding Habits of the 19th Century
- Fashionable Caps for 19th Century Matrons Both Young and Old
- The 19th Century Wire Cage Crinoline
- Victorian Mourning Jewelry at the Oaks
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| Alfred Stevens (Belgian artist, 1828-1906) In the Country (with a parasol) |
“Every lady should own a small light umbrella, or else a very large parasol, of extra size, covered with strong India silk that will not easily tear or fade, and that may be used, on occasion, for either sun or rain; and that will not be cumbrous to carry, though quite large enough to shelter one person.”
~ The Ladies’ Guide to True Politeness and Perfect Manners or, Miss Leslie’s Behaviour Book by Eliza Leslie (American 1864)
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GAIL’S DAILY DOSE
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Your Tisane of Smart . . .
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Your Writerly Tinctures . . .
How to Undress a Victorian Lady in Your Next Historical Romance
Quote of the Day:
“But when the time comes that a man has had his dinner, then the true man comes to the surface.”
~ Mark Twain
Tags: MANNERS & MUTANY, Steampunk, Tea & Nibbles, Victorian Culture, Victorian Science