Victorian Advice on DIY Christmas Decorations
(Private Collection)
For many Victorians, homemade Christmas decorations were far preferable to those bought in a store. Why spend good money on glittery trinkets when you could make something much more meaningful yourself? An article in the 1887 edition of Household Words advocates for doing just that, declaring:[…]Continue Reading
A Convenient Fiction is a USA Today Bestseller!!
Dear Readers,
My new Victorian romance novel A Convenient Fiction is a USA Today Bestseller!! This is my third book—and the third of the Parish Orphans of Devon books—to have made the USA Today bestseller list this year as a single title. I wasn’t expecting it. My illness and surgery last month resulted in the launch of this novel being a little less robust than with my previous books. What a surprise to find A Convenient Fiction squeaking onto the list! […]Continue Reading
The Value of An Introduction: Vouching for Someone Victorian-Style
(Met Museum)
Today, introducing one stranger to another at a social or business gathering is simply polite behavior. But in the Victorian era, an introduction was a thing of infinite value. It was a voucher. A guarantee that the person being introduced was both respectable and worthy of knowing. As Mrs. Walter Houghton explains in her 1893 book Rules of Etiquette & Home Culture:[…]Continue Reading
Flattering by Gaslight: Fashion Advice for Nineteenth Century Ladies
The gas-lit ballrooms of the mid- to late nineteenth century weren’t as flattering to some colors as they were to others. For example, the 1897 edition of Hill’s Manual of Social and Business Forms warns that pale shades of yellow became “muddy in appearance by gaslight,” while shades of rose simply disappeared. Similarly, most shades of purple, as well as darker shades of blues and greens, were known to “lose their brilliance in artificial light.”[…]Continue Reading
Inside a Victorian Bathing Machine
(Wellcome Images)
During the Victorian era, ladies visiting the public beach couldn’t simply wade out into the water and enjoy an invigorating swim. To protect their modesty, most ladies on a seaside holiday utilized a bathing machine. Though the name puts one in mind of a mechanized device, a bathing machine was really nothing more than a wooden dressing room set up on two wheels. The interior was usually equipped with both an entry and an exit door, and generally featured benches on either side, and hooks on the walls.[…]Continue Reading
