The Complete Weather Guide

My apologies for not providing a monthly blog in the past three months. Certainly the challenges of Covid-19 have thrown me off my stride, and also I am working on a couple of large projects which are distracting me, and keeping me busy. Please bear with me as we continue through these difficult days of 2020. In the new year, I should have more information about my projects. In the meantime, I offer this blog on a very interesting book. Stay safe and well...

 

 In the Regency era, as now, everyone wanted to know what the future held in terms of the weather.

"The Complete Weather Guide" published in 1813 by Joseph Taylor, offered numerous ways of predicting the day's weather and forecasting conditions for the days and weeks to come. Mr. Taylor discusses in detail making predictions from appearances of nature, and appearances of atmosphere, and using barometers, hygrometers, and thermometers.

And then there is this:

The Shepherd's Rules are based in observation, and are probably as valid as any forecast our modern weather people offer. They are sometimes expressed in wonderful, ancient couplets.

If red the sun begins his race, be sure the rain will fall apace.

The evening red, and the morning grey, is a sign of a fair day.

In the decay of the moon, a cloudy morning bodes a fair afternoon.

Interspersed with the weather details, are useful facts and fanciful fictions.

Even more interesting than the text, I think, are the handwritten notes and newspaper clippings that generations of the book's owners have added in the back of the book.

There are no dates on the information, or sources for the author's research, but the notes are interesting and possibly very useful!

The Complete Weather Guide may be found on Google Books by a simple search, and is available for free download. 

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

 

 

Holding a piece of the past....

I have read a great many books while researching the Regency era, books on social mores, art, architecture, science, politics, etc. But more and more, I am interested in primary sources. I want to read memoirs by people speaking at the time about the times in which they lived. I want to see their clothes and their furniture. I want to read their magazines, their books, and their newspapers.

A few months ago an opportunity presented itself to me to own a newspaper from the Regency era. They last, I am told, longer than present day newspapers because of their high rag content. So I did it--I bought a piece of history.

It is two hundred years old. It has some small tears and a few stains, but it is a remarkable survivor. And the sort of people that I write about held it and read it, made plans from its advertisements, tossed it aside in disgust when they disagreed with an article, and kept it--because something in it was important to them.

I wonder which article it was--perhaps the news of 'Accidents and Offences'?

Or was it the entertainment news? Did they schedule a visit to the theatre after seeing this?

Some items seem exotic to me, from a world I can only imagine:

The "Lloyd's List" is all about maritime affairs; perhaps the newspaper's owner was following a particular ship?

But household matters and retail concerns were important too. Did someone wish to furnish a house?

If so, it only shows that the preoccupations and realities of ordinary life were as notable then as they are today. The person who first bought this newspaper may have been looking for a very personal notification:

I hope they found what they were looking for. I am grateful that they kept the newspaper, so that I could hold a piece of their world in my hands. And so that I could be reminded that I buy newspapers for the same reasons they did. Our worlds are not so different, at all.

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne