Oh, I love a book sale!

I've been to a book sale! Used books, I must admit--no author royalties paid unfortunately--the only down-side to an otherwise sublime experience. What is better than three or four hours spent trawling among shelves and shelves of books? And if the money didn't go to the authors, at least it went to a good charity--our local symphony society.

I started the afternoon by finding a biography of George IV--our own Prinny--by Joanna Richardson. I had not come across this bio before; it is titled 'George the Magnificent' with a copyright of 1966. It should prove interesting in relation to the other biographies of the Prince Regent in my collection.

I moved on to discover a Penguin book--'The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier'. This is a memoir by a German conscript Jakob Walter, and looks very interesting. So little first person information is available about the common soldier of the era; it was satisfying find.

Then I found several nice little hardcovers of Jane Austen's work which will probably end up as prizes in my website contest. Likewise a good fresh used copy of the 1995 out of print book 'Landscapes of Britain'.

A real treat was a lovely hardcover titled 'Beningfield's English Villages'. Gordon Beningfield's luminous paintings are an inspiration and a joy.

"Great British Families' by Debrett's has some excellent illustrations, and with chapter titles like 'New Men' and 'Whig Magnates' promises good reading. 'Victorian and Edwardian London'  by A. R. Hope Moncrieff, although not Regency-related, looks packed with information. I paid $3 for it; I think that was a good deal! Nearly everything was only $1-$2, only a little more for extra special finds.

Loosely related to the Regency were my purchases of "Disraeli" by Stanley Weintraub; a massive tome of some 700 pages that looks terrific, and a 1953 edition of Washington Irving's 'The Sketch Book'. To round out my historical reading, I found--illustrative of the other periods of history that interest me--'A Medieval Family: The Pastons of 15th century England' by Frances and Joseph Gies and, 'In a Gilded Cage: From Heiress to Duchess' by Marian Fowler about the American heiresses who married British aristocrats in the late 19th century.

I've only recently discovered Canadian author Marian Fowler. I highly recommend her biographies, all written in the 1980's and 90's. I don't know if she is still writing, but her work is delightful--impeccably researched and sparkling prose. I just finished 'Below the Peacock Fan' about the ladies of the British Raj, and discovered that I have her biography of 'Blenheim'--yes, the house--on my shelves.

My purchasing was rounded off with a couple of novels by some favourite contemporary authors of mine, Erica James and Katie Fforde. I bought a book called "Cross-Stitch Florals" though I don't have time to undertake another project. If I do though, these ones are great! I got a book of Edward Thomas' poetry and discovered a series called the 'Small Oxford Books' which is delightful. I bought their 'Hotels and Inns', 'The Country House', and 'The Pleasures of the Table'. Each book is a compilation of quotes, from all eras of history, about the title topic. Great bed-time reading!

'The Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs' from 1977 completed my purchases. This is a very funny book and does relate to the Regency or at least the Georgian era with this offering from Walter Savage Landor:

The Georges
George the First was always reckoned
Vile, but viler George the Second;
And what mortal ever heard
Any good of George the Third?
When from earth the Fourth descended
(God be praised!) the Georges ended.

It was a great day at the book sale. My purse is empty and my book shelves are full so it's fortunate that it comes only once a year. But I have reading material now until it comes around again. Oh, wait, there is the University Women's Book Sale in the autumn...hmmmmm.....

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

The Ladies' Fashionable Repository

One of the less well-known and seldom-mentioned Regency magazines for ladies was The Ladies' Fashionable Repository published from 1809-1829. Yet, I find it to be one of the most entertaining and, indeed, one of the most useful of the popular journals of the day. I cannot discover much information about it; its founder calls it a 'pocket-book' and it seems to have appeared bi-monthly in its first years rather than weekly or monthly.

In the end analysis, The Ladies' Fashionable Repository turned out to be one of the longest lived of the ladies' magazines, but it underwent several changes. From 1829-1834, the founder and publisher J. Raw added his name to the title. Then, from 1837, the magazine became Pawsey's Ladies' Fashionable Repository and continued in publication for the next sixty-eight years.

Its contents were varied. It particularly emphasized puzzles, charades, conundrums, rebuses and riddles--the activities much enjoyed by a pre-TV, pre-computer game society. I think I will devote another post to those items of recreation!

The magazine accepted new poetry by both known and unknown authors. Walter Scott contributed "The Violet" in about 1814:

"The violet, in her green-wood bower,
Where birchen boughs with hazles mingle,
May boast itself the fairest flower
In glen or copse or forest dingle."

Not his greatest work perhaps--it continues for two more stanzas--but charming.

Intermingled with such poetic gems were solidly useful items.
Here is an excerpt from the tables of the new window tax:

Likewise, below is a excerpt from an entry on the house duty and taxes on servants:

The charges levied by hackney chairmen took two pages, here is a portion of it::

One issue, circa 1814, included an absolutely delightful 'song' titled "Hyde Park on a Sunday". It has an immediacy that brings the world of the Regency to life, and makes it understandable and very close to contemporary with our own world.

It continues for two pages, politically incorrect for our times, but otherwise remarkably timely.

In another issue, a poem disguised as a letter purporting to be true fact, about Bath and its assemblies includes these lines:

"In Bath, dear Eliza, what pleasures abound!
Where we skip all the night to the violin's sound;
Where beauties unnumber'd hold absolute sway,
Whose charms shed a lustre that rivals the day."

 Every issue of the journal held a plate of a stately home and a description of the property and its owner. These were not always the huge palaces of the nobility but the smaller houses of the lesser aristocracy, many of which no longer exist. Here is Helmingham Hall, Suffolk, seat of Lord Dysart, from 1809:

In the introductory issue, J. Raw used a technique that is still often employed to draw in customers and reward faithful readers. He held a contest, and the prize was future issues of The Ladies' Fashionable Repository. And he sees fit to thank his patrons for their purchase of his product:

We can only thank him for publishing a magazine that has survived these two hundred years and brings us a view of Regency life that is at once different yet very familiar to us.

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

Charles Molloy Westmacott - "virulent scribbler"

If you are born a man of modest, or even straightened, means in a time when wealth, nobility and society are all important, what can you do? You can either strive with all your resources to join said society--claw your way up the social ladder--or you can denigrate that society in order to indicate that you have no admiration for it, and that you believe it to be valueless.

Charles Molloy Westmacott chose the latter alternative. He was born in 1788, the illegitimate son (he claimed) of the artist Richard Westmacott and Susannah Molloy, an inn-keeper. Though enemies claimed he was the son of a chimney sweep, he was well educated, and he spent many of his early years in the art and theatre worlds.

In the early 1820's he entered the publishing world. For some years he had been collecting documents 'relating to the aristocracy' and he realized he could profit from the information he had gathered. He began writing, and what he wrote was always controversial, often actionable, and usually scandalous.

In 1825, he achieved a pinnacle of notoriety with the publication of "The English Spy" using a pseudonym 'Bernard Blackmantle'.

The "Spy" covered many aspects of life within the world of the beau monde, particularly commenting upon the worlds of Eton and Oxford. But the society of Brighton and of Mayfair were also derided and The "Spy" begins with a 'poem':

But society did not view his pages with good humour for even the frontispiece illustration and the accompanying text poked fun at them, based on the Five Orders of Architecture:

His connections in the art world ensured that his book was illustrated by top rank artists, Robert Cruickshank and the then elderly Thomas Rowlandson. The material Westmacott included in his book was carefully designed to portray society in its worst light:

"The swaggering broad-shouldered blade who follows near him, with a frontispiece like the red lion, is the well know radical, Jack S____h, now agent to the French consul for this place, and the unsuccessful candidate for the independent borough of Shoreham."

Women were not immune from his acid tongue:

The plump looking dame on the right, is Aug--ta C--ri, (otherwise lady H-----e); so called after the P--n--ss A-------a, her godmamma.

In 1825 Westmacott also published under the same pseudonym, a roman a clef titled "Fitzalleyne of Berkeley; a Romance of the Present Times". It recounted a hot gossip story thinly disguised, and excited much distress among the actual participants in the events.

His path now determined, Westmacott became editor of a Sunday weekly paper "The Age" in 1827. "The Age", which first appeared in 1825, was all about gossip and scandal, heresay and irregularity. His mildest writings were still tongue in cheek:

"Through a slight return of the gout, His Majesty [George IV, formerly the Prince Regent] has most prudently postponed the Drawing Room which was to have been held on Thursday--but we are assured it will delight our readers to know that His Majesty's health is so far renovated as to preclude the chance of any further disappointment."

His Majesty was, of course, extremely unpopular, and there was probably no delight felt in any reader about the health of the King.

Charles Westmacott died in 1868 having spent a lifetime disparaging the beau monde. He was described at one point in his career as "the principal blackmailing editor of his day". He said of himself in the introduction to "The English Spy":

...he has no tongue for scandal--no pen for malice--no revenge to gratify, but is only desirous of attempting a true portraiture of men and manners, in the higher and more polished scenes of life.

It was, of course, all untrue. He was seeking revenge, on a society that rejected him. And he seemed satisfied with the results of his labour. The National Portrait Gallery has a wonderful drawing of Westmacott by artist Daniel Maclise. You can view it here--he looks to me to be a self-satisfied man. Tabloid journalism of today has its origins with writers such as Charles Molloy Westmacott--to my mind, a doubtful legacy.

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

Sources: Charles Molloy Westmacott and the Spirit of the Age by David E. Latane. Victorian Periodicals Review, Volume 40, Number 1, Spring 2007 pp. 44-72

Wikipedia.org