Puzzles with no Solutions

Did you ever struggle to complete a crossword puzzle without the solution at hand? Ever hear a riddle to which no one has the answer?

That has been my fate recently. The Ladies Fashionable Repository, which I discussed in a past post, was very fond of publishing puzzles and conundrums, riddles, anagrams and charades. But, as is the way with very old journals, not all issues are available, and so I have found enigmas without resolution.

In celebration of the holiday season, however, I thought I would share these charming puzzles with you. This is the season, after all, for parlour games and jigsaw puzzles, those fiendish metal contraptions that must be separated and put back together, and a myriad of other intriguing and frustrating brain-teasers.

Our Regency counterparts enjoyed them as much as we do, and The Ladies' Fashionable Repository supplied their desire for diversion and amusement.  The puzzles I present here date from between 1809 and 1814.

Obvious questions spring to mind in considering the puzzles. How much do Regency mores and manners inform the questions? How much knowledge of the period is required for solution? In many cases I think the answer would be--a great deal.

The conundrums are quick and confusing.

 

The terminology of puzzling has changes somewhat in the two hundred years since these were published. Riddles appear to be much the same then as now, but rebuses seem to have a more pictorial emphasis today than in the Regency.

Regency Charades seem to be completely different from their modern counterpart unless--do you think these are meant for performance?

I found this Prize Enigma utterly mystifying and quite delightful. And, I was thrilled to find the answer in another issue of the journal, with the winner's name included!

The wonderful language above in the prize award is redolent of Jane Austen's world, and of Washington Irving's Old Christmas.

I have run on rather long, but I had to include this last item. I have not discovered the link between the Repository and Ipswich, but you will note that one of the winners of the Prize Enigma above was from that town. I wonder if the beauties of Ipswich were offended or thrilled about the puzzle below:

 And I wonder what their parents and chaperons thought of their inclusion in a widely sold publication!

I hope you enjoy pondering these puzzles. If you would like to leave a solution to any (or all) of the puzzles, I will draw from among the comments for a prize on New Year's Day. The prize will be one of Shakoriel's charming Victorian poetry prints to brighten your wall in the new year.

I will be taking a couple of weeks' holiday now, and I will return on Friday, January 4 with more Regency research and inquiry. Until then ~~

Happy Holidays!

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