Searching London for a Millinery Shop - New Release and Contest

Beau Brummell, it is recorded, once apologized for being seen on the east side of Charing Cross (right, 1807) in London. In the Regency, it seems, the City of London and, as Brummell said, all things east of Mayfair were indeed considered unfashionable by the Beau Monde.
 

So when I needed a location for a milllinery shop that was not a la mode for my new release (just published today!) "The Harmless Deception" I looked east. I found that streets to the south of The Strand (left, 1824) were lined with small shops, and as long as one did not descend too close to the river, they were respectable and worthy of patronage by the families of the professional and burgeoning middle classes.

In the end I created Felling Street which closes resembles this street (right) near the Duke of Northumberland's property just east of Charing Cross.

In the creation of this street I was aided by several research sources. British History Online is an invaluable resource. From the home page you can access a directory page of remarkable resources on London from maps to journals to surveys of its environs. Visitors can enter the name of any street in the search box and find a complete history of that street!

Another remarkable resource is The London Encyclopedia, now sadly out of print. 'Everything anyone could possibly want to know about London is contained within the covers of this magnificent and fascinating book.' Likewise Chambers London Gazetteer provides a street by street analysis of the city.

There are myriad books on London. In my research library I have London's Georgian Houses, London in the Eighteenth Century, Mayfair, Panoramas of London, a reproduction of a delightful Victorian children's book London Town and my prized London-World City 1800-1840. I have modern histories and guides and whatever historic pamphlets I can find. It is of course a city worthy of a life-time of study.

I was delighted to revisit London for my book The Harmless Deception.
My heroine Grace Whitton knew the city and all its boroughs and environs well. But she was happy enough to leave it all behind when love intervened. For she lived on the fringes of the fashionable city, and life there could be hard indeed. The Regency was a time of great wealth and great squalor. The dichotomy is fascinating and it is what keeps me writing about the period.

The Harmless Deception is released today by Uncial Press. You can purchase it here and learn more about it at my website here. From those who comment on today's post by Sunday midnight CST, I will randomly choose one winner who will receive a PDF copy of The Harmless Deception.

I hope you've had the opportunity to visit London. I'd love to hear about your experiences, or your dreams of visiting there.

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

What a Heroine Likes

Yes, the heroine of any romance likes the hero, and a 'happy ever after' ending. But also she has to have likes and dislikes of everyday things in order to be a well-rounded person and a believable character.

When I began to consider the heroine, Grace Whitton, for my latest book "The Harmless Deception" (coincidentally to be released next Friday, May 14!) I discovered that she liked china--pretty porcelain, handsome dinner sets, all the products in fact of Wedgwood, Spode, Minton, Meissen and their fellow potters. And, fortunately for Grace, she grew up in an aristocratic household full of lovely specimens of the potter's craft.

But when my story opens, she has fallen on hard times and lives over her shop in London, east of Charing Cross. Her millinery store is home to pretty things, but her private life holds little from her past and her 'home' is rather spartan. She seeks to alleviate the austerity of her living quarters with inexpensive pieces of figurative pottery. I can visualize her purchasing a piece of china on the rare occasions when she feels she can spare a little money to brighten her world.

These pieces of stoneware and earthenware began to appear in the early 1700s and reached a certain maturity in the 1760s with the company of Ralph Wood Senior and Junior. The pottery types included salt-glazed stoneware, pearlware, agateware and chalkware. About this time, the figures began to be known as Staffordshire ware after the county which was home to the majority of English potteries.

Grace Whitton might have been familiar with the works of John Walton and Ralph Salt. Indeed, their work could be among the figures that sat on the shelf of pottery figures in her modest sitting room. Her shelf, I like to think, held a bust of Shakespeare or possibly Rousseau, a set of the Four Seasons, a dog or two, and no doubt a shepherd or shepherdess. There might also be a 'bocage' on her shelf; a grouping incorporating charmingly stylized trees and bushes.

Her collection catches the eye of the hero of "The Harmless Deception", Rufus Evens, Lord Evenswood. He is not the sort of man to be particularly aware of such things, but he does recognize a craving for colour and beauty when he sees it. As the story progresses, he finds himself in a position to purchase a gift for Grace and he chooses, very wisely, a porcelain group from the Meissen factory. The quality of the china and of the modelling are far beyond anything Grace has possessed since her girlhood, and she is overcome when he repeats his generosity later in the story. Evenswood's thoughtfulness, unexpected as it is, is a clear indication of his heroic stature.

I must confess to a liking for Staffordshire ware myself, and this is a picture of my own reproduction Staffordshire dogs, Gog and Magog. Perhaps Grace Whitton had a pair just like them!

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

References:

Staffordshire Pottery Figures by John Bedford, Walker and Company, New York 1964

A Collector's History of English Pottery by Griselda Lewis, Studio Vista London, 1969

Many thanks to Susanne Marie Knight for her visit last week and her wonderfully informative post on Gentlemen's Clubs in London. It was a pleasure having you here, Susanne!

Latest News from the Regency World of Lesley-Anne McLeod

My latest newsletter just went out a few days ago, and I thought you might like to read the highlights here!

A New Contest for the New Year
The winner of the November/December contest for the book "Panoramas of England" and the fan was Joy from the U. S. A. Congratulations, Joy! Thank you to everyone for signing the guestbook. The prize in the first contest of 2010 for January and February is a well-known book first published 100 years ago in 1910 "Vanishing England".

The authors' introduction begins "We wish to describe with pen and pencil those features of England which are gradually disappearing, and to preserve the memory of them." Thank goodness they did. The book has been reprinted many times in the ensuring hundred years and this is a 1994 edition, gently used. Visit my contest page to see a larger picture of the book. I hope you will sign the guestbook again by February 28, 2009 to be entered for the new draw. Click here to go to my main website. Guestbook link is near the bottom of the home page.

COMING IN May 2010 - "The Harmless Deception" A new full length Regency romance!

Available! -"Lost in Almack's"
My newest 'Novel Byte' short Regency fiction piece "Lost in Almack's" and my four other 'Novel Bytes' are still available from Uncial Press. When Lady Genevra Haven becomes lost in the back corridors and staircases of Almack's she needs courage and ingenuity, as well as charm and confidence, to avoid social ruin and salvage her successful debut. Romance Reviews Today says "a delightfully fun and lively foray". Click here to purchase "Lost in Almack's"

Regency World News
There is a new story, especially appropriate for this new year, on my story page. Please go to The Hogmanay List

There is new information added to my Regency World at the Portrait Gallery page, the literature page Great Writers of the Regency Period and the art page Art and Artists.There is also a new picture on the Colouring Book page--of an English lady dressed, or perhaps in the process of dressing, for a morning at home.

If you would like to become my friend at Facebook, I would be delighted to meet you! And follow me at Twitter for all-Regency tweets and my latest news!

Treats for Regency fans from Regency Fancies -- at CafePress.com

Treat yourself to Regency themed T-shirts, tote bags, stationery and decorative items from Regency Fancies the store at CafePress.com that artist Shakoriel and I have established. You can buy the Fashions of Regency England Colouring Book and a variety of other products there all embellished with Shakoriel's Regency art. Visit us at Regency Fancies

That's all for this time. Watch for guest bloggers coming soon--my new venture for the blog this year. I hope to have a visitor for you on the last Friday of each month, but I'm still in the process of setting this up so watch for further details.

Lesley-Anne

Charing Cross - Heart of the City

I became interested in Charing Cross, in the heart of London, when I started to write my latest book "The Harmless Deception" (to be published by Uncial Press in May 2010). My heroine owns a millinery shop, and I wanted it to be a shop in an area not generally visited by the ultra-fashionable ton. So I invented a fictional street and placed it east of Charing Cross somewhere off the Strand.

I used good authority for the location--George 'Beau' Brummell reportedly never liked to be seen east of Charing Cross. At a chance encounter at Charing Cross with playwright Sheridan he apparently said, "Sherry, my dear boy, don't mention that you saw me in this filthy part of town, though perhaps, I am rather severe, for his Grace of Northumberland resides somewhere about this spot. if I don't mistake. The fact is, my dear boy, I have been in the d--d City, to the Bank. I wish they would remove it to the West End, for re-all-y it is quite a bore to go to such a place; more particularly as one cannot be seen in one's own equipage beyond Somerset House,..."

Mr. Brummell was being rather severe, as he said, for there was much of interest and importance of course east of Charing Cross. But there was no doubt that during the Regency, the West End and Mayfair was the fashionable area of town.

Charing was originally a nondescript hamlet, but an Eleanor Cross erected there in 1291-94. The cross was one of twelve memorial crosses constructed by Edward I in memory of his Queen. The word Charing may come from the French 'chere reine' but there are many possibilities for the word's origin. The cross was replaced in the 1600s by a statue of Charles I. The statue was joined in the 1600s by a major pillory, and the open space around it was often used for public entertainment.

Charing Cross is truly the heart of the city at the junction of the Strand, Whitehall, and Cockspur Street. Although its reputation was less than sterling during the Regency shortly thereafter it began to be used as a central point to define the geographical scope of the City of London. In 1829 it was used to set up police districts; parishes within twelve miles were part of the Metropolitan Police Act. In 1831 the London Hackney Carriage Act used Charing Cross to 'set the radius within which cab drivers were obliged to take a fare'. But in 1832 Charing Cross changed as there was mass demolition to accommodate the construction of Trafalgar Square.

Charing Cross has become quite a favourite place of mine since doing this research--my heroine knew it well. Do you have a favourite place in London, or its environs?

'Til next time,

Lesley-Anne

Shopping in the Regency Period

I do wish there was a book about shopping--the retail trade--during the Regency, and in particular, shopping in London in the early 1800s. It would make research so much easier. As far as I can find, there is no definitive work. If you have come across one, please let me know. I'm researching for my 2010 release, The Harmless Deception. The heroine is a lady milliner and I want to have a feel for retailing in the Regency. Some things I have discovered:

'The Picture of London', a guidebook published in 1803, has the following widely cited quote. I think it's worth repeating:
"…two sets of streets running nearly parallel, almost from the Eastern extremity of the town to the Western, forming (with the exception of a very few houses) a line of shops. One. lying to the South, nearer the river, extends from Mile End to Parliament Street, including Whitechapel, Leadenhall Street, Cornhill, Cheapside, St. Paul's Churchyard, Ludgate Street, Fleet Street, the Strand and Charing Cross. The other, to the North, reaches from Shoreditch Church almost to the end of Oxford Street, including Shoreditch, Bishopsgate Street, Threadneedle Street, Cheapside, Newgate Street, Snow-hill, Holborn, Broad Street, St. Giles and Oxford Street. The Southern line, which is the most splendid, is more than three miles in length, and the other about four miles,…"

A great deal of shopping, indeed, and we know so little about it all. The impression I have gained is that the retail trade up until about 1815 was dominated by the independent merchant. They set up shop in the best premises available to their pocketbook and sold their goods. A fascinating exhibit from 2001 at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, still has its catalogue online. This is the 'John Johnson Collection Exhibition 2001 A Nation of Shopkeepers - Trade Ephemera from 1654 to the 1860'. There are literally hundreds of trade cards on-line for viewing. They tell us more about retailing during those 200 years than anything else I have found.

The best author I have found specializing in shopping history is Alison Adburgham. Her book 'Shopping in Style' is very useful, though it emphasizes the more accessible Victorian period. She also has 'Shops and Shopping, 1800-1914', which has a valuable chapter titled 'Shopping During the Napoleonic Wars'.

Regency novels lean heavily on the first department store in London, Harding, Howell & Co, for their characters' shopping needs. I did so myself in The Rake's Reflection, only I called it by the name of its location--Schomberg House in Pall Mall. The bazaars also figure large in Regency fiction--the Western Exchange, Soho Bazaar and the Pantheon Bazaar--but it is difficult to pin down their operating dates, so it can be wiser to create a fictional bazaar rather than risk an error. I have seen the Burlington Arcade has been wrongly used; it was late in opening, 1819. In fact, Adburgham gives the date of the Pantheon's re-creation as a bazaar as 1834. I used a nameless, unfashionable, bazaar for a scene in The Beggarmaid, and enjoyed creating it.

Individual well-known shops are fascinating to research and invaluable settings for writers. I'm thinking of the plumassier Botobol, Ackermann's for art, the perfumery of Floris, Hatchard's for books, and Bedford House and Grafton House which Jane Austen patronized. In fact, Jane's letters are a treasure trove of shopping details.

So the study continues. But as shopping and research are both among my favourite things to do, I don't mind a bit!

Til next time,

Lesley-Anne