A
Genre: Nonfiction
Jane Austen’s England: Daily Life in the Georgian and Regency Periods is a great resource for fans of Austen who want to know more about daily life in her time. This book is not concerned with the global or political situation in England during Austen’s lifetime except inasmuch as politics affected daily life. Instead, the book starts with how people married and proceeds through childhood, work and leisure, religion, crime, medicine, and death to paint a picture of English life.
Jane Austen’s England doesn’t have a lot of humor and isn’t as conversational in tone as some other history books I’ve enjoyed, such as Bill Bryson’s At Home and Therese Oneill’s Unmentionable. However, it is a very approachable read – well researched, but not steeped in jargon. I read non-fiction slowly, but I still got through it in just a few days. It’s so well organized that you can read it from beginning to end, or read little bits and pieces out of order if you like your history in small doses. If you are using it for research purposes, you’ll pleased to learn that it includes an extensive index and bibliography, maps, pictures, a timeline of events that took place during Austen’s lifetime, and information on money, weights, and measures.
This is not a biography of Jane Austen, but the authors often return to her letters, her novels, and moments in her life as they apply to the topic at hand. This helps anchor the book. Because the book quotes so often from people’s letters and journals, and refers to the specific lives of individuals, it feels personal and immediate. It describes the lives of the rich, the poor, and the in-between. It also describes life in the country as well as life in London.
I’m a bit under the weather at the moment, so I took a good look at the chapter on medicine. It suggests that probably I need some powdered rhubarb mixed with a little ginger, brandy, and water. Of the many historical remedies, I’ve heard of, this one makes some sense. Ginger is good for upset stomachs and rhubarb contains a lot of vitamins. Altogether it was probably like taking a vitamin pill and some Nyquil. I’m also told that to relieve my ear pain (I’m super congested), I should put a roasted onion on or in my ear. I am not planning to do this, but at least there’s some logic to it. I expect the steam and irritating fumes clear the sinuses like mad. It makes more sense than the belief that if your eye hurts you should rub it against the tail of a black cat. Don’t do that.
If you are looking for information on topics like the events of Court or the troop movements in war, then this is not your book, although you might like the authors’ other books: The War for All the Oceans, Trafalgar, and Jack Tar. If, on the other hand, you too are captivated by Regency earache treatments, exactly how long a working-class person could put off getting married even after living with someone and having several babies, how often people washed their bedding, and the challenges of managing menstruation in dresses made of the lightest material possible with no underwear, then you will enjoy this book very much!
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Sounds like a great book. But wouldn’t reading it make readers more aware of the anachronisms cluttering p current Regency romances? By the way, can anyone suggest a current author of Regencies who writes books reasonably faithful to the period? Heyer did, but i could use a wider pool.
@Msb. So true. I’ve always found Jo Beverley, Carla Kelly and Mary Balogh were authors who didn’t set off my inner wrong historical alarm. I can’t even begin to read a Grace Burrows for example without it going off.
Why do you think Regencies are so popular, in contrast to stories set in other periods, if authors, and presumably readers, don’t really care about historical accuracy? Any ideas?
This is very enticing, have added to my wish list. I read “What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew” back a while (a long while) but as I recall it focused more on the Victorians, which were of less interest for me.
@Hazel – I think there is a cultural familiarity with the Regency period, mostly thanks to Jane Austen, to be honest. 🙂 So many people have seen movies or TV shows set in the period and based on the books, even if they haven’t read the books. Plus, there is the whole “Madness of King George” thing, the scandalous Prince Regent, Napoleon & Wellington – just a few names with big memorable stories, which help to frame the whole period for a casual reader.
Thank you, chacha1. So we respond to the familiar? But there’s so much more out there! 🙂
Book sounds really good, by the way.
@ Joanna
Thanks for the suggestions! Will check these authors out.
@ Hazel
My theory is that the Regency was a historical period with attractive clothes (if you were wealthy) and that readers enjoy that and the chance to add in landed estates, members of the nobility (noticed the plethora of dukes?) and live-in servants. Sort of the adult equivalent of princess stories.
Well, the Regency also had super major political and military dramaz no matter what direction you turned, and it’s far enough back that you’re less likely to have this knee-jerk wait a minute Uncle So and So died in that war, or something similar. (I mean, I frequently say, ahHA, at this time my family was fighting the Revolution! or gearing up for 1812! but that is probably not usual.) Similarly, as the daughter of an activist who was frequently beaten, it can be hard for me to read fiction set in the ’60s and ’70s: I notice every misstep, and often end up yelling at the book. My ties to the Regency are nowhere near that close. (And I say this as someone with an MA that focused on Spanish Siglo de Oro and Colonial literatures and as someone who’s generally a historical purist, too. Hah.)
Definitely agree with Msb, though—a lot of adult princess story elements, most notably that three-quarters of the Isles were apparently populated by sizzling dukes and smashing lost nobility. As one of my profs said when I was in library school, romances are rather like fantasy, where one is always guaranteed happily ever after.
At some point, I read that the Regency period is so popular because, barring most 20th century decades, it is so much more relatable for Western (Anglo-Saxon) readers than other periods. Clothing was more comfortable and allowed more freedom of movement, especially for women. Manners were still formal, but not necessarily rigid. Same with morality–neither Victorian nor rampant licentiousness. Marriage for love was a more common idea. Some loosening of the social hierarchies/classes. Transportation was improving to levels that we can more easily envision–and that are good for storylines with people being mobile, if needed. We can see ourselves living there.
This is an oversimplification of the explanation I read and I’m probably not doing it justice, but it’s food for thought about why the period seems so familiar to us. And, being already familiar, easy to continue to mold to even more contemporary ideals and standards for storytelling.
BTW, one of my favorite authors from girlhood, Jane Aiken Hodge, wrote bios of both Austen and Heyer. It’s been years since I last read them and I scarcely recall the Austen one, but really enjoyed the Heyer.
Whew. Sorry for the overlong post. Carrie, the book sounds good and I’ll add it to my list. Hope you’re feeling better.
Just FYI: There’s also a (vastly cheaper) Kindle version of this book, that isn’t linked to the print version on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Eavesdropping-Jane-Austens-England-ancestors-ebook/dp/B00B8TBV96
It’s got a slightly different title, but it seems to be the same book.
@Susan you’re right about the notion of marriage for love. I wrote my master’s thesis on Frances Burney, one of the novelists of the time; her very successful books were, along with those of Austen and their contemporaries, among the first in which a genteel heroine was not horribly punished (by the writer) for believing in love (see: Richardson’s “Pamela,” etc.; or, preferably, don’t. Ugh). Burney’s heroines go through a lot of drama, but in the end they win out. 🙂 She herself married for love late in life after steadfastly (though genteelly!) resisting family and peer pressure to marry in her youth.
Thank you for those responses. So it was Regency novelists who popularised notions of romantic love and the happily ever after? I’m thinking about the contrast with medieval ideas of chivalry and unrequited love.
‘And I can see Susan’s point ‘We can see ourselves living there.’
And Msb, princess stories- well yes, because the streets of London were crawling with dukes. Every other tall and improbably dark and muscular man was Lord somebody or other! In the seventies, when there was lots of talk about reincarnation, we were all supposed to have been Egyptian royalty. 🙂
Was about to one click so hard, then joyfully noticed the library extension showed this as available at my local library! What would I do without this blog?
Georgette Heyer mentions the roasted onion in the ear in Arabella. Oh my goodness. Yuck.
I love G.H. for her accuracy as well as her beautifully drawn characters and plots, but I have worked hard to willingly suspend disbelief when I feel like indulging in less period correct novels. Not to mention sexy sexy time.