What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist : the Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-century EnglandFor every frustrated reader of the great nineteenth-century English novels of Austen, Trollope, Dickens, or the Brontës, who has ever wondered whether a duke outranked an earl, when to yell "Tally-ho!" at a fox hunt, or how one landed in debtor's prison, here is a "delightful reader's companion that lights up the literary dark" (The New York Times). This guide clarifies the sometimes bizarre maze of rules, regulations, and customs that governed everyday life in Victorian England. Author Daniel Pool provides countless intriguing details (did you know that "plums" in Christmas plum pudding were actually raisins?) on the Church of England, sex, Parliament, dinner parties, country house visiting, and a host of other aspects of nineteenth-century English life--both "upstairs" and "downstairs". A glossary reveals the meaning and significance of terms ranging from "ague" to "wainscoting," the specifics of the currency system, and countless other curiosities of the day. |
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army balls Barchester Towers baronets barristers Bath became bishop Bleak House borough called Cambridge candles cards carriage century Chancellor Chancery Church of England clothes coach common Court Crawley dance David Copperfield Dickens dinner drawing room dress duke earl eldest English Eustace Diamonds farm farmers fox hunting gentleman gentry girls guests hand hired horses household housemaid Jane Austen Jane Austen's Jane Eyre keep kind ladies land living London Lord Madding Crowd maid Mansfield Park married meant mid-century Middlemarch night nineteenth-century novels Oliver Twist Oxford parish Parliament party peer peerage perhaps person Phineas Finn Pickwick poor popular pounds Pride and Prejudice prime minister pudding rank Royal rural says servants sheep shillings social someone sometimes street term Tess Thames things Trollope usually Vanity Fair Victorian wife women wore workhouse Wuthering Heights young