THE VIRTUAL VICTORIAN

CHARLES DICKENS: A LIFE - BOOK TRAILER...

2012-01-25T12:21:00.000Z

Charles Dickens

Following on from Karen Devlin's book review on Charles Dickens: A life, this short film gives a enticing glimpse into the world of the man who Claire Tomalin so vividly describes...

CHARLES DICKENS: A LIFE - BY CLAIRE TOMALIN. Book Review by Karen Devlin...

2012-01-19T00:59:00.001Z

If the fictional characters created by Charles Dickens are so vividly drawn that they seem almost real, then it is also true that their originator often appears to stand on the shadowy borderline between reality and fiction. Dickens could so easily have been a character in his own works; it is easy to imagine him sharing tales with Mr Pickwick, casting a protective eye over young Oliver Twist, or sitting in the court room in the interminable case of ‘Jarndyce vs Jarndyce’ in Bleak House. Indeed, ‘Charles Dickens’ is as much a part of literary mythology and fable as his imaginary inventions. The mythology of Dickens is due in no small part to his genius in presenting his readers with scenes and people so authentic and memorable that they embed themselves in the consciousness. Of course, Dickens worked from real life; he was the ‘eye’, the ‘camera’, turning his lens upon nineteenth century England and peopling it with heroes, heroines and strange, mysterious, even monstrous figures, which might have been larger than life, but which never strayed into the unbelievable. As an author, he invested so much of himself in his novels that he cannot be separated from the fictional worlds and people that sprang from his imagination.

The task of a Dickens biographer is, therefore, something of a double-edged sword. Yes, there is a wealth of material to be had: suffering, tragedy, drama, secrets and scandal, but there is a fine and delicate balance to be reached between acknowledging the genius of Dickens the author and accepting that he could be a calculating and cruel man in his personal life. This has to be achieved without diminishing his astonishing literary achievements, his kindness and his campaigns to improve the living conditions and life chances of the poor. It is to Claire Tomalin’s credit that she moves beyond the myth and finds Dickens the man, faults and all. She roundly condemns his misbehaviour and peculiar coldness towards those to whom he had once been close and who he perfunctorily dismissed from his life. She is particularly harsh on his treatment of his wife, Catherine, banished from the family home after twenty two years of marriage, and denied the company of her children, whilst Dickens untruthfully insisted that she was a bad mother who had no love for her sons and daughters. To her credit, Catherine remained quiet and dignified. Dickens’s passion for the eighteen year old Ellen (‘Nelly’) Tiernan, turned him into a monster, and destroyed his family life. Tomalin can barely bring herself to describe his behaviour: ‘The spectacle of a man famous for his goodness and his attachment to domestic virtues suddenly losing his moral compass is dismaying’, she writes (Tomalin 2011: 293).

Dickens never lost the obsessive drive and ambition which was the founding stone of success and fame. In his later years his personal life was in tatters; he was disappointed in most of his children, who seemed to lack his incredible energy and desire to succeed, and he suffered from ill health which prematurely aged him (due in no little part to the huge amounts of alcohol that he consumed daily). Yet, as Tomalin demonstrates, he was a powerhouse with a work ethic and a daily schedule that would have driven others to a breakdown. He produced novels to very tight deadlines for their serialisation in various journals; he set up and edited his own magazines (Household Words among them); with the help of the extraordinarily rich Miss Coutts he set up a home for young prostitutes in Shepherd’s Bush, and took an active role in its operation (when Dickens ceased to play a role in the running of the home, it very soon closed down); he wrote articles, short stories and travelled extensively, all the while supporting his growing family and dealing with his father who was constantly in debt and an embarrassment to Dickens. Add to this his participation in acting and the generosity of spirit which saw him raising funds for widows and children, and it builds a picture of a man who never wasted a single second of his life but also one who drove himself into the grave aged only fifty eight.

‘He left a trail like a meteor, and everyone finds their own Charles Dickens’ writes Tomalin (416). This biography is an emotional journey as we sympathise, admire, dislike and feel dismayed at this incredible paradox of a man who appeared like a comet in the sky, until, one day, his genius burned up and he lay still at Gad’s Hill, a solitary tear running down his cheek as he took his final breath. Tomalin has produced a beautifully written and intricately researched biography of a man she describes quite simply as ‘a national treasure, an institution’ (414). Read it, because it gives us the true breadth and depth of the genius who was also very much a man with weaknesses, faults and failures. His daughter Katy, the child to whom he was the closest, must be given the final words on the turbulent soul that was her father: ‘I loved my father better than any other man in the world … I loved him for his faults’ (Tomalin 415*).

(*Originally published in Dickens and Daughter (London 1939) by Gladys Storey, a friend of Katey Dickens).

Karen Devlin is the author of nineteenthcenturystuff - a fascinating, academic site that publishes essays, comment and reviews about the literature, art and culture of the 1800's.

THE SOMNAMBULIST: A TV BOOK CLUB BEST READ FOR 2012...

2012-01-05T17:13:00.003Z

The VV is thrilled to announce that her Victorian gothic novel, The Somnambulist, will be featured in the new season of Channel 4's TV Book Club. An author interview will be aired on the evening of February 12th 2012, and this year the Book Club is expanding its scope so that any who might already have read the novel will be able to submit reviews (by webcam, audio, or simply in text) to be aired during the programme. For more information on how to review please see this link but the deadline is January 29th.

To tie in with the television series, the publication date of the paperback edition of the novel has been brought forward from April. It also has a different cover to that originally planned - now being another version of the hardback design, but in a lovely lush, fractured red.

To read what others think of the novel, please see the reviews page of The Somnambulist News.

The VV has one paperback copy of The Somnambulist to give away - though in this case the offer will be restricted to those who reside in the UK. Simply leave a comment below and on Wednesday January 18th the winner will be chosen and the book sent off by first class post.

IMAGES OF MISS HAVISHAM ON SCREEN...

2012-01-04T12:07:00.004Z

Gillian Anderson's characterisation of Miss Havisham in the latest television production of Great Expectations has caused some degree of controversy, with many viewers feeling that this beautiful image of a jilted bride is simply too youthful to be an appropriate representation of the woman in the book.

Miss Havisham by Harry Furniss and Break His Heart by H M Brock - two contemporary illustrations from Charles Dickens' 'Great Expectations'

However, Dickens never gave an actual age to this wonderful creation whose deliberately sadistic plans for revenge are caused by her own acute pain and loss, having been cruelly jilted on her wedding day.

The VV wonders if our own expectations as to how Miss Havisham should appear are influenced by David Lean's masterpiece when the part was played by Martita Hunt - even though Martita was more or less the same age as Gillian Anderson when she gave her majestic performance in 1946.

Miss Havisham and Pip in David Lean's 1946 film - played by Martita Hunt and John Mills

There have been many others who have played this part over the years - of whom a distinctly stern Florence Reed in 1934 was replaced by the glamorous but menacing Charlotte Rampling in 1999. The VV finds it particularly poignant that the beautiful Jean Simmons who played the young Estella in David Lean's 1946 film went on to perform the part of her 'mother' in a later televised version.

Jean Simmons in 1946 - still, so the VV thinks, the most convincing version of Estella

Jean Simmons playing Miss Havisham in 1989

Now, in 2012, we are soon to be presented with yet another version of the iconic Miss Havisham - this time in the gothic embodiment of Helena Bonham Carter. (Is it just the VV or is there a delicious touch of Bette Davis in 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?' in these publicity stills?)

Well, what do you think?

Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havisham

And finally, as this post concerns modern-day interpretations of a Victorian creation, here is a contemporary poem by Simon Barraclough. Havisham Heart is one of eleven 'Heart' poems and is and taken from his latest collection, entitled: Neptune Blue -

Havisham Heart

Trouble the dark

and turn me about,

bones under foot.

Orbit the wreck,

the cobwebby sag

of nibbled years

where the mice burrow in

and the spiders rush out,

like the blood used to flow.

Bat dust from the plates,

draw the chair to your place,

take the knife and set to.

For a related post: GREAT EXPECTATIONS ON BBC 1

GREAT EXPECTATIONS ON BBC 1...

2011-12-29T11:18:00.001Z

For its classical Christmas production this year, the BBC has recreated yet another version of the Dickens masterpiece Great Expectations - and what a production it is, from the opening credits which show a white butterfly imbued with glorious black designs, the colour of which eventually bleeds until nothing is left but black decay, to the bleakly grey opening scenes where the orphaned boy, Pip, is clearing the weeds from his family's grave. Beneath a low and leaden sky which bodes of the ominous scenes to come, the escaped convict Magwitch (perfectly played by Ray Winstone who conveys a fascinating mixture of menace and nobility) rises up from the boggy waters to terrorise the shivering bundle of a boy like a burly demon from hell.

There are some wonderful actors in this production's glittering cast of which, most surely for the VV, Gillian Anderson's Miss Havisham is the star.

Although some have been uncomfortable with the apparent youth of this particular Miss Havisham, the VV thinks it a masterstroke to realise Dicken's anti-heroine as someone so tragic and vulnerable - a woman whose physical and mental life was cruelly arrested when wickedly spurned on her wedding day and whose soul and is now atrophying in the crumbling gothic grandeur of the wonderfully realised Satis House.

Miss Havisham tells the young Pip that she is the ghost of a bride. Her first appearance is suitably eerie and ethereal, robed as she is in a gleaming white, with white ringlets framing her pallid face and her voice one of childlike innocence. But the cracks and flaking lips, the bluish tinge around her eyes, the festering skin disease that eats away at the flesh of her hands is but the first of the outward signs of the malice seeping from her heart. Surrounded by dusty stuffed animals and maps of a world into which she will never venture again, this anguished beauty plots her revenge while 'nurturing' a friendship between Pip and her adopted daughter, Estella.

The VV looks forward to the final episode of this tense noir drama tonight, but for those who may not yet have seen it, the first two episodes are now available on BBC iplayer.

And here is the scene in which Miss Havisham interrogates Pip on his first visit to Satis House...

For a related post: IMAGES OF MISS HAVISHAM ON SCREEN

HAPPY CHRISTMAS FROM THE VV...

2011-12-21T14:49:00.000Z

THOMAS COOK AND THE RAILWAYS...

2011-12-18T19:09:00.004Z

Thomas Cook (1808-1892)

With Christmas almost here again this is the time of year when – before the tree and decorations have even been removed – we start to look forward to the summer months, no doubt encouraged by the plethora of package holiday advertisements with seductive scenes of sun and sand which appear on our television screens between one festive movie and the next.

Such trips seem ‘of our time’ but their origins go back centuries – often being organised for mass religious pilgrimages. And, in the Victorian era, when Thomas Cook founded a company to provide arrangements for travel that were ‘simple, easy and a pleasure’ and in which he was ‘the willing and devoted servant of the travelling public’ – he was also inspired by religion.

An illustration of Thomas Cook's First Trip, organised in 1841

The grandson of a Baptist minister, Cook was born in 1808 in the Derbyshire market town of Melbourne. There he was trained as a wood-turner and cabinet-maker but on reaching the age of twenty he preferred to follow his heart - and soul - becoming a wandering preacher. He clearly had a yearning for adventure and discovery and his first publicly organised excursion in 1841 was a 12 mile railway journey which originated in Leicester and ended up in Loughborough to celebrate a temperance gala.

Such an outing was only made possible by the dawn of the railway era which had revolutionised the means and speed of travel. In the case of Cook’s first venture some 500 passengers paid a shilling each for their bookings, and that trip was such a success that Thomas Cook was soon being asked to organise more.

A Tour Party in 1868

By 1855, the business was turning a profit with regular railway excursions to cities such as Liverpool or Nottingham, and with European ‘packages’ where tourists embarked on a ‘grand circular tour’ which included visits to Brussels, Cologne, the Rhine, Heidelberg, Strasbourg and Paris where hotels and meals, even the exchange of foreign currency (by 1874 he had even devised an early form of travellers’ cheques) would all be organised by Cook.

There was such an interest in travelling that by 1865 a shop was set up in London’s Fleet Street, followed in1873 by an imposing head office that stood in Ludgate Circus, and all of this success was left in the capable hands of Thomas’ son John Mason Cook when, at the age of 63, Thomas indulged more personally in his enduring passion and set off on a trip of his own - a grand tour during which he travelled for 222 days and covered more than 25,000 miles when visiting Egypt and China via the Suez Canal, such a journey only being possible after its opening in 1863.

A Thomas Cook brochure cover from 1891

Sadly, there has been some recent news that the business, still in existence today, has been suffering from severe financial losses. But for almost 200 years Thomas Cook has been a thriving company that people felt they could trust in - as demonstrated by this short heritage advertisement –

For related railway posts please see -

A VICTORIAN RAILWAY OPENING
MR BRIGGS' HAT
STATION JIM AND LONDON JACK

A VICTORIAN RAILWAY OPENING...

2011-11-30T19:26:00.004Z

A Great Western Railway steam locomotive

From the criminal drama and international enquiry that ensued from the very first railway murder, as related in Kate Colquhoun's Mr Brigg’s Hat, the VV now ponders on somewhat more parochial matters such as the local excitement felt in many small country communities when the railway lines were opened up, a modern means of transport that transformed both lives and livelihoods - despite fears from those more Luddite souls who feared that travelling at such speed might result in a fatal brain injury: a nose bleed at the very least.

William, Lord Bateman - as illustrated in Vanity Fair in 1879

But, disregarding the doom mongers, one such local line was built when William, Lord Bateman, the Lord Lieutenant of Herefordshire founded a company which engaged Thomas Brassey and William Field to construct the tracks which would join the Welsh Marches market towns of Leominster and Kington at a cost of £70,000, and to work the said line from its opening until the June of 1862 during which time it would pay the investors an annual dividend of 4%, after which the line was leased to the Great Western Railway, becoming fully amalgamated in 1898.

To commemorate the commencement of construction work Lady Bateman wielded a silver spade to dig the first earth along the track that would be 13 miles and 25 chains long and which finally cost £80,000. There were stations at the villages of Titley, Marston Road, Pembridge and Kingsland which served the local farmers who could more easily transport their livestock, though timetables could be somewhat informal with trains sometimes stopping mid-way on the tracks to deliver local groceries or collect eggs to take to the markets.

A blurry image of Kingsland Station

The opening day on Tuesday July 28^th 1857 was met with a great deal of excitement, having been well advertised in the press and with banners and bunting draped up at new stations and many folk dressed in their Sunday best; expectant small throngs whose eyes were dazzled by bright rays of sunlight that bounced off the newly laid metal tracks upon which they would soon be riding – picked up along the way to end their journey in Kington where Lord Bateman (who had his own private stop constructed at his home of Shobdon Court) was hosting a celebration meal - although the festivities were somewhat delayed when news came that the new engine (named Lord Bateman) had broken down and but a short way outside Leominster. In the end it was over an hour late, reaching its destination at 2pm rather than 12.45pm but despite any tempers being frayed, and many best dresses damp and bedraggled when the clouds began to pour with rain, the VV imagines all was well when the guests were warmly greeted at Kington's Oxford Arms hotel by the Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Hastings CB who over presided over the three hundred guests who sat in the banqueting room beneath hanging banners which read ‘Times Past’ and which showed a coach and horses, and others emblazoned with ‘Times Present’ which depicted a gleaming passenger train. And as to the splendour of the feast laid up on the tables that day – well, take a look at this menu and gasp -

1 boar’s head, 6 spiced beef, 4 roast beef, 6 galantines of veal, 10 forequarters of lamb, 20 couples of roast fowl, 6 couples béchamel fowl, 8 hams, 10 tongues, 8 raised pies, 12 turkey poulets, 28 lobsters, 12 lobster salads, 4 Savoy cakes, 8 Danzig cakes, 8 rock cakes, 8 plain cakes, 8 charlotte russe, 8 Polish gateaux, 8 Viennese cakes, 8 raspberry creams, 8 pineapple creams, 12 dishes of tartlets, 12 dishes of cheesecakes, 12 fancy pastries, pines, grapes and fruit etc.

Clearly, Lord Bateman was a man of great generosity or else a prodigious appetite because when that 2pm lunch was done, he jumped on the train then returning to Leominster and attended another reception and dinner, this time held at the Royal Oak Hotel, the crowds sitting down to eat at 5pm.

For many years the line was a great success, even playing an important part during events of World War II when it became very busy indeed due to a hospital camp being set up at nearby Hergest. Men were first brought from the Battle of Dunkirk and by 1944 trains were ferrying up to 300 injured men at a time with the wards eventually admitting a total of 2,413 patients.

Even so, times past and present move on and although the line continued to carry freight and goods until 1964 it was closed to the public in 1955, being no longer able to compete financially with the more successful bus companies. The last train left Leominster at 8.25pm on February 15^th and arrived at Kington station where a black flag had been hung to greet it, before the final return was made.

Thus, Lord Bateman's contribution to the county of Herefordshire was to end - condemned as his once splendid home had been when it was demolished in 1933 - for reasons of being 'surplus to requirements.'

Shobdon Court, where Lord Bateman's private railway station once existed before it was demolished.

MR BRIGG'S HAT: A REVIEW BY D. E. MEREDITH...

2011-11-28T10:59:00.002Z

Thomas Briggs was a thoroughly decent chap. A middle- aged banker, hard working, modest, and restrained, he was visiting a sick niece, as decent chaps were wont to do back in the days when bankers were good, on the evening of 9 July 1864. Little did he know, as he made his way home on the 9.45 Hackney-bound train in Carriage 69 on a warm summer evening, that his commuting days were over for good. Moments later, two bank clerks entered the same carriage to find it splattered with blood. But there was no sign of Mr Briggs except for a carmine smear on the window, an ivory-knobbed walking stick (“a life preserver”), an empty leather bag and a hat.

Thus begins Kate Colquhoun’s true crime Nineteenth Century thriller – Mr Briggs Hat - a fast moving, compulsive read. Ms Colquhoun’s research is impeccable, her knowledge of the mid Victorian period deftly handled. There’s not too much detail to weigh down the plot (and it is a plot, because this True Crime reads exactly like a novel), but not too little either. This is not the languid world of Mr Whicher, but the Victorian Age as I imagine it to be - fast moving, beset with rapid change, “a human awful wonder of God.”

London is beautifully wrought with its watercress fields along the railway lines set against the thick, fuggy air of the city, the push and shove of a new Industrialised Age, and the insatiable appetite of the burgeoning press. This was an age when literacy rates were soaring, and the public were reading newspapers voraciously, from the Penny Dreadfuls to the quality press, so that a cry of Bloody Murder and the killing of a respectable middle class banker quickly became a ‘hold the front page’ Sensation.

Before I bought and read Mr Briggs (ironically against the furore of the Leveson enquiry), I had the good fortune to be alerted to one of Mr Colquhoun’s talks via twitter, which was hosted by the National Archives at Kew. A passionate historian, her delivery on the work involved in writing Mr Briggs was assured and enthusiastic. The same can be said of her book.

Unlike many of her readers, I suspect, I knew this case already and thus the outcome. But despite this knowledge, the author kept me on the edge of my seat. A strange sensation then, that as the story moved forward with the pace of a steam train, I started to think to myself, hang on a moment, do I really know what happens? The whole “Did he or didn’t he approach,” to the unravelling of this story was so masterfully wrought, so poignant and heartfelt in places, that I started to doubt myself. Had I got it wrong? Where exactly was this story going? The evidence seemed so shaky, turning on the identity of not one hat, but two hats, the accused so unassuming and sympathetic. Was this trial heading for an almighty miscarriage of justice? Were the witnesses to the crime reliable or just damned liars?

And what about the accused? What about Muller, the German tailor who flees the country to America? His flight in turn adds a classic ‘chase’ dynamic to the story, as one of Britain’s first ever detectives, Inspector Tanner of Scotland Yard, pursues his quarry across the Atlantic Ocean – this in the days of sail boats so that all of England had to hold its breath before an arrest could be made.

Among all the excitement of the chase, I revelled in the quieter moments when we see Muller (after he’s incarcerated in Newgate) reading The Pickwick Papers and David Copperfield in his lonely cell. Ms Colquon has learnt from the Victorian sensibility she has studied so carefully and does pathos and melodrama extremely well. The book is infused with it.

From the author’s sympathetic descriptions of the accused, we learn Muller was a German migrant, far away from home, who worked hard, attended church regularly, and lived on meagre earnings. He doesn’t live up to the public’s expectations who are expecting a burly monster.

In gaol, his sister tries to reach him but is turned away. He is alone. He seems too small, too weak, too pathetic to be the notorious killer who could hurl a middle class gentleman from a first class carriage to his death.

I was particularly impressed not only by the sensitive rendering of Muller’s character but also by the evocation of the trial and the author’s handling of the execution towards the end of the book. I really felt I was walking in the footsteps of a dead man. Brilliant stuff!

As for dealing with the macro issues about The Victorians and the moral issues of the day, the author doesn’t disappoint. I pride myself on knowing quite a bit about the Nineteenth Century (I’ve read Darwin, John Ruskin, Harriet Martineau, heaps of Tennyson, Malthus etc) but as I read Mr Briggs Hat, I had to grab a pen quickly to highlight all sorts of quirky and useful information, relating to gaol conditions, New York during the American Civil War, wages and public transport, attitudes towards the police and of course, the raging debate on capital punishment.

This is a beautifully crafted and deeply unsettling book and made me very glad I live in an age when the death penalty is no more.

D E Meredith is the writer of the Hatton and Roumande Victorian murder mysteries. For more information, please visit her website: http://www.demeredith.com/

A BRIEF HISTORY OF DOLLS HOUSES...

2011-11-18T18:20:00.004Z

Of late the VV has been thinking about the history of dolls houses – partly because there is the brief mention of one in the novel she is currently writing, and partly because of a children’s book she has recently read.

In The Devil Walks by the much acclaimed author Anne Fine, the gothic Victorian plot centres around a dolls house which is the exact copy of a family home, and the miniature people within that house soon prove to be more than inanimate toys – but hold the clues to a dark event that happened in the family’s past.

But where does the fashion for playing with and, more often, collecting exquisite miniature houses stem from? Well, it seems to have begun as far back as the mid sixteenth century when Albert V, Duke of Bavaria, commissioned the crafting of a copy of his own home to be displayed as a show of his wealth and social standing.

In later centuries more and more scaled down copies of real homes were exhibited as display cases to be filled with objects of aspiration, with many of the finest examples costing as much to create as a modestly priced full-sized residence.

Only in the Victorian era were the little houses used as playthings – albeit limited to those children whose families were wealthy enough to afford to pay the craftsmen who possessed the necessary skills.

However, as the industrial revolution went on, the down-scaled parts could be produced in mass by machine, becoming much more affordable; soon a mainstay of any respectable nursery. Well-known German manufacturers – whose houses and furniture were the most prized – were Hacker, Moritz Gottschalk, Elastolin and Moritz Reichel. In America there was the Bliss Manufacturing Company. In England there was Silber and Fleming, Evans and Cartwright and Lines Brothers – who later became known as Tri-ang.

Should you wish to view some fine historical examples today, the VV recommends a visit to the V&A’s Museum of Childhood in London’s Bethnal Green where the following examples are on display -

The Tate House

The Tate House was created around 1760. Modelled on an eighteenth century Dorset house, it can be separated into different sections - originally so that the mistress of the house could more easily take the baby house with her on her travels. The furniture is not contemporary – thought to be have been updated in 1830. Even the windows have been ‘modernised’ to appear as Victorian sashes when before they would have had twelve panes.

The Killer Cabinet House

The Killer Cabinet House was commissioned by the Manchester doctor John Egerton Killer (the VV is trying not to smile at that unfortunate professional name) around 1835. The cabinet was made to indulge his wife and daughters in their hobby of making miniature domestic objects. It has four rooms – a drawing room, a morning room, a bedroom and a kitchen.

Amy Miles House

The Amy Miles House – circa 1890 – was especially made for the little girl of that name. It includes a billiard room and school room and, before it was damaged in the second world war, there had also been an artist’s studio situated above a bathroom. You can view videos of the second and third floors of the Amy Miles House here.

If you have any interest in antique toys and the history of 'childhood' more generally, the Bethnal Green Museum is well worth a visit.

Addendum: In kind response to this post I received a copy of Voices from the Doll's House by Adele Geras, a beautiful and poignant collection of poems from which I would like to add the following few lines -

My baby lies in the nursery

next to the attic reserved for mad aunties.

She has a hollow head

but I say nothing.

Hollow isn’t empty

and at night the space behind her eyes

thickens with little fluttering fears

that beat like moths: grey wings

against her eyelids.

For a related post on dolls houses please see: A BOOK FOR THE CHILD IN US ALL

A BOOK FOR THE CHILD IN US ALL...

2011-11-16T19:14:00.000Z

For those of us not lucky enough to have owned an actual doll's house, this book really is the next best thing. The VV has had great fun looking through this beautifully produced cut out book from the children's publishers Tango. It is very cleverly engineered. There are even little people to place within the rooms with furniture and play accessories that unfold for their individual use.

What a lovely Christmas present this would make.

THE SOMNAMBULIST: A BOOK TRAILER...

2011-11-12T11:48:00.002Z

A mini book trailer for the VV's novel, The Somnambulist...

'ANNO DRACULA' BY KIM NEWMAN...

2011-11-10T12:47:00.002Z

The VV was recently standing on an underground platform at Paddington station when she noticed this stunning poster - in fact, it is the cover of a book originally published in 1992 and now re-issued all over again - and what a splendid re-issue it is - and how had the VV not known of this vampire tale before?

Clearly, she had to make amends, buying the book immediately and entering an alternate Victorian world where the widowed Queen Victoria has married Vlad Tepes, Dracula, The Impaler, and society's ruling classes, from the new Prince Consort and Prime Minister down are made up of the usurping or new-born 'undead'.

At the start of the novel there is a semblance of continuing order in the society parlours of Victorian London but is is soon clear that much is amiss. Riots are breaking out between those who choose to remain as 'warm' and the increasingly dominant vampires, with insurgents being locked away in isolated concentration camps, with spies from secret societies working alongside nobler vampire souls to try and overturn the rot taking place at the very centre of power - in short, on Victoria's throne.

Kim Newman is a well known film critic and he clearly has a visual 'eye'. When reading Anno Dracula each scene is so vividly described that the reader almost feels as if he or she is watching on screen. There are many nuances from other works - whether literature or film - to enhance this adventure, come mystery, come downright 'bloody' horror. Oh yes, lots of horror and lots of sex (Mr Newman is not one for holding back) - with madams pandering children's blood, with prostitutes who have been 'turned' developing yet more virulent strains of diseases that may have been dormant before, and with love scenes that have more recently been echoed in the televised series of the raunchy and wry modern-day vampire tale: True Blood - such as in this example:

Icy needles shocked him and, for a moment, he was in her body in her mind. The extent of her was asstonishing. Her memory receded into the dim distance like the course of a star in a far galaxy. He felt himself moving inside her, tasking his own blood on her tongue. Then he was himself again, shuddering.

'Stop me, Charles,' she said, red drops between her teeth. 'Stop me if it hurts.'

He shook his head.

For those aficianados who know the vampire genre better than the VV could ever claim, there are many prominent characters drawn from all the classics, from works by Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, and R L Stevenson to name but a few who stride across Mr Newman's stage, beside actual historical characters - most notably Jack the Ripper, with allusions to Alan Moore's From Hell, and artists like Whistler and G F Watts, or poets such as Lord Tennyson - even John Merrick, the Elephant Man, who exhibits remarkable heroism in the book's explosive conclusion.

If the VV has any reserves it might be that in Anno Dracula we have just about everything Victorian, as well as the kitchen sink thrown in. But, Newman's style is knowing and arch, and it makes for a wonderful fusion of plot and for many amusing 'asides' as well - such as the scene where the smooth-faced, smooth-haired Dr Jeckyl is giving some evidence before a judge and the court illustrator who sketches his likeness finds his page covered with the image of a man whose face is more haggard, whose hair is a shaggy ungroomed mess - in short the image of Mr Hyde.

Anno Dracula is just the beginning - Mr Newman's wonderful obsession for such work goes on, more details of which can be read of here.

And for the most glorious taster, this trailer really encapsulates everything about the book. Bon appetite!

THE HISTORY OF THE MUSIC HALLS...

2011-10-26T16:55:00.003+01:00

Photograph of Marie Lloyd

Click onto this link to watch: http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b016fn23/

The VV has discovered The Story of Music Hall, a BBC Four documentary presented by Michael Grade which really is a wonderful history of the music halls. You can watch it on iplayer for a limited period - for another six days from today. It really is recommended. Quite a lot about Wilton's and Champagne Charlie with the wonderful Christopher Beeching impersonating George Leybourne. Christopher has an enormous wealth of information about the music halls and has written The Heaviest of Swells: A Life and Times in the Music Halls.

And thanks to Christopher, the VV now knows what Picadilly Weepers are...can you guess?

THE SOMNAMBULIST IN PAPERBACK...

2011-10-13T16:49:00.001+01:00

Ta Da! This is the paperback edition of The Somnambulist which will be published in May 2012. The VV loves the way it captures the broodingly dark essence of the book. With thanks to Orion Books and Head Design who provided the image - and in reality it's much lovelier than in 'the flat' as the lettering is all embossed and the title letters are also edged in gold.

THE VICTORIAN ARTIST G. F. WATTS...

2011-10-11T11:30:00.001+01:00

George Frederic Watts 1817-1907

The VV cannot be sure, but she feels quite confident that the portrait shown above of the artist George Frederic Watts may well have been taken by his friend, Julia Margaret Cameron. The image bears all the hallmarks of her photographic work - being a beautiful rendition of the man, but also transcending to something artistic in itself.

What can be stated for sure is that Watts painted Cameron, as illustrated in the lovely, haunting image above which, the VV thinks, shows very clearly why his portraiture was in such demand.

Born in London’s Bryanston Square, Watts' father was a pianoforte maker and tuner. When only nine years old, his mother died, following three younger brothers who had perished in a measles epidemic. It is hard to imagine such a blow, and the talented but sickly boy was thereafter educated at home until entering the studio of the sculptor William Behnes, and then the Royal Academy. Although not a regular student, he exhibited at the Summer Exhibition of 1837 and his obvious skill ensured that the handsome young man secured some wealthy patrons, amongst them Lord Holland who went on to become a firm friend.

Lady Mary Augusta Holland by G F Watts

At the age of 26, having won a substantial financial prize aftering entering a work in the inaugural Houses of Parliament competition, Watts decided to travel to Europe, going first to France and then Florence where he lived in a palatial town house, the Casa Feroni on the via dei Serragli, which was owned by Lord Holland and his wife Mary Augusta.

But it must have been quite a contrast when Watts returned to London in 1847, living in the far less salubrious surroundings of Cambridge Street and finding that the grand style of historical painting to which he was attracted had fallen out of fashion.

Under a Dry Arch by G F Watts

During this period, his painting style and themes developed to reflect his social concerns at the harsh realities of London life as depicted in Found Drowned, The Seamstress, The Song of the Shirt, The Irish Famine and Under a Dry Arch.

Found Drowned by G F Watts

But with his illustrious contacts, Watts was never far away from a more comfortable existence, and eventually he was offered a new home, in the dower house of the Holland estate where he became part of a bohemian salon which included the 'Anglo-Indian sisterhood', the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, and Sophia Dalrymple who called him ‘Signor’ on account of his foreign travels, and no doubt also his handsome dark looks. In later years, the salon was joined by the art critic Ruskin, the poet Tennyson, and several other pre-Raphaelite artists - such as Rossetti (shown left).

By the 1860’s Watts was achieving great public fame and having amassed some wealth he was able to devote himself to working on what truly interested him, which included sculpture. He also devoted himself to his muses - becoming greatly enamoured with the young actress Ellen Terry.

'Choosing.' Ellen Terry by G F Watts (1864)

He originally thought to 'adopt' her, but eventually proposed a marriage. He was 47. She was 16. Sadly, the marriage lasted only a year. Even so a divorce was not sought until 1877, and Watts worked on his paintings of Ellen for many years to come.

'Hope' by G F Watts

In 1871, Watts moved out of Holland house and bought some land backing onto the studio of the artist, Lord Leighton which was based in Holland Park Road. Watts built New Little Holland House, opening his studio to the public every afternoon, and from there he produced much of his most significant Symbolist work including Love and Death and Hope all of which were hailed as triumphs, resulting in his work being shown in the Uffizi Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Paris and Munich.

Mary Seton Fraser-Tytler

In later life, Watts remarried, this time to Mary Seton Fraser-Tytler, the couple eventually moving from London to Compton, near Guildford, where they adopted an orphan, Lilian MacKintosh, who became heir to the Watts estate, upon which was built the Watts Gallery which is still open to the public today.

Watts in the Compton Gallery

V&A: NEW PHOTOGRAPHS GALLERY...

2011-10-08T14:42:00.000+01:00

Circe by Julia Margaret Cameron 1865

The VV is very excited to hear that from October 24th, 2011 the V&A new Photographs Gallery will be open to the public with an inaugural display including work by the Victorian photographic artist, Julia Margaret Cameron.

John Frederick William Hershel by Julia Margaret Cameron 1867

(Albumen print from wet collodion-on-glass)

For some of the collection highlights, please see this link. Enjoy!

YOU DON'T KNOW HOW LUCKY YOU ARE: BY KEATON HENSON...

2011-10-06T10:11:00.007+01:00

It is a rare thing indeed for the VV to post any music videos, but when she heard this beautiful song by Keaton Henson and saw the film that accompanies it which is so evocative of the mid-west American Victorian era, she decided she had to share it. The film stars Sophie Thompson.

Keaton Henson - You Don't Know How Lucky You Are from Keaton Henson on Vimeo.

'FOUND DROWNED':ON SUICIDES OF PROSTITUTES IN THE THAMES.GUEST POST BY THE VICTORIANIST...

2011-09-21T12:38:00.002+01:00

Nocturne in Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge by Whistler

The VV is currently writing a new novel which opens up with a newspaper report describing a suicide, whereby a young woman has thrown herself from old Battersea Bridge to drown in the Thames.

During the Victorian era there was quite a spate of such sad ends - so much so that poets and artists were inspired to create several works on the theme - as illustrated in this guest post by The Victorianist, a fine historical blog which examines this subject in detail -

Found Drowned by G F Watts

“They Find it Very Convenient to Come Down Here and Drop Into The Water”

Or: A Helping Hand for Victorian Prostitutes

Prostitution was rife in Victorian England, particularly in the big cities. As far as earning money went, it was a relatively easy living for women of almost all ages, which, I expect, is why so many philanthropists and the church, despite their efforts at trying to ‘save’ the women from their lifestyle, have never managed to eradicate what is commonly known as the oldest occupation in the world.

There were many social reformists and societies established in the nineteenth century to try and put a stop to this immoral practice, and countless pieces of journalism or literature by reporters, writers and the clergy which seek to bring the problems of the ‘fallen women’ to the attention of both the government and, perhaps more importantly, the public. Even Charles Dickens opened ‘Urania Cottage’ a house for ‘fallen women’ in the late 1840’s in Shepherd’s Bush with the help of wealthy philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts, but could not put a stop the trade.

Some of these establishments, however, it seems got through to the odd girl or two and encouraged them to turn their lives around. Whilst reading through some other works of Charles Maurice Davies,I came across a work of his written in 1873, and named ‘Orthodox London.’

In this chapter he writes of his attendance at a midnight meeting in the east end. At these midnight meetings, prostitutes were given food, spoken to, mildly educated, entertained and given advice and, if possible, help.

It is interesting to note in the piece that one of the workers tells Davies that he refers to the DockBridge – which was constantly attended by a police officer due to its popularity with suicidal fallen women – as the ‘Bridge of Sighs.’ This is almost certainly in reference to the poem of the same name written in 1844 by Thomas Hood, though the bridge in the poem is Waterloo Bridge.

I have included the poem, ‘Bridge of Sighs’ beneath Davies’ article.

An East End Midnight Meeting

That man essays a difficult task who would write of London's ugliest vice without calling up a blush to the cheek of virtue and innocence who would let decent English maids and matrons read the story of their "erring sisters' shame" without pandering to a depraved curiosity or a vulgar appetite for horrors.

Let none who seek such prurient details be at the pains to run their eye down these pages; nor, at the same time; let those who dread to hear of the special sin of great cities veil them from the sight even of the purest and most blessedly ignorant in the household. Let each be well assured that, while a plain, unvarnished statement of things heard and seen is given, much must of necessity be suppressed. The whole of the stern, sad truth cannot be told, but from what is told, let those who read guess what might .be revealed were no such wholesome restraint enforced.

Neither, again, is it of West-end vice painted, enamelled, almost refined that we would now speak. No Lais or Aspasia is the model at present. No Formosa lures us to scenes of gilded vice. It is vice with the paint off, or so clumsily patched as to heighten its deformity, that we are to see.

Here is the programme: Midnight Meeting Movement. Admit to St Matthew's Schoolroom,Princes Square, St George's Street, E., at eleven o'clock; whilst a written addendum states that ‘This meeting is among the sailors' girls of Ratcliff Highway, a distinct class of the fallen.' Fallen, and in Ratcliff Highway! That announcement, coupled with the assurance that every unpleasing detail shall be delicately veiled, will surely be enough to scare all but genuine good Samaritans from the too true story.

On leaving the silent city behind to go eastward at night, I have a feeling as though I had passed beyond the haunts of civilization into some desert. Nor is the idea quite hyperbolical; for that district lying along the Thames east of London Bridge is a country in itself, and towards midnight it has many of the unattractive aspects of a wilderness. Along Thames Street, so busy by day-time, you hear the echo of your own footsteps. Pass the postern gate of the Tower, and you are in the sailors' quarter; on into Ratcliff Highway, euphemistically termed St George's Streetwhere, amid frequent public-houses and dancing-rooms, low vice keeps perpetual saturnalia. Leaving for a moment this noisy thoroughfare, I find myself in one of those queer, quiet nooks so numerous in London, Princes Square, with the little Swedish church in the centre, looking picturesque in the moonlight. Among other buildings is St Matthew's Schoolroom. I enter, and find the clergyman and a couple of the society's officials. The company have not yet arrived, though ample preparations are being made for a large number in the shape of a comfortable tea.

It is proposed that we should pass the time before the hour of assembling in visiting the public-houses of Ratcliff Highway; and, in charge of a gentleman who has the entree, I sally forth. If you look narrowly into each low gin-shop, you will find that it has a long room at the back, with tables running round, the centre being left open for dancing, and the end occupied by a small stage. In the first we enter a man is singing a comic song to a small audience; or rather the audience and he are singing it together, and the young ladies of the company, in a sort of ballet attire, with a tendency to scarlet boots, are mingling freely with the audience. A word with the smart barmaid as to whether she has read the last book he left, and my guide marshals me into the dancing-room, the manager of which, attired as a clown, is lounging in the doorway.

The wonderful thing is the excellent footing on which my friend, who is a City Missionary, stands with the publicans, diametrically opposed as their callings seem. He shakes hands with all the girls, calls them 'lassies' and scatters his invitations broadcast among them. They are largely accepted too. There is an utter difference, he tells me, between these sailors' girls and the soldiers' girls of contiguous quarters. They hold no communication with one another. These girls have a distinctive attire. They go bareheaded, greatly leaning to ornaments in their hair; they wear low dresses and a shawl cast about them to look like an opera cloak. On many a breast I saw strange to say a large cross!

As we passed one dismal lane leading out of the main thoroughfare, my guide asked me to come down. 'This is Gravel Lane,' he said; 'at the bottom is the Dock bridge, where so many of these poor girls throw themselves over. It has been found necessary in consequence to keep a policeman there from seven in the evening all night. I call it the "Bridge of Sighs"' he added. We went down; and, sure enough, there was the policeman at his gloomy vigil. It was a quiet nook, with the bows of two big ships looming over the moonlit water. 'They find it very convenient,' said the Missionary, with a touch of grim humour, 'to come down here and drop into the water.'

But it was time to get back to the schoolroom. When we did so, we found somewhere about eighty girls assembled, sitting on the school forms, and taking tea with evident gusto. There was some little noise of course - where did ever fourscore females of any class gather without noise over the cup that cheers? - But still all was orderly and decorous, so far. From the brazen-face harridan who had been 'out' for long years (such is the technical term), to the girl of fifteen, whose 'outing' numbered only weeks there they were, human wrecks, body and soul, stranded on the cruel shoals of society, and only beginning to be recognized as material for the social reformer to work upon. Some half-dozen gentlemen connected with the Midnight Meeting Society, and two or three Bible-women were waiting on these strange guests; and the clergyman, a youngish man, with quite white hair and a silvery voice, was going up and down the ranks, making cheery remarks, and ministering to appetites that were by no means delicate. I ingratiated myself by taking round that highly popular condiment, the plumcake; and whilst I did so, not one indecent or even discourteous word was spoken, no indelicate act or look met my eye amongst those fourscore of the very offscouring of Ratcliff Highway. 'It is astonishing what relics of humanity one finds here,' said the clergyman.

With instinctive horror naturally experienced for what is new or strange, I felt myself shrinking from these poor girls in the dancing- room, whilst my merry Missionary shook each one by the hand and greeted her with his 'Well, lassie! ' But when brought face to face with them, I was utterly ashamed of such a feeling, and wondered why people should shake them off roughly or give them hard speeches, instead of imitating the good Missionary's efforts to say a word that shall save them.

One of the first girls to whom I spoke had just made the 'great experiment' of a leap from theBridge of Sighs. She had been rescued from the water and taken to prison, where she was kept for seven days; and when I saw her she had only that morning come out of gaol. She had evidently been drinking during the day; and there was a fierce light in her eyes, as she kept saying, in answer to protests against her attempted suicide, and advice that she should try to right herself, 'No, no; I am fallen too low, too low. I shall try London Bridge tonight.' 'Do you think she will?' I asked of one of the officials.' 'Likely enough,' was the business-like reply. In a quarter of an hour I came round to her again, and she was roaring with laughter and 'taking a sight' at a friend on a neighbouring bench.

When tea was over a hymn was sung, and considerable giggling was caused by its being pitched so high that the key had to be changed. That was the great interruption in fact, the only interruption of the evening, the irrepressible proneness of the girls to giggle; but I fancy I have observed this proneness elsewhere than in the purlieus of Ratcliff Highway. For instance, to show how a casual word will lead these impetuous people astray the clergyman read a portion of Scripture to them, and related the parable of the Ten Virgins. The title was received with a regular guffaw. His address, which was perhaps a little too scholarly, described the marriage ceremonies of the East, and the 'ornament of grace' worn by the bride, at which the girls giggled again, and quite lost the point of that allegory. They sang lustily, and many of them had melodious voices. A few could sing the hymns without book - relic of a decent childhood, not yet lost!

One old stager, who prided herself on her vocal powers, managed to get an arm-chair all to herself, and sang really an excellent alto with the air of an Alboni. Another gentleman followed the clergyman, and took the invitation ticket above quoted as his text, repeating, over and over again, the question, 'Have you got tickets for Heaven?' and receiving pointed, but sotto vocereplies. Strangely enough, the noisiest and most troublesome section were not the sailors' girls, but some work-girls sack-sewers who kept to themselves, and did their best to disturb proceedings, leaving noisily so soon as they had disposed of a very heavy tea, and had a brief 'lark' during the preliminary proceedings.

There were several more hymns, and a brief address was given by the secretary of the society, who urged the girls to leave the bad life at once behind. They could, if they chose, go away from that room, and be taken in cabs to homes where they would be qualified to lead decent lives for the future, and eventually, out of a total of eighty-eight, four girls did so remain, and a good many others promised to come to the office in the morning. One fresh-looking country lass wanted to be sent home to attend her mother's funeral. Her father, who had been a farmer, was in independent circumstances; but the daughter was an outcast, though only six weeks 'out' inRatcliff Highway, and as comely and well-spoken a girl as one could wish to see. Decidedly the noisiest and most giggling of the whole fourscore was, to my surprise, one of the four who remained; but I was informed that those who thus remained are often disappointing cases. Either they act on impulse, which cools down Before the morning ; or they will sometimes go to the Home because it is late, and they may be locked out of their lodgings; or even they will go simply for the 'lark' of having a ride in a cab. The ordeal of having to walk up from Ratcliff to the office in Red Lion Square in the morning is, as one can well understand, a much better test of sincerity.

Two other interesting 'cases' may be mentioned, each confirming the good clergyman's remark that relics of humanity exist even here. One girl lingered long and anxiously about the door; and the cause, I was told, was that she had a little child, two years old, whom she wished to have cared for. Clinging to the old, vile life herself, she still sought, like Dives in the parable, that the one to whom Nature had bound her with such strong ties might not come to that place of torment. The second case was that of a middle-aged woman, on whose face, it perhaps sounds hard to say, Nature seemed to have graven the stigma of her calling. I had noticed her as one of the few who shed tears when allusion was made to the fact that some of the girls probably had mothers who had cared for them and prayed over them, and might even now be watching them from the world beyond. 'That woman,' said my guide of the evening, 'is a veritable missionary for me. She has been 'out' eleven years; and though she won't leave her bad life, she protects me from being insulted, and gets the younger girls to listen to me.'

As the girls passed out of the room, a card was presented to each with the following words: 'Dear Friend, If you will call at the office of the Midnight Meeting Movement, 5, Red Lion Square, Holborn, W. C., any day, from Monday to Friday, between ten and four, and Saturday, between ten and twelve, advice will be given you, and, if possible, assistance for the future.'

Such were some of the presentable particulars of the Midnight Meeting. They may serve a good purpose if they convince the most forlorn wanderer on the wild London streets that there is still such a word as 'home' for her; that she need not say, in Hood's graphic words

Oh, it was pitiful,
Near a whole city full,
Home she had none.

Christian charity is not so rare as it was. There are among us those large-hearted ones who can pity the sinner, whilst they loathe her sin. If one such Sister of Mercy in the truest sense of the words can learn from what we have now said a new mission and mode of doing good, another sphere of serving Him who did not disdain to work among the publicans and harlots, this brief record of the Midnight Meeting will not have been written in vain.

Bridge of Sighs by John Everett Millais

‘Bridge of Sighs’ by Thomas Hood (1844)

One more unfortunate,

Weary of breath,

Rashly importunate,

Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly

Lift her with care;

Fashion'd so slenderly,

Young, and so fair!

Look at her garments

Clinging like cerements;

Whilst the wave constantly

Drips from her clothing;

Take her up instantly,

Loving, not loathing.

Touch her not scornfully;

Think of her mournfully,

Gently and humanly;

Not of the stains of her,

All that remains of her

Now is pure womanly.

Make no deep scrutiny

Into her mutiny

Rash and undutiful:

Past all dishonor,

Death has left on her

Only the beautiful.

Still, for all slips of hers,

One of Eve's family--

Wipe those poor lips of hers

Oozing so clammily.

Loop up her tresses

Escaped from the comb,

Her fair auburn tresses;

Whilst wonderment guesses

Where was her home?

Who was her father?

Who was her mother?

Had she a sister?

Had she a brother?

Or was there a dearer one

Still, and a nearer one

Yet, than all other?

Alas! for the rarity

Of Christian charity

Under the sun!

O, it was pitiful!

Near a whole city full,

Home she had none.

Sisterly, brotherly,

Fatherly, motherly

Feelings had changed:

Love, by harsh evidence,

Thrown from its eminence;

Even God's providence

Seeming estranged.

Where the lamps quiver

So far in the river,

With many a light

From window and casement,

From garret to basement,

She stood, with amazement,

Houseless by night.

The bleak wind of March

Made her tremble and shiver;

But not the dark arch,

Or the black flowing river:

Mad from life's history,

Glad to death's mystery,

Swift to be hurl'd--

Anywhere, anywhere

Out of the world!

Is she plunged boldly--

No matter how coldly

The rough river ran--

Over the brink of it,

Picture it--think of it,

Dissolute Man!

Lave in it, drink of it,

Then, if you can!

Take her up tenderly,

Lift her with care;

Fashion'd so slenderly,

Young, and so fair!

Ere her limbs frigidly

Stiffen too rigidly,

Decently, kindly,

Smooth and compose them;

And her eyes, close them,

Staring so blindly!

Dreadfully staring

Thro' muddy impurity,

As when with the daring

Last look of despairing

Fix'd on futurity.

Perishing gloomily,

Spurr'd by contumely,

Cold inhumanity,

Burning insanity,

Into her rest.--

Cross her hand humbly

As if praying dumbly,

Over her breast!

Owning her weakness,

Her evil behavior,

And leaving, with meekness,

Her sins to the Savior!

As an addendum, here is an extract from Augustus Mayhew's “Paved with Gold, Or, the Romance and Reality of the London Streets: An Unfashionable Novel” (if you missed in, you can read it here) In which he gives one of the best descriptions of Victorian London in the snow I had ever read. The novel also has some excellent descriptions of desolate and desperate women. I don’t want to reveal too much of the story, but to ‘cap off’ this post, I’ll finish with a word from him, in which he describes a homeless pregnant woman walking the streets of London on her way to end her life in similar fashion to the women at the ‘bridge of Sighs’:

“As the air seemed to grow colder than ever at the fag end of the night, and the streets had long been rid of the few remaining brawlers, leaving her the only wanderer through them, she grew more wretched and desperate than ever. Driven by the policeman from door-step to door-step, and finding that she was not allowed to sit, much less sleep, in the thoroughfares, she began to think it better to end such a life as hers, and sauntered on, shuddering, towards the river.

But when there, the water was like a sheet of steel, and looked so witheringly cold as her mantle flew open in the nipping breeze, that her timid resolves took flight, and she felt she lacked the courage, even though heart-broken and half-frozen as she was, for such a death as that.”

EDWARD WHYMPER AND HIS TRAGIC SCRAMBLES AMONGST THE ALPS...

2011-09-03T10:23:00.001+01:00

EdwardWhymper 1840-1911

Mr VVhas just returned from one of his brave expeditions, foraging around in foreignclimes, this time in the Pennine Alps between Switzerland and Italy where he followed in the footsteps of the famous English climber and explorer, Edward Whymper.

Whymper’sobsession with the Alps began when he was twenty, when in his role as an illustrator he was commissioned to produce some drawings ofAlpine scenes. The area was already extremely popular with members of the LondonAlpine Club, to which the young Whymper belonged, enjoying the Victorian 'Golden Age of Alpinism'.

Some members of the Alpine Club

This hardy group combined scientificpursuits with the sport of climbing and at the age of twenty-five, Whymper was to conquer the one remaining ‘virgin’ alp.

TheMatterhorn (German name) or Mount Cervino (Italian name) is 4,477.54 metres high, and being shaped like a pyramid it has foursteep faces aligned with each of the compass points. It is surrounded byglaciers and overlooks the town of Zermatt – above which it looms, a greatobelisk, daunting, challenging.

The‘success’ of Whymper's ascent was described in his book, Scrambles amongst the Alps which was published in 1871. It tells how four of the seven-strong team were to die when making their descent which resulted in a controversy as to whether the ropeconnecting all men had actually snapped or been cut. Certainly the eventhaunted Whymper, who wrote –

"Every night, do you understand, I see mycomrades of the Matterhorn slipping on their backs, their arms outstretched,one after the other, in perfect order at equal distances—Croz the guide, first,then Hadow, then Hudson, and lastly Douglas. Yes, I shall always seethem…"

Since then, and 1995, 500 climbers have lost their lives whileattempting to conquer the Matterhorn.

The Matterhorn looming above the town of Zermatt

MrVV’s modern musings –

The town of Zermatt has a long historyas a centre of climbing. There is a graveyard right in the centre that ispacked with dead climbers, many of their fates found on the Matterhorn – the mountainthat dominates the town; a huge single lump of granite with clouds like smokestreaming from the summit.

We spent many hours on glaciers.Each differed in challenge from the next, according to the depth of lying snow(from none to hip high), the time of the day and therefore its exposure to sun,whether it was virgin or pre trodden, and most significantly the degree ofcracking (or crevasses) that are hidden below the surface, awaiting unwary victims.Ropes are essential. Below are moraines. Acres of demolition sites where liesthe rubble the glacier has ground from the mountain. The scale of the destructionthat each of these historic ice monsters has created is amazing anddaunting. Each block, rock and pebblehas to be negotiated; mile after mile whether ascending or descending, theeffect is physically destructive and spirit-sapping.

Above the glaciers are themountains, ranging from steep, to very steep, to ‘you must be joking’. Someparts are dyed orange by the presence of iron. Others are jet black. Dotted aroundthe mountains are the cabins which at best resemble medieval redouts; redoutswith bunk beds, fruit tea and shelter at the end of a hard day's climb. Each is located to avoid the worst possibleeffects of avalanches. In general, this means to one side of a coll and up,where the ‘up’ means yet another stiff climb at the end of each exhausting day.

At the heart of our expedition werethree such castles: the cabins Dix, Vignettes, and Bertol, each separated by achallenging combination of rocks, glaciers, and distance. But Bertol is the Prince of Cabins. Oneof the oldest, it stands at the top of a ridge, a rock that looks like a spire.Accessible only via fixed and enormously long ladders, the structure is setapart from the steep slopes of snow that fall away on three sides. All around arepanoramic views of the mountains - views of the routes we had taken, and the onewe would undertake the next day. The brooding giant Matterhorn was looming inthe distance. But no individual mountain made that view so spectacular. Rather it was the scale of the wholecollection. Mountains that would be stars in any normal European range arereduced to bit players here. Seen together, they take the breath away.

So, it was surprising that aftersuch an experience, the last day of the expedition should produce the stand outmoment. Awaking at 4am and bidding farewell to Bertol we descended the ladderto the snow. It was still dark and the cool of the night helped reinforce thesnow's crust below crampon-clad boots as we marched over and up the glacier fortwo and a half hours, at the gruelling end of which we reached the crest of thecoll. And there was the Matterhorn towering above us, bathed in the earlymorning sun.

Mr VV aka Chris Fox - and his crampons

A single block of granite it is. Butwhat a block nature has crafted. A monster whose presence is lauded by thesupporting cast of mountains, valleys and glaciers. And everywhere a stunningclear light that cast curving, swooping shadows. The white of the snow. The blackof the mountains. Add to that a sky of the purest, deepest blue, and far belowa haze of cloud, hovering over the valley, some 2000m above Zermatt.

CHRIS FOX

ANOTHER JACK THE RIPPER SUSPECT...

2011-08-31T19:43:00.003+01:00

From Getty Images

One hundred and twenty three years ago today, Jack the Ripper was to claim the first of his five victims, each one brutally murdered in London's East End during in the autumn of 1888.

Over the years, the hope of discovering an identity for the murderer has proved to be quite an industry. The latest suspect is a German merchant by the name of Carl Feigenbaum who was executed in New York's Sing Sing prison in 1894, convicted of the murder of his landlady in Manhattan. And now, a Ripper expert, the former murder squad detective, Trevor Marriott, is convinced that Feigenbaum is 'his man'.

Feigenbaum's lawyer in New York was quite convinced that his client had been Jack the Ripper - presumably because Feigenbaum told him. Marriott has now discovered that a German ship called the Reiher was docked at the time of the murders, and one of the seamen on that ship was Feigenbaum, who therefore was in the vicinity and had the predisposition to carry out such crimes.

The link is somewhat tentative. There is no definitive answer. It seems that the Ripper's identity may well remain a mystery for another hundred years.

For related Jack the Ripper Posts -

ANOTHER RIPPER THEORY

JACK THE RIPPER STRIKES AGAIN

FROM HELL

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON AND THE LITTLE MERMAID...

2011-08-24T12:39:00.002+01:00

The Little Mermaid meets the Prince - by Dulac

Hans Christian Anderson was the Danish author of many classic fairy tales such as The Snow Queen, Thumbelina, The Little Match Girl, The Ugly Duckling and The Little Mermaid.

Hans Christian Anderson 1805-1875

As the child of a washerwoman and shoe maker, Anderson’s childhood in Odense was one of poverty. His grandfather was said to be mad and his grandmother worked in a lunatic asylum. An aunt ran a brothel and a half-sister was a prostitute who in later life attempted to blackmail her brother. His father always insisted that his son was related to Danish royalty, though no proof of this claim has ever been found.

When Anderson’s father died, the somewhat prudish and self-obsessed son who used to play with dolls in the street while singing in a lovely high tenor voice, left his home town for Copenhagen where he studied at the university and hoped to pursue a career on the stage. But when that dream failed to materialise, he worked on his writing instead – producing novels, travelogues and poetry – and, in due course, creating the fairy tales that would lead to the fame he always craved –

‘My name is gradually beginning to shine, and that is the only thing I live for...I covet honour in the same way a miser covets gold.’

A recent Danish stamp in honour of Hans Christian Anderson

By the end of his life, the Danish government proclaimed him a national treasure with designs for a statue being made long before his actual death. He was feted by such luminaries as Balzac, Robert and Elizabeth Browning, Dumas, Victor Hugo, Ibsen, Wagner and Liszt. Charles Dickens welcomed him into his home for a visit that lasted five weeks – though there was talk of it being a great strain. Kate Dickens called him a ‘bony bore’ and when Anderson finally left the house Dickens pinned a note to a wall of the room in which Anderson slept: ‘Hans Anderson slept in this room for five weeks – which seemed to the family AGES.’

When it came to his love life, the lanky, gauche and effeminate writer had very little luck. He felt himself an outsider, and his grief for the lack of a sexual ‘companion’ is shown in this diary entry –

‘Almighty God, thee only have I; thou steerest my fate, I must give myself up to thee! Give me a livelihood! Give me a bride! My blood wants love, as my heart does!’

What he desired remained unrequited. Anderson cultured strange ‘love triangles’ where his wooing of a sister often hid the lust for the brother, as in the case of Riborg Voigt – a letter from whom was found in a pouch on Anderson’s chest when he died. A courtship of the singer Jenny Lind for whom he wrote The Nightingale led on to her being nicknamed the Swedish nightingale. But again, the ‘affair’ was unconsummated and while the two ‘friends’ were staying in Weimer with Duke Carl Alexander, Anderson was more entranced with their host. The two men were often seen holding hands and sobbing over their mutual adoration of Jenny Lind while the duke – ‘... told me he loved me and pressed his cheek to mine...received me in his shirt with only a gown around...pressed me to his breast, we kissed...’

But it was Anderson’s life-long love for Edvard Collins, whose sister he also courted, that inspired many intimate letters and also the writing of The Little Mermaid – a story of obsessive longing and pain, and the intense desire to be ‘transformed’, expressed in another letter –

‘I languish for you as for a pretty Calabrian wench...my sentiments for you are those of a woman. The femininity of my nature and our friendship must remain a mystery.

The VV is off to read The Little Mermaid again - and no doubt to view the story in quite a different light.

VICTORIAN NYMPHS AND MERMAIDS...

2011-08-14T22:42:00.004+01:00

Charles Kingsley has a lot to answer for. When the VV was seven years old, she joined the town library and The Water Babies was the very first book that she chanced to draw down from the shelves. From that point on she was obsessed with stories set 'under the water' - so much so that she is now writing a novel, to be called Elijah's Mermaid, which is based on a Victorian artist who is obsessed to the point of madness with painting his muse as a nymph, or a mermaid.

The following images have helped to inspire the story -

A mermaid by Waterhouse

Hylas and the Nymphs by Waterhouse

The Wave by Bouguereau

Nymphs and Satyr by Bouguereau

Galatea by Louis Dorigny

Water Baby by Herbert James Draper

The Fisherman and the Siren by Leighton

Lamia by Waterhouse

Russian folk art

THE LOVELY ILLUSTRATIONS OF ARTHUR RACKHAM...

2011-08-01T22:26:00.004+01:00

Feeling very Undancy by Arthur Rackham

There was a point in her youth when, much to her mother's dismay, the VV felt very 'undancy', preferring to stay in her bedroom and dream, and that bedroom painted a very dark green, with oriental shawls and fans, and peacock feathers and pampas grasses and, in pride of place, above her bed, not the usual posters of pop stars, but some poignantly beautiful printed cards with softly rounded corners depicting the seductively inky illustrations of the Victorian artist, Arthur Rackham.

Arthur Rackham 1867 - 1939 - a self portrait

How serious and respectable Arthur looks in this self portrait, more like an accountant from the 1950's than a man who created such magical scenes of fairytales and myths. But then, he did indeed work as a clerk at the Westminster Fire Office before going on to study part time at the Lambeth School of Art.

Fairy on a Spider's Web

At the age of twenty five, Arthur left his 'serious' job and began a career in book illustration, devising a gritty, realistic technique which involved sketching an outline in pencil and then blocking in some colour, before adding detail in india ink. Sometimes this 'sepia' monotone look was enhanced with watercolours, building up layers of transparent tints. He also worked with silhouettes and was inspired by Japanese woodblocks.

A decidely Japanese influence in this illustration taken from Das Rhiengold

The director, Guillermo Del Toro says that Rackham inspired his work, notably the faun in Pan's Labyrinth - as well as the tree that grows out of a Scottish church altar in Hellboy which Del Toro called the 'Rackham Tree'.

The faun in Pan's Labryinth

Arthur Rackham is still inspiring the VV's imagination today while she writes a new novel based on a Victorian artist. His work was very prolific and though filled with romance, it is rarely 'twee'- perhaps due to the clarity and truth of line, which is also something to be said of another favourite illustrator, the contempory artist, P J Lynch.

The Rhienmaidens from The Ring

There is a wealth of Rackham's work to view online, as well as still being available in many children's classic books, from the stories of the Brother's Grimm, and Lewis Carol's Alice in Wonderland. to the Romance of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, or English Fairy Tales, or Peter Pan, or The Ring - to touch on but a few.

Here is just one of the tributes to his work found on Youtube - Enjoy!

THE CLASSIC ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE ARTIST, P. J. LYNCH...

2011-07-25T21:53:00.005+01:00

If The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley was brought so vividly to life by the artwork of Jessie Willcox Smith, then the same can be said for P J Lynch's illustrations of Oscar Wilde Stories for Children - a copy of which the VV cherishes.

P J Lynch lives and works and in Dublin. He studied at Brighton College of Art, since when he has won many awards, including the Mother Goose, the Christopher Medal, and the Kate Greenaway Medal. For over twenty years he has illustrated children’s books - many of them classic Victorian tales - as well as posters, Irish postal stamps and some truly stunning large-scale murals based on Gulliver’s Travels for the new Cavan County Library.

The VV thinks that his work is classic and will be loved for years to come – and as pictures often speak louder than words, here are some more examples – though these reproductions really don't do the artist justice -

A poster for The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Murals based on Gulliver's Travels

The cover of A Christmas Carol

This short film gives some insight into the artist and his inspiration, with more truly exceptional paintings -

For more information, please see P J Lynch's website

For another post on Jessie Wilcox Smith:
THE ENDURING INFLUENCE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

CHARLES KINGSLEY'S WATER BABIES...

2011-07-24T11:36:00.001+01:00

Charles Kingsley 1819-1875

Educated at Kings College in London and Magdalene College, Cambridge, Charles Kingsley went on to enter the Church of England where he continued to study history and often published his sermons, as well as poems and novels.

His work was very influential. The novel Westward Ho! Inspired the name of a town – even containing the exclamation mark, as well as the Bedford, Westward Ho! And Appledore Railway.

Young People out gathering ferns - and what other nonsense is going on!

Kingsley also coined the term ‘Pteridomania’ – when he felt his daughters had gone mad, obsessed with the collection of ferns which became a national hobby in the nineteenth century, of which more can be read in this post.

Sympathetic to the work of Darwin, Kingsley was very interested in the concept of evolution. As a Christian Socialist, he had strong political views and campaigned against the unjust conditions under which many labourers were forced to work. Both issues are raised in his classic novel, a didactic moral fable entitled: The Water Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby which was written between 1862-3, serialised by Macmillan’s Magazine before going on to be published as a book.

The story was an instant hit and became a mainstay of children’s literature in the 1920’s. However, it was many years after that when the VV also found herself entranced in the magical underwater tale when she went into a library and pulled Kingsley's book down from the shelves, at which point an obsession with water, mermaids and nymphs was born which is still very much in her mind today, forming one of the themes of a new novel on which she is currently working. But then, as many children before, the VV desperately wanted to believe that Water Babies really did exist, a need that Kingsley understood, explaining when asked about them:

'...no one has a right to say that no water babies exist till they have seen no water babies existing, which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water babies.'

Linley Sambourne, the famous Punch cartoonist satirised the concept with an illustration which showed the scientists Richard Owen and Thomas Henry Huxley viewing a Water Baby caught in a bottle. Somewhat ironically, when Huxley's five year old grandson saw the illustration, he wrote this letter -

Dear Grandpater – Have you seen a Waterbaby? Did you put it in a bottle? Did it wonder if it could get out? Could I see it some day? – Your loving Julian

To which his grandpater wrote this reply:

My dear Julian – I could never make sure about that Water Baby.

I have seen Babies in water and Babies in bottles; the Baby in the water was not in a bottle and the Baby in the bottle was not in water. My friend who wrote the story of the Water Baby was a very kind man and very clever. Perhaps he thought I could see as much in the water as he did – There are some people who see a great deal and some who see very little in the same things.

When you grow up I dare say you will be one of the great-deal seers, and see things more wonderful than the Water Babies where other folks can see nothing.

How charming!

Nevertheless, now that she has grown up and is no longer quite so naive, the VV wonders if her fascination for Kingsley's tale may well have been due more to the lovely illustrations of Jessie Willcox Smith than what – on a re-reading – can often be a pompous, long-winded and bigoted story with pages of ranting sermons; literally long lists the ‘ills’ of the world, as perceived by the Reverend Kingsley. There are also many examples of prejudice against Americans (murderous crows), Jews (dishonest merchants who grow rich on the sale of false icons), Blacks (fat old greasy negros), and Catholics (Popes are listed as one of the great bogies, alongside Measles!) - all of which may explain why the story is no longer very popular!

It begins well enough, telling the tale of a young chimney sweep called Tom who is abused by Mr Grimes, his cruel employer. When working in a large country house, Tom climbs down into one of the hearths and sees Ellie, a lovely golden-haired girl in a room where everything is clean and white. Chased away by the child’s nurse, Tom escapes through the window and runs away, eventually coming to a river where he ‘falls asleep’ when trying to wash himself clean. Thereafter, Tom is transformed into a ‘water baby’ and goes on to have many ‘watery’ adventures whereby through a series of moral lessons he meets characters such as Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby. His soul is eventually redeemed and returned to human form, becoming a man of science who works for the greater good of mankind.

How very Victorian!

FOR MORE POSTS ON LINLEY SAMBOURNE -

THE VIRTUAL VICTORIAN: MR LINLEY SAMBOURNE'S PHOTOGRAPHIC PASSIONS

THE VIRTUAL VICTORIAN: WELCOME TO LINLEY SAMBOURNE'S VIRTUAL VICTORIAN HOUSE

THE VIRTUAL VICTORIAN: THE VV AS A MAID AT THAT MR LINLEY SAMBOURNE'S HOUSE

THE FIRST LADY OF FLEET STREET...

2011-07-19T18:39:00.002+01:00

Rachel Beer 1858-1927

No – the VV is not referring to today’s inquisition of News International's Rebekah Brooks, but to over a hundred years ago when another journalist by the name of Rachel Beer controlled two influential newspapers and entertained the great and the good, from Gladstone to the Prince of Wales – and all this twenty years before women even had the right to vote.

Rachel was a Sephardic Jew whose father, David Sassoon, came to London after making his fortune in the export of Indian opium. He raised his daughter in immense luxury. But, when he died, even though Rachel was determined to be independent and trained as a nurse, her mother was desperate to marry her off in the tradition of their faith. She had Rachel’s portrait painted by the fashionable Henry Thaddeus, and when that failed to advertise the goods, Rachel's image was modelled in marble.

Doubtlessly, Rachel had many suiters. She was very beautiful. But, only at the age of 28 did she eventually fall in love. Frederick Beer was another Jew of German origins, though he had been baptised in the Church of England and when Rachel consented to be his wife and also took her husband's faith she was disowned by her family.

Frederick owned The Observer and in 1893 he also bought the Sunday Times, intending for his wife to edit it, a position she took very seriously – conducting painstaking investigative work and taking its stance from Conservative to independent while claiming that rather than supporting MP’s she would observe their squabbles as ‘an entomologist observes the contest of rival tribes of ants.’

Working from her grand Mayfair home, Rachel wrote 3,000 words a week, and amongst other things she campaigned against the libel laws which encouraged only timidity, and railed against wasteful public spending, while advocating public pensions for workers over 60 years.

When Frederick became ill with TB, she took over the running of the Observer too, achieving one of the century’s greatest exclusives when, by the means of cheque book journalism, Count Esterhazy admitted that he had been involved in the forging of letters that condemned an innocent Jewish officer to be condemned on Devil’s Island – a notorious French penal colony.

However, despite all her success, when Frederick died she became depressed and suffered a nervous breakdown, at which point her brother had her declared insane, and one of the country’s wealthiest and most influential women lost control of her entire fortune in one single stroke of a lawyer's pen. Her brother sold both of the papers and Rachel lived out the rest of her life in the care of three mental health nurses in a house in Tunbridge Wells.

When she died at the age of 69, rather than being buried in her beloved husband’s Highgate mausoleum, Rachel was buried with the Sassoons in the family grave in Brighton.

The Oberver briefly alluded to her death, but there was not one word written about the ten years she spent as its proprietor and editor.

For more information, this BBC World Service programme written and presented by Alan Johnston is very interesting, and First Lady of Fleet Street: A Biography of Rachel Beer is written by Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren.

LEECHES: THE ART OF BLOODLETTING IN VICTORIAN MEDICINE...

2011-07-17T16:48:00.004+01:00

Moving on from Doctor Merryweather's unique use of the creatures as a means of 'prognosticating a tempest', during the Victorian era leeches were somewhat more popular for their general use in medicine, being prescribed for most any ailment, ranging from headaches to hemorrhoids, from nervous fatigue to nymphomania – though sadly, they often succeeded in weakening the health of the patient yet more.

Nevertheless Sir William Harvey wrote that '...daily experience satisfies us that bloodletting has a most salutary effect in many diseases, and is indeed the foremost among all general remedial means...' Indeed, the employment of leeches became so common that their use very often out-stripped supply.

The animals were found in fresh water, mostly by women who paddled in rivers, allowing leeches to adhere to their feet before plucking them off to store in small cages or boxes, then sold on to doctors or pharmacists who kept them in jars - often very ornate - although in Bedale in Yorkshire there is a castellated 'leech house' constructed by the local apothecary.

A pewter leech box - image from the Science Museum

The creatures could survive unfed for anything up to a year. When then applied to the vein of a host, the starving leech, which may be up to three or four inches long, clung on by the use of the teeth in its anterior suckers from which it released anti-coagulating enzymes that not only numbed any swelling and pain but also prevented the sucked blood from clotting – until the leech became so swollen that it simply released its grip and ‘dropped’ off.

At that point the wound would be cleaned and bandaged, though it may continue to bleed for hours, and sometimes even days. There were occasions when patients were allergic to the treatment, feeling faint or dizzy, or having great difficulty in breathing, and some even died from loss of blood - such as in the case of Lord Byron, and also his daughter, Ada Lovelace .

A pewter bleeding bowl - image from the Science Museum

Today, leeches are still employed in surgical cases where skin grafts are used and there is a need for restoring the flow of blood. However, the following scenes, discovered on a clip of 1950's film from the excellent Quack Doctor site are, thankfully, only fictional!

MARY KINGSLEY AND ISOBEL DIXON - POETIC OBSERVATIONS ON AFRICA...

2011-07-14T10:00:00.004+01:00

Mary Kingsley (1862 – 1900) English writer and Explorer

Mary Kingsley’s father was a great traveller and as she grew up, when he went off on his expeditions, she remained at home with her invalid mother, during which time Mary avidly read through her father’s library of science, memoirs and travel books, including those notes he brought home from each trip – which she would then annotate. And then, at the age of thirty, when both of her parents died, Mary decided to travel to Africa to collect the material needed for completing her father’s latest book about the culture of the African people.

Thus her own adventurous career was born, writing Travels in West Africa and West African Studies which became bestsellers in England, widely respected by the scholarly community.

Isobel Dixon is a contemporary South African poet who has now travelled to England where many of her own observations are collected in wonderful poems about which Clive James has said: 'Isobel Dixon was born with the gift of lyricism as natural speech. A measure of her accomplishment is that all the sense impressions of Africa, even if the reader has never actually been there, live naturally in her poetry as if it were the only landscape.'

Isobel's latest collection, published by Salt, is called The Tempus Prognosticator. Amongst many others, it contains this poem inspired by and dedicated to Mary Kingsley –

Beetle, Fish & Fetish

‘Look, my mouth and it be sweet, and palaver done set.’

the dreary Forcados, the Bonny River

Sierra Leone, the white man’s grave

the Bights of Biafra and Benin, the Congo Français

how changing at Lagos Bar throws

changing at Clapham Junction into the shade

the all-asideways-tiptoe comic pomp of crabs

the Handel-Festival-sized choruses of frogs

the crocodiles’ strange whine and sighing cough

the parrots’ squark, the reeking, stinking swamp

(a thing the English seem to love)

the pretty M’Pongwe and Igalwa boat songs

with their elaborate tunes, in a minor key

how to be ready for submergencies

a damp, dilapidated Horace

with which to read yourself to sleep

crickets at their vesper-hour controversy

hornbills confabulating scandal all night long

a leopard swearing at the storm

tail whipping in the forest’s under-gloom

the thump, thump, thump of beaten manioc

how to cook a juicy hippo chop

how a snake is to be caught, with a well-cleft stick

how plantain leaves can render even boa

constrictor palatable, but cannot remove

the musky taste of crocodile – how nothing will

Gray Shirt, Singlet, Silent, Pagan –

a strapping chap of wolf’s-mouth black –

your companions, paddling the Ogooué’s broad road

of burnished bronze, into the heart of the Gabon

blue serge skirt, hairpins and fetish charms

beware mosquito bites on feet, the rub of a boot

a sore when it comes in Gorilla country comes to stay

but you’re no more human than a gale of wind you say

duty’s daughter, in the ruck of life and war

bind up the jaws, bind up

the final bound, that first league out, last coast

your almost unsinkable boat

now anchored to a southern ocean floor

I wish you the lily of the spirit of the rapids

a gift of a Goliath beetle, an Ogooué canoe

and some distant river’s upper reaches

red sandbanks glowing like the Nibelungen gold

the forest Turneresque, owing to effects of sun and mist

and there is always this: Dr Günther has approved

one absolutely new snake, three absolutely new fish

and a lizard that the B.M. has been waiting for for years

For Mary Kingsley

By Isobel Dixon, from her latest collection, The Tempest Prognosticator

A Tempest Prognosticator

ADDENDUM: The Tempest Prognosticator or Leech barometer was 'invented' by George Merryweather in 1851. It was a contraption in which leeches were kept in small bottles. When a storm was approaching the leeches would become agitated, attempting to escape from the glass containers and setting off little bells - the greater the tinkling sounds, the greater the risk of a storm.

For a related post: THE ENDURING INFLUENCE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

THE WOMEN IN BLACK MEETS THE WOMAN IN WHITE: ESSIE FOX AND A SOMNAMBULIST...

2011-07-13T16:49:00.001+01:00

Essie Fox aka the Virtual Victorian at Bonhams with A Somnambulist by Millais

Today, along with her agent and publisher, the VV went to Bonhams auction house in London's New Bond Street to view the Millais painting that inspired her novel's title. While there she was able to learn more about this wonderful work of art which was completed in 1871 when the artist was 41 years old.

Apart from the usual allusions to Wilkie Collins' novel The Woman in White, and the opera by Bellini which is called La Sonnambula, it seems that the painting was also inspired by Millais' admiration for Symphony in White No 1: The White Girl by J. A. M. Whistler.

The model who posed as 'the white girl' once wrote of the work in a letter - 'Some stupid artists don't understand it at all while Millais for instance thinks it splendid more like Titian and those old swells than anything he has seen.'

In 1868 Millais responded with his first interpretation of a female in white when he painted the portrait shown above, which is of Nina Lehmann. But the magnificent, brooding A Somnambulist is something a great deal more powerful, and despite there being some prurient indignation regarding the fact that the woman was in her nightgown and may well be encouraging sexual advances, there were many favourable reviews when the painting was shown at the Royal Academy.

The Times said - 'The realism of the nightdress and the candlestick affords an easy theme for carping...it is impossible to contest the grace of the figure or the power with which the painter has given the effect of eyes still wide open, though not seeing, and the affect of moonlight and scattered coast lights.'

When viewed in 'the flesh' the eyes of this painting really are amazing. The VV is so glad that she went to look, and is also somewhat surprised that the painting only reached just above its lower guide price - auctioned for £74,400, inclusive of the buyer's premium.

However, the Bolton Museum which was selling the painting today must have been pleased with the profit made - having purchased A Somnambulist in the late sixties, for the price of £400.

The VV wonders who owns it now...

BONHAMS ANNOUNCE THE AUCTION OF 'THE SOMNAMBULIST' BY MILLAIS...

2011-07-10T11:11:00.002+01:00

The Somnambulist by John Everett Millais

Just one day before the publication of Essie Fox’s debut novel The Somnambulist which is set in Victorian England, Bonhams auction house announced the sale of the Pre-Raphaelite painting that inspired the novel’s title.

Currently owned by the Bolton Museum and valued by Bonhams at between £70,000-£100,000, ‘The Somnambulist’ by Millais is the haunting portrait of a sleepwalking woman dressed in white. It is full of a brooding dark menace, and subtly conjures up themes of suppressed sexuality and the occult which also feature strongly in the novel where the painting is first described in the following way –

'That painting was called The Somnambulist, and it showed a young woman with flowing dark hair, wearing no more than a thin cotton gown as she walked at the perilous edge of a cliff. She carried a candle, but no flame had been lit, and I always feared she might slip to her death, dashed on the rocks in a cold grey sea...'

Some say the Millais painting was inspired by Wilkie Collins’ sensational novel The Woman in White – others that it was based upon La Sonnambula, a popular nineteenth century opera which played to packed houses all over Europe – much like Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals today. And as Andrew Lloyd Webber has previously purchased many other Pre-Raphaelite paintings, perhaps he will be interested in this week’s sale of ‘The Somnambulist’.

Essie Fox will certainly be going along, if only to view this wonderful painting (viewings can be made today, tomorrow,and on Wednesday morning between 9-11am) and the acution will take place on the afternoon of Wednesday July 13th at Bonhams in London’s New Bond Street.

FOR A RELATED POST PLEASE SEE: EVERETT MILLIAS, JOHN RUSKIN AND EFFIE GRAY...

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING CONSTANT...

2011-07-04T14:20:00.002+01:00

Constance Wilde (January 2 1859 – April 7, 1898) seen here with her son, Cyril

When the young Constance Lloyd declared herself to be insanely happy to have become engaged to Oscar Wilde, she could not have known the heartbreak and shame that would follow.

Constance was very pretty, and well educated too. She painted and studied Shelley, wrote children’s stories and loved fashion – later becoming strongly involved in the Rational Dress movement - and there is every reason to believe that Oscar was equally entranced with her at the start of their relationship. He even designed her engagement ring, and wrote these intensely romantic lines in an early letter –

‘I felt your fingers in my hair and your cheeks brushing mine. The air is full of the music of your voice, my soul and body seem no longer mine, but mingled with some exquisite ecstasy with yours.’

Constance's 'beloved Oscar'.

But time was soon to take its toll. Despite the birth of two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan, Oscar grew bored with his wife’s allure, seduced by the company of younger men – and most fatally with Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas, the dangerous young aristocrat whose testimony about their affair would lead to the older married man being socially ruined and serving a term of imprisonment on a charge of ‘gross indecency’.

Oscar with Lord Alfred Douglas

Constance and Oscar never divorced, even though she changed her name to Holland and spent a great deal of time abroad, insisting that her husband give up all of his parental rights.

But, it was Constance who visited in gaol to tell Oscar of his mother’s death, and Constance who offered financial support when her husband was released, during his Continental exile – and perhaps she might have taken him back but there was such shame and prejudice then – almost too much to be able to bear. And Oscar did not offer his wife anywhere near the same level of constancy.

After a fall in their Chelsea home, Constance suffered a debilitating spinal injury which, in conjunction with what may have been cancer of the uterus, led to her undertaking surgery when in Genoa in Italy, which became her final resting place - much too young, at the age of 39.

Oscar did not visit his dying wife.

If you would like to read more about Constance Wilde, a new book has recently come out – Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs Oscar Wilde, written by Franny Moyle.

RELATED POST: JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS - with mentions of 'Desperate Romantics' which was also written by Franny Moyle.

MORE WINDOWS AT LACOCK ABBEY...

2011-06-23T21:47:00.002+01:00

Whilst visiting Lacock Abbey, and under the stern gaze of William Henry Fox Talbot, the VV pulled out her own new-fangled camera and took a few pictures of some windows in the scientist's house...

starting with the oriel window which featured in Fox Talbot's earliest photographic experiments...

and then moving on to others as she strolled in the grounds around the house...

from various different angles...

finding this one particularly quaint...

and this elegantly ecclesiastical.

'A LITTLE BIT OF MAGIC REALISED'...

2011-06-22T11:27:00.003+01:00

Fern - Sun Print by William Henry Fox Talbot

The VV has been thinking again about the history of photography. So she took herself off for a visit to the village of Lacock Abbey where the Fox Talbot Museum of Photography commemorates the life and work of William Henry Fox Talbot.

Fox Talbot (1800-1877) had been a prodigiously intelligent child who often amazed his tutors at Cambridge. And, having being born into a wealthy family, when Fox Talbot left university he was able to continue indulging his many interests: mathematics, astronomy, archaeology - and also invention and scientific research by which, in the 1830’s, he came to discover the negative/positive process involved in the art of photography.

John Hershel and Thomas Wedgwood before had worked with creating photograms – the silhouettes of objects placed on paper and left in the sunlight. However these images were not stable and very soon tended to fade away which made Fox Talbot determined to find a method of ‘photographic drawing’ which would be more reliable. He experimented with ‘fixing’ the paper, after which he came to realise that, although it was generally assumed that all pictures required long exposure times, the image was actually there quite soon, latent but invisible on the page, so that if a suitable chemical was applied, a negative would ‘develop’ from which any number of ‘positives’ could then be printed out – in contrast to Louis Daguerre’s Daguerreotypes (a direct positive set on glass) which could only be created once.

Fox Talbot’s methods went on to form the basis for almost all methods of subsequent photography, though what he would have made of the digital form the VV can only imagine - thinking he may have repeated these words –

‘A person unacquainted with the process, if told that nothing of this was executed by hand, must imagine that one has at one’s call the Genius of Alladin’s Lamp. And, indeed, it may almost be said, that this is something of the same kind. It is a little bit of magic realised.’

The latticed oriel window from Fox Talbot’s Lacock Abbey home is printed from the oldest photographic negative in existence, first created in 1835. It does indeed have some otherworldly magic about it.

THE VICTORIANS AND SCIENCE FICTION...

2011-06-12T17:37:00.008+01:00

When the VV thinks of Victorian writers, the genre of science fiction is not the first that springs to mind. Rather, it is the idea of domestic sagas charting the intricacies of everyday life, juxtaposed with sensation, melodrama and mystery. And yet there were authors quite unrestricted by such conventions as the current free exhibition at the British Library shows.

'Out Of This World: Science Fiction But Not as You Know It' informs us that the nineteenth century was a time when futuristic scientific fiction was rampant, with exciting novels being published that are still in print as classics today, and the concepts within them still influencing much of our contemporary writing and drama.

The Victorian era was one transformed by the industrial revolution, with many 'fantastical' new inventions such as the steam engine, the telegraph, the use of electricity, the 'magic' of film and photography. So, it would not have been the greatest leap for an imaginative and active mind to construct whole 'new worlds' around such ideas.

Sometimes that imagination turned out to be prophetic, such as in the case of Jules Verne who, when writing From the Earth to the Moon in 1865, described a journey in which he predicted, with quite an uncanny accuracy, a three-manned aluminium spacecraft being launched from Florida by a cannon called Columbiad, which then returned to earth again by splashing down into the Pacific ocean – and all at an estimated cost that was almost the same in real time as the billions which financed the Apollo mission – when 3 men were blasted up to the moon in a vessel made mainly of aluminium, before splashing back down to the Pacific Ocean!

There was fictional travel of a different kind, and many stories had already been told whereby men travelled back and forth in time, but never by using an actual machine - until The Time Machine by H G Wells which proved to be hugely successful – although it has to be said that the concept was not original as a Spanish writer called E Gaspar had already published El Anacronopete – or The Time Ship: a novel based on a vessel that if anything resembles the ideas behind the construction of Dr Who’s Tardis, being larger on the inside than out, whereas H G Wells' contraption was a great deal smaller and more 'down to earth'.

Both writers were telling more than a story. Wells was deeply concerned about the social disintegration that might result from industrial advances. Gaspar may have set his character off on a romp through ancient Rome, 3^rd Century China, and the start of creation, but their journey was a clever way of satirising the present day – just as Jonathan Swift also did when, in the early 1700's, he created Lemuel Gulliver who sailed more conventionally to visit weird and wonderful lands which satirised the everyday faults of government and religion.

So, you see the old adage really is true – there is rarely anything new in this world – even when it comes to the 'other worlds' of science fiction and fantasy. And though now we find ourselves in the midst of another extraordinary revolution – this time a digital one which may yet open up who knows what new and exciting realms, even this phenomenon was foreseen by the Victorian writer Mark Twain who, in 1898 when inspired by the invention of the telephone wrote a story set 6 years in the future in which he visualised ‘mind’ travelling, rather than that instigated by physical movement. His ‘telectroscope’ has striking similarities to our modern internet, making ‘the daily doings of the globe…visible to everybody, and audibly discussable too, by witnesses separated by any number of leagues.’

The VV cannot but help ponder on what wonders might come next - perhaps even telecommunication with other beings in our universe - but, you know, H G Wells thought of that too when he wrote about Mars in The War of the Worlds.

The OUT OF THIS WORLD Exhibition continues until September.

Gaspar's novel is currently being translated and should be available in English next year.

And, creating a rather nice symmetry, another Spanish writer has recently written a best-selling novel entitled The Map of Time in which the author, Felix J Palma, employs many themes from H G Wells' The Time Machine whilst reconstructing and twisting them into an entirely new story which draws upon other Victorian 'wonders' such as the history of The Elephant Man.

For other related VV posts, please see:

THE MAN IN THE MOON

THE TRAGIC TALE OF THE ELEPHANT MAN

A SIGNED AND LINED FIRST EDITION OF THE SOMNAMBULIST BY ESSIE FOX...

2011-06-07T19:37:00.005+01:00

Yesterday, the VV was in Goldsboro Books in London's Cecil Court, (a wonderful Victorian pedestrianised street full of specialist book and print sellers) to sign and line copies of her book.

It now seems that every one of those books had already been sold, though to date there are still 2 pre-publication proof copies remaining.

So, today, to say a big thank you to all of her followers featured in the right hand bar of this blog, the VV has decided to give away a 'signed, lined and dated' first edition of her novel, The Somnambulist.

Please leave a comment below by 6pm on Sunday June 12.

This offer is NOT restricted to those followers in the UK - that simply wouldn't seem fair!

The draw has now been made and the first name out of the hat was... Ta da!...Kelly Marie

Kelly, please email me at virtualvictorian@gmail.com along with whatever dedication you would like and I will send the book out some time this coming week.

THE CLEANSING FLAMES: NEW NOVEL BY R.N. MORRIS...

2011-06-03T09:49:00.001+01:00

It is Easter, 1872. Fires burn in St. Petersburgh, a prelude to the revolutionary turmoil that will shake Russia a generation later. As the springtime thaw begins, a body rises to the surface of the Winter Canal. Following an anonymous tip-off, magistrate Porfiery Petrovich is drawn into an investigation of the radical intellectuals who seek to fan the flames of the revolution.

Could this be the last of Porfiry Petrovich?

For all you fans of the R N Morris' St Petersburgh Mysteries in which the investigator from Dostoevksy's Crime and Punishment lives on to pursue new crimes, the VV is able to offer a free copy of this his latest novel in the series. Please send your name and email address via virtualvictorian@gmail.com and the VV will draw a winner from the proverbial russian hat - she does have one you know! It looks rather smart.

ADDENDUM: The draw for The Cleansing Flames has now been made and the winner will be emailed shortly. Sorry to those who didn't win but just to let you know that Roger Morris will be doing a talk this coming Wednesday, June 15th, 2011 - it has been organised by the Friends of Croydon Library and will be held at the United Reformed Church, Addiscombe Grove, East Croydon. You can book on 0208 660 0775 or tickets will be available on the door.

THE CLOSURE OF WILTON'S MUSIC HALL...

2011-05-31T21:59:00.002+01:00

When Essie Fox wrote The Somnambulist, a Victorian novel with scenes set in Wilton’s music hall, and with one of her characters being hell-bent on having that venue closed down on grounds of moral decadence, she could hardly have guessed that this May 25, on the eve of her book’s publication, Wilton’s – which has survived for so long, ever since the 1850’s – would find itself faced with closure, having failed to secure restoration funds in its bid for the Heritage Lottery.

When the VV first visited the hall and saw the glint of brass barley-twist pillars that support a balcony above, she wondered what those metal poles might once have reflected in the hall’s heyday, when Victorian operatic stars ended their Covent Garden shows and jumped into cabs to be ferried out east, to sing at Wilton’s all over again – or when George Leybourne performed Champagne Charlie – a song so popular at the time that it led to a generous sponsorship deal, after which he drank nothing but Moet champagne.

Wilton’s is an historical gem – but not only for its music hall acts. During the London Dockers’ strike, by which time the hall was a Methodist mission, it provided the starving workers with 2,000 meals a day. And when the Methodists moved out, with the area designated for ‘slum clearance’ John Betjeman fought passionately to save it from demolition. A listed status was secured, with hopes that Wilton’s might be preserved, and for many years now its doors have re-opened, producing some wonderful shows for the public.

But the hall’s structure is rapidly failing and desperately in need of work without which its director, Frances Mayhew, says it will close by the end of the year.

If you agree with Essie Fox in believing that Wilton’s closure would be a needless event resulting in the permanent loss of this’ living’ time capsule of history, then please do donate to the Wilton’s fund by pledging whatever amount you can at: www.wiltons.org.uk/

And if you want to find out what the fuss is all about, Wilton’s puts on regular guided tours with details on their website – as well as information about its current shows.

Essie’s debut novel, The Somnambulist, is published by Orion Books: http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/books/the-somnambulist-hardback

W S GILBERT'S TOPSY-TURVY WORLD...

2011-05-31T19:10:00.005+01:00

Following on from her previous post about Sir W S Gilbert, the VV has just ordered a copy of the 1999 Mike Leigh film, Topsy-Turvy.

Topsy-Turvy dramatises the events between 1884 and 1885 during the Savoy Theatre production of the Mikado, depicting all the stresses and strains between Mr Gilbert and Mr Sullivan - both on, behind, and off the stage.

The opera was inspired when Gilbert and his wife went to visit an exhibition of Japanese art in Knightsbridge. When the musical had been written and rehearsals were well in progress he brought in some of the Japanese girls who showed the ladies of the chorus how to walk and use their fans in the most convincing manner - in fact, giving them quite a snap if the following clip is anything to go by -

From what the VV has seen so far the film is a feast of colour and song, and with stars such as Timothy Spall, Jim Broadbent and Leslie Manville, it promises a great deal indeed.

The VV shall return to this post in due course and give her comments on the film, and meanwhile if you've already seen Topsy Turvy please do let her know what you thought.

SIR WILLIAM SCHWENCK GILBERT...

2011-05-29T20:46:00.005+01:00

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert 18 November 1836 – 29 May 1911

One hundred years ago today W S Gilbert died.

Born the son of naval surgeon who went on to write novels and short stories, Gilbert himself originally trained to be part of the legal profession. But it seemed he was not suited to the life of a barrister, and with fewer and fewer clients, and when forced to address a dwindling income he also began to write, particularly for the theatre in which he was tirelessly enthusiastic, creating operatic burlesques, plays and libretti, stories, song lyrics, pantomime scripts - even designing sets and stage costumes, or providing his own illustrations for Bab Ballads; a collection of comical verse. (Bab was his nickname as a child).

An illustration from Bab Ballads

But what really changed his life and guaranteed its future fame occurred in 1871 when Gilbert was asked to write a piece called Thespis, with music provided by Arthur Sullivan, already a popular young composer. The score was never published and the music has now been lost, but that first endeavour came to the notice of the producer Richard D’Oyly Carte, after which the two men were commissioned to create many more such collaborations which went on to be known as the Savoy Operas, after the theatre in which they were housed.

Performance of The Pirates of Penzanze

Beginning with Trial by Jury, they followed with other successes such as H M S Pinafore , The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado – all of which proved to be in great demand as respectable Victorian entertainment – with a frisson of irreverent wit beneath, but neverless deemed suitable for the amusement of young and old alike.

There were many memorable songs with lines such as – ‘A policeman’s lot is not a happy one’, or ‘Short, sharp shock’, or ‘What never? Well, hardly ever!’ or ‘Let the punishment fit the crime’ – all of which are still frequently used today. But, contrary to what might be imagined, although their working partnership went on for more than twenty years, the relationship between Gilbert and Sullivan was not a happy one. Gilbert would write the libretti and then simply sent the words off for his partner, and as the years passed many frictions arose. Gilbert’s ‘topsy-turvy’ dramas where accepted social order was turned upon its head, with many public figures being lampooned and parodied, often clashed with Sullivan’s desire to be friends with the upper classes and rich.So, towards the end of their careers, by which time both men had been knighted, their paths diverged, more often than not working alone, and often on serious projects.

From The Mikado, a children's book by W S Gilbert

with illustrations by Alice B Woodward, published posthumously in 1921

Gilbert built The Garrick Theatre, and when he wrote The Hooligan, the play was deemed to be so gruesome that women in the audience fainted. But, he also revisited his previous successes by writing children’s books based on the stories of HMS Pinafore and The Mikado - for despite having a reputation for sometimes being 'prickly', Gilbert was known to love children, and he could be extraordinarily kind – often paying for cabs for his theatre staff if they worked too late or the weather was bad, and setting up funds for friends who had fallen into penury.

The Gilberts

Personally, he was also known to be very fond of the opposite sex. In 1867 he married Lucy Agnes Turner or ‘Kitty’, a woman eleven years his junior, and though never having children of their own, later on they did unofficially adopt an actress called Nancy McIntosh who’d been cast in one of Gilbert's plays, and who later shared their Harrow home which went by the name of Grim’s Dyke.

That name seems somewhat poignant now as, at the age of 75, Gilbert was to meet his death when suffering a heart attack while going to the aid of two little maids who'd been swimming in his lake – or so the official story goes. But, as the VV mentioned previously, Gilbert was fond of his female friends - and that fondness persisted until his death. Let us hope that he went with a smile on his face, which seems to be only fitting and fair considering the legacy he left behind; all those works that continue to make us smile.

Gilbert by the cartoonist Spy

THE SOMNAMBULIST: AN EXTRACT...

2011-05-17T20:59:00.002+01:00

The VV can hardly believe it but, by the end of this month, her novel will actually be published.

The Somnambulist is currently Orion Books' historical novel of the month, and between now and May 26th you can download a free sample of the opening chapters of this Victorian gothic mystery simply by clicking this link's 'extras' tab.

And here is a Review of The Somnambulist by Essie Fox. The VV loves this because Pamreader really 'gets' all the themes and nuances that she hoped to convey in the novel.

THE HISTORY OF PEARS PURE SOAP...

2011-05-15T20:16:00.001+01:00

In Michel Faber’s book, The Crimson Petal and the White – the subject of some previous posts – the main male character, William Rackham, has inherited a soap ‘empire’, the product famed for its Lavender perfume, with William’s face printed up on the packing.

What a brilliant decision of Faber’s to select that particular product on which to base his industrialist’s wealth when William's story reeks of filth and degradation, so much so that when first reading the novel several years ago the VV found herself overcome with a desire to spring clean the entire house – sweeping out kitchen cupboards and scrubbing everything with bleach in between sitting down to rest again, when she read more descriptions of squalid sex.

A contemporary Victorian model for a business such as Rackham ran could very well be that of Pears – the company that won a medal for its product at the Great Exhibition in 1851. How proud William Rackham would have been if only his soap could achieve such a thing!

Pears soap was invented many years before, named after Andrew Pears who originally hailed from Cornwall before travelling to London to set up trade as a barber. And there in 1789 Andrew began to manufacture cosmetics based on glycerine and natural oils – intended to be pure and 'kind' to counteract the damaging affects of other harsher toiletries which were said to enhance the fashionable ‘alabaster’ complexion, but which often contained ingredients such as arsenic or lead.

As the years went by the business grew and prospered, eventually handed down to Andrew's grandson, Francis Pears. A factory was built in Isleworth and later in the nineteenth century the marketing expertise of Francis' son in law, Thomas J Barratt, helped to promote the family brand before he took over as head of the firm.

Barratt is sometimes spoken of as the father of modern advertising. He often bought the rights to art which was then made up as posters, adding to the soap’s popularity. If you look for Pears in Google images you will find a huge selection of prints. Why, even Mr Millais, one of the VV’s favourites, provided a picture for Pears to use – and ‘Bubbles’ is still very well known today.

Another route of promotion was to use the product as an emblem of cleanliness and civilisation spreading throughout Queen Victoria's Empire. Images such as this one below would be construed as racist today, though it is mild compared with some of the others used.

Ingeniously, at one point unwanted coins were bought up from France and pressed with the words ‘Pears Soap’, and these often passed as pennies in the common currency.

Lily Langtry, famed for her ivory skin, was employed as a celebrity endorser of the brand, for which she was handsomely paid - a fact that Punch magazine made fun of in various cartoons.

Between 1891 and 1925, Pears printed books called Christmas Annuals with stories amongst the advertisements. And in the early twentieth century the 'Miss Pears' competition was born, with families entering their little girls in the hope that they might become the next beautiful 'face’ of Pears - a competition which was certainly still running until very recently, and for all the VV knows still is.

Pears soap is an enduring brand that can still be bought in the shops today, the almost transparent amber bars being unique and widely loved – so much so that when Unilever, who now own the brand, attempted to alter the perfume there was an enormous public campaign to change it back to the original.

I'm sure Andrew Pears would be very proud to know that his recipe endures.

THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE...

2011-05-05T08:17:00.001+01:00

WARNING: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS TO THE PLOT OF THE BOOK.

Another post on The Crimson Petal and the White, simply because the television dramatisation of the book proved to be such a roaring success. And the VV must also take time to admit that her previous fears were proved to be wrong - in that the screenwriters had not cut the part of William Rackham's little daughter, Sophie. She was there after all, and wonderfully played by the child actor, Isla Watt - and the VV's only reservation was that in the final episode Sophie's future appeared to be safe and secure, whereas in the book the conclusion was far more ambiguous and, if anything, the suggestion was that Sophie might well go on to be trapped in Sugar's previous way of life - with Sugar acting the madam, just as her own mother had done before - which would have been tragic for all concerned - and which would have haunted William Rackham who, despite the VV's initial doubts was admirably played by Chris O'Dowd.

Chris O'Dowd went on to truly 'possess' William Rackham's character, leaving the viewer poised between angry contempt for his boorish and selfish vanity, and complete and utter pity for the ultimate end fate had in store when he was totally outplayed by the prostitute he might have ruined - just as he ruined his wife before when so blind to her pain and suffering.

And when that final episode was screened in Waterstone's Piccadilly last week, followed by a question and answer session with the author Michel Faber, and the actor Romola Garai (who played Sugar so brilliantly), the evening was attended by the writer and actor, Kate Mayfield, who has written the following article -

'An invisible passion ran throughout Waterstone’s event room as the last instalment of The Crimson Petal and the White was screened to over forty eager viewers. After the last image of Sugar and Sophie on the smoky train platform faded, some doors opened and Michel Faber, the author, Lucinda Coxon, the screenwriter, and Romala Garai, the actress who played Sugar, walked into the room.

Michel Faber opened the discussion with his opinion that authors have impossible expectations when their work is adapted. He was impressed and delighted with the series and had no negative experiences. When his book was first published he did not go directly to Google to gauge readers’ reactions, but after the first episode aired, he was eager to find out what people were saying.

Michel wrote the book three times. You might recall in the opening of both the novel and the series a nameless woman is run over by a cab. In the first draft Sugar met her end the same way, while Sophie stood by as a horrified witness to Sugar’s demise. The prostitute Caroline rescued Sugar’s novel only to burn it for warmth. Thankfully, Michel’s wife screamed, ‘No, you mustn’t do that to the readers, or to the characters’.

When asked how he approached the characters he said, “They were not an artificial construct. Once they were real it wasn’t difficult.”

Michel said he could easily give a forty-five minute lecture on the research for the novel. Many people thought he made things up, as in the books and pamphlets cataloguing the prostitutes. The real books of the era were even grimmer, wherein prostitutes were described as grades of hanging slaughtered meat. “One that had hung too long was a bit wiffy.” As intense as his representation of the rookery, the lives and fates of prostitutes were, he toned it down, the reality being much worse.

Michel thought there should have been six instalments instead of four. Lucinda Coxon agreed. She regretted that there was not time to include more of the characters of Henry and Mrs. Fox, an impossible task in four hours.

The project was first brought to Lucinda Coxon by an American studio, from which she immediately bowed out. She rightly thought it wouldn’t survive the process. Time passed and she was raring to go with “a fire in her belly” when the project fell into her hands again and to the BBC. Then Lucinda did something she’d never done before. She ripped the book apart into four sections so that she could travel with it on the tube, and it wasn’t surprising to hear that her biggest challenge was the compression of such a long novel.

In speaking of adjustments and liberties taken, Lucinda couldn’t find a way to wink at the audience to relay that Agnes suffered from a brain tumour and decided to focus instead on the condition of anorexia, so prevalent in Victorian upper and middle class women whose food intake was the one thing they could control in their lives.

At the end of the novel, Cheesman, the carriage driver, demands and receives sex from Sugar before he allows her to escape. Lucinda said she couldn’t bear it, and had Sugar strike him with her walking cane, finally able to express her anger physically.

Lucinda saw Sugar as such an epic heroine that there could be nothing “domestic” about the ending. It was not important for us to know exactly what happened next. Michel was pleased with the image of the fresh, clean pieces of parchment upon which Sugar begins a new draft of her novel, a new life. We see the blank page at a point where we can no longer look up her knickers, or watch her scratch herself. She finally has her privacy.

Sugar was a role that Romala Garai fought hard to win, but like many large roles, once it was hers she was daunted. She called it “a strange piece of casting” for Sugar was unlike her in every way.

The powers that be at the BBC weren’t comfortable with the idea of a heroine having eczema. The images we’ve seen of Sugar’s eczema-tortured skin were possible thanks to Romala who fought to wear the ugly latex patches.

Romala’s biggest challenge was that she loved Sugar so much she had to continually resist the urge to make her invincible. Sugar is strong in many ways, but also incredibly vulnerable and tender. Romala loved the research, but the director pulled her away from it and asked her to focus on each moment.

All three agreed that what they had learned from the experience was related to the illusory power of women – and how not much has changed. Their opinion was that today women are offered the appearance of power, but someone else is often calling the shots.

Michel Faber ended the evening by saying the success of the book reconfirmed that readers are intelligent and still long for a good story. He was heartened by the fact that literary fiction survives as long as there are characters and story.'

Kate Mayfield

Kate Mayfield's own book is called The Undertaker's Women. You can learn more about Kate, read excerpts from her book, and watch a film trailer which she narrates at this website.

And finally, for a related post, see THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE...

MYRTLE BLOSSOM IN MARRIAGE BOUQUETS...

2011-04-29T22:03:00.003+01:00

This is a Victorian bridal wreath made of wax and cloth orange and myrtle flowers.

Dating back to ancient times, the fragrant white blooms of the myrtle plant were often viewed as sacred, representing not only love and desire, but also immortality. The plant was strongly associated with images of Aphrodite and Venus, the goddesses of Greek and Roman love. The Three Graces who waited on Aphrodite, and who symbolised all femininity were often crowned with myrtle wreaths. And, in Roman tradition, oils pressed from the leaves were used for healing and soothing wounds, as well as scenting the ritual baths taken by brides before they wed.

Osborne House from below the Terrace by W. L. Leitch

In Victorian times the myrtle flower was said to bring luck and fidelity and, although her wedding bouquet was comprised solely of snowdrops, Queen Victoria had a myrtle plant of her own, grown along the terraced walls in the gardens of Osborne House, propagated from a sprig in a nosegay given by Prince Albert’s grandmother when the couple visited Germany in 1845.

The Wedding of Princess Victoria

Later, when Queen Victoria’s daughters wed, Victoria, Alice, Helena, Louise and Beatrice, all carried bouquets which contained blooms from that very plant in Osborne House – as did Katherine Middleton today, when she married Prince William in Westminster Abbey.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF EASTER EGGS...

2011-04-24T11:38:00.001+01:00

The egg is a symbol of rebirth and fertility, and going back as far as thousands of years, a simple bird’s egg would be given as a gift, often gaudily painted to celebrate the colours and vibrancy that came with the season of spring, when the Sun god stirred to life again - all long before Christianity.

In 1307 Edward I’s household accounts included an entry that said: 18 pence for 459 eggs to be boiled and dyed or covered with gold leaf and distributed to the royal household. (If you want to create your own golden egg, wrap an egg in onion skins, secure firmly with string or rubber bands and then simmer in a pan of water for up to an hour – by which time the egg should be marbled gold.) Then again, you might prefer a more expensive alternative, such as the flawless jewelled eggs created in the nineteenth century by Carl Faberge for the Russian Czar and Czarina, constructed of enamelled platinum shells which each contained a small golden egg.

Such a rare and priceless gift is unlikely to find its way into most of our hands this Sunday. But chocolate eggs will be widely held, with many fingers grown sticky and brown - and this melting quality of the confection is what led to the possibility of chocolate taking the form of eggs.

The first chocolate eggs were only developed in the early 19^th century when, originally in France and Germany, a blend was created that could be shaped. In England, John Cadbury made his first solid eggs in 1842, but it was not until many years later, after a press was successfully used to separate the cocoa butter from the bean, that a finer chocolate was available, and being easy to melt and mould the result was the Cadbury Easter egg of 1875. The first eggs were made of smooth plain chocolate and the insides were filled with dragees but many more designs followed on, with icing and marzipan flowers, and boxes and ribbons to decorate: now become the annual indulgence which is a tradition for all.

For a related post, see: THE SWEET SUCCESS OF CADBURY'S.

HAPPY EASTER FROM THE VIRTUAL VICTORIAN...

2011-04-24T10:15:00.001+01:00

Feeding the Lambs by Ernest Higgins Rigg (1868-1947)

THE TURNER CONTEMPORARY GALLERY OPENS IN MARGATE...

2011-04-18T20:54:00.004+01:00

The Pier, Margate by James Webb (1868) - currently on show at the Turner Contemporary

This weekend the VV was lucky enough to take a trip to the seaside when she attended the opening of the Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate.

Though Margate was once a grand seaside town about which Lillie Langtry sang (listen to a sample here) and to which Victorian visitors flocked in their hundreds of thousands, nowadays it is somewhat in decline. But, it is hoped that this wonderful new gallery will inspire reinvestment and renovation - and Margate still has an undoubted charm, boasting some beautiful houses and one of the loveliest beaches and skylines that you could wish to see.

The Turner Contemporary (the second building from the left in this photograph) looks directly over the sea, and what's more it is built on the very spot where the artist J.M.W.Turner once used to stay in a guest house, where the favours of his more than accommodating landlady, Sophia Booth, may have enhanced the opinion written to the art critic John Ruskin that ‘…the skies over Thanet are the loveliest in all Europe.’

The New Moon by JMW Turner

Waves Breaking on Lee Shore by JMW Turner

Indeed, more than 100 of Turner’s paintings were inspired by the East Kent coast of which The New Moon and Waves Breaking on Lee Shore at Margate (both circa 1840) are very fine examples.

The Eruption of the Souffrier Mountains in the island of St Vincent, based on a sketch by Hugh P. Keane.

For now the only work by Turner to adorn the new gallery's walls is The Eruption of the Souffrier Mountains - shown above - but from January 2012 the Turner Contemporary will be hosting an extensive exhibition of watercolours and major paintings to be called Turner and the Elements, an event for which the VV is already planning another visit to Margate.

Self portrait by JMW Turner (1775-1851)

EXHIBITION ON THE LIFE AND WORKS OF RICHARD DADD...

2011-04-13T16:59:00.005+01:00

Portrait of Sir Thomas Phillips by Richard Dadd

(Photograph reproduced by permission of the Bethlem Art and History Collections Trust.)

The Diadonus (1861) by Richard Dadd from the Henry Boxer Collection - not previously exhibited.

Following on from the VV's post MADNESS, MURDER, AND FAIRY FOLK, she has discovered that there is to be an exhibition to chart the career of the Victorian visionary artist, Richard Dadd. It will cover his very earliest work and that created while travelling to Europe and the Middle East, as well as those later pictures created when Dadd had been diagnosed insane, spending the remainder of his life in the care of the Bethlem and Broadmoor hospitals.

The exhibition, which is free, will be held at the Orleans House Gallery, Riverside, Twickenham, TWE1 3DJ and will run from May 28 - October 2, 2011.

The VV will certainly visit.

THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE...

2011-04-08T21:52:00.004+01:00

This week the BBC broadcast the first episode of its adaptation of Michael Faber's internationally renowned historical novel, The Crimson Petal and the White.

Romola Garai (above) plays Sugar, the brilliantly realised red-haired whore whose intelligence, wit and propensity to do anything a man may desire, renowned for 'never saying no', entrances William Rackham, (Chris O'Dowd) the egotistical industrialist magnate whose wife, the fair haired Agnes, is on the verge of a breakdown, unwilling to reciprocate her husband's advances whilst at the same time being abused by the sinister Doctor Curlew, who is played to perfection by Richard E Grant.

The book is true to its Victorian origins in that it is a sprawling beast with vivid and detailed descriptions woven into an intricate plot and a cast of characters from every spectrum of society. Where it differs to what Dickens offered is in its open treatment of sex which is unflinching and graphic at times, not to say decidedly uncomfortable - but then this is a novel about the life of a prostitute at a time in London when, for every twelve men, there was at least one woman who would do their bidding for a price.

Faber's writing is superb though many readers have found the content to be too dark, oppressive and disturbing. It is all of these things - and more. This is no pretty romantic tale and the VV must confess that when she came to the book's end she was left with a decidedly bad taste in her mouth - at the same being quite sure that that was precisely what Faber intended.

All in all the VV is reserving judgement after seeing just one episode of the BBC dramatisation. Admittedly, it must be very hard to condense such a lengthy novel into four one hourly episodes. Certain details are bound to be lost - but if, as the VV fears, the child of William and Agnes is not to be included, then she would be sorely disappointed - for, without giving anything away, the part Sugar plays in the fate of this girl is an essential part of the plot.

If you've read the book or seen this drama, the VV would love to know what you thought. The first episode is available to watch on iplayer now. This BBC page also has further details about the novel and its characters.

WIN A PROOF COPY OF THE UNSEEN BY KATHERINE WEBB...

2011-04-04T08:24:00.003+01:00

Today, like any good fairy, the VV comes bearing a free gift and is delighted to announce a competition. To win a proof copy of The Unseen by Katherine Webb, all you need do is reply to the following question, the answer to which can be found in The Virtual Victorian's previous post: -

THE CASE OF THE COTTINGLEY FAIRIES: A GUEST POST BY AUTHOR KATHERINE WEBB

QUESTION: 'What was the name of Arthur Conan Doyle's uncle who painted 'Under the Dock Leaves'?

Please send your answers to virtualvictorian@gmail.com by Friday April 8th. The VV will then choose a name at random and contact the winner for their address. Good luck! The Unseen is an excellent read.

And now, Friday is here - and the winner is - drum roll while the VV puts on her blindfold and hovers a finger over the list of names...Deborah Riccio.

Congratulations Deborah!

ADDENDUM: Deborah has now read The Unseen and here is a link to her review - I think it's safe to say that she liked it!

THE CASE OF THE COTTINGLEY FAIRES: GUEST POST BY THE AUTHOR KATHERINE WEBB...

2011-03-29T10:55:00.001+01:00

Having recently read The Unseen, Katherine Webb's wonderful second novel which is published this week, there was one scene so vivid and magical that the VV was instantly reminded of this picture by Richard Doyle in which a cluster of fluttering white fairies might very well be moths, hovering 'Under the Dock Leaves'.

And, with that painting's artist having been the uncle of Arthur Conan Doyle, the VV was delighted when Katherine Webb offered to write to a guest post for the blog in which she discusses a famous event that intrigued the creator of Sherlock Holmes who, surprisingly for some, believed in the existence of fairy folk -

THE CASE OF THE COTTINGLEY FAIRIES...

In 1917, Elsie Wright (above) and Frances Griffiths, two schoolgirls living in Cottingley, West Yorkshire, took a series of photographs of what they claimed were fairies. These famous pictures have always fascinated me – when I was younger because I liked to think that the fairies were real, and as I grew up because the hoax (or alleged hoax!) had lasted as long as it did, and managed to convince several prominent and well-respected figures of the age, including leading theosophist Edward Gardner and, most famously of all, the author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

So why were these rational, intelligent men so prepared to accept that the pictures were genuine? To sceptical, modern eyes, the photos look very staged indeed. Rather than appearing to be wild, elemental creatures, the fairies have neat, fashionable hair styles and slip dresses; they appear two dimensional, perfect, and doll-like. Photography experts at the time confirmed that the pictures had not been taken as double exposures, and that nothing had been painted or printed onto the negatives after exposure. One even testified that the fairies in the dancing picture (below) seemed to have moved during the exposure – proof positive that they were real, and had been dancing when photographed. Or perhaps, that a light and flimsy paper figure had shifted slightly in a breeze…

The answer to why the photos convinced these men becomes evident when you read the letters that passed between Edward Gardner and Conan Doyle, the articles about the case which Conan Doyle wrote for Strand Magazine, and his later book ‘The Coming of the Fairies’. They believed because they so desperately wanted to believe. For Gardner and Conan Doyle, fairies were part of a hierarchy of nature spirits and ethereal beings, in turn a part of the ‘universal soul’ that lies at the centre of theosophy. Only the truly enlightened, or the naturally clairvoyant, would be able to see these pure beings. As such, their existence proved the tenants of theosophy, or the ‘Divine Truth’, to be true.

But sightings of fairies didn’t always fit the theosophical model so neatly, and in ‘The Coming of the Fairies’, Conan Doyle clearly wrestles with the details of some reported cases. One Mrs Hardy, living in New Zealand, described seeing fairies riding around her garden on little fairy horses. This was not the only account of fairy horses that Conan Doyle had come across, but he admitted that such descriptions made things “more complicated and harder to understand.” If they had miniature horses, then, as Conan Doyle writes, “why not dogs?” At this point, the fairies stopped being the essence of nature made visible in bodies less dense than air, and became the ‘little people’ of childhood stories. So perhaps what made the Cottingley fairies so attractive, from a theosophical stand point, was that they had been seen by virginal young girls, often thought to possess a natural clairvoyance; that they were seen in an area of unspoilt natural beauty; and that they showed no complicated behaviour or equipment that interfered with the idea that they were indeed manifestations of pure natural energy.

The number of ghost and fairy sightings, and the popularity of theosophy and spiritualism from the late Victorian era right the way through the Edwardian, shows that people at the time were very keen to believe in an ‘other world’ of some kind – either the world of the spirits of the dead, with which a medium could communicate; or on a grander scale, in a whole pantheon of spirits of various types and powers. Perhaps, as some writers believe, these beliefs came to fill a void that was left behind at a time when new discoveries were encroaching on religious faith. Darwin’s theory of evolution was gaining ground, and undermining the traditional Christian explanation of the origins of mankind. Science, medicine and rationalism had left some people with serious doubts about the church’s teachings, and yet the world was still full of wonders – from electricity to anaesthesia – that remained beyond most people’s understanding. Spiritualism stepped into this gap. In short, people still wanted to believe in something – in some supernatural driving force; and if that was no longer God, then they would look for alternatives.

It was this desire to believe that was my starting point as I began to shape the plot of my novel, The Unseen. I started to wonder why different people might believe, and what their various reactions to the possibility of fairies living at the bottom of the garden might be; and also why somebody might be prepared to assemble a hoax to help convince the sceptics. Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths admitted in later life that their photos had been hoaxed, taken with the help of paper cut outs. The high-profile attention they received made it impossible for them to confess at the time. But to her dying day Frances insisted that there had been fairies at Cottingley, and that the final picture they took, of the fairy bower (above), was genuine. Using a fake to prove that something is real…a fascinating idea that I carried into my book!

Katherine Webb was born in 1977 and grew up in Hampshire before reading History at Durham University. She has since spent time living in London and Venice, and now lives in rural Berkshire. Having worked as a waitress, au pair, personal assistant, book binder, library assistant, seller of fairy costumes, and housekeeper, she now writes full time.

The VV thoroughly recommends Katherine's new novel, The Unseen, as well as her debut, The Legacy, one of the choices for last year's TV Book Club, which went on to be voted by the readers as their favourite of the series.

Katherine Webb

PS - The VV also once believed that those fairies in the pictures were real!