The Democratization of Fashion

Yes that’s a pretentious title, for a post that is uneducated speculation. I borrowed the phrase from the book COSTUME by Rachel Kemper. For her fashion became available to the general populace (aka the masses) with the introduction of mail order catalogs.

I don’t agree with her. I think fashionable styles for everyone began with the invention of the sewing machine and even before that with the use of machine produced cloth. Elias Howe patented his machine that used “thread from two sources” in a lockstitch design. That was in 1846, though there had been attempts at developing a sewing machine as early as 1755. (As an aside the patent wars surrounding the sewing machine are worth a blog if you’re interested in patent law (I’m not).)

Today Vera Wang, of the uber expensive wedding dresses, has designed a line of clothes for Kohl’s, just one of a number of designers to make stylish cloths and an affordable price.

Shopping is my great escape (note: shopping, not buying). One of my favorite things to do is check out the designer salons at Saks and Neimans and then follow the styles down the economic scale to Kohls and Target. The brilliant monologue on how color makes it way to the masses by Meryl Streep in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA is one of the best illustrations of the “democratization of fashion."

Wearing clothes with a sense of style transcends economic status as the blogger TheSartorialist.blogspot.com illustrates. But in order to do that the clothes have to be available. The sewing machine made that possible as did the mail order catalog.

After the printing press I think that sewing machine was one of the great social equalizers of all time.

Your thoughts?

Henry the VIII's Love Letters to Anne Boleyn

I love reading historical letters and Janet's post on Jane Austen's letters reminded me...this spring, the love letters of Henry the VIII to Anne Boleyn were made public. After decades in storage at the Vatican, the letters, most certainly stolen from Queen Anne, are on view as part of a major exhibition on Henry VIII opening at the British Library on April 23.

Written around 1528, five years before Anne became Queen, the words of devotion show a softer side to Henry, very different from the man who had a public reputation as a bloodthirsty ruler.

In some of the letters he assures her that "henceforth my heart will be dedicated to you alone," and apologizes profusely for ever suggesting she could be a mere mistress.

In many of the letters he professes a deeply passionate and committed love---and his intention to marry her (he was still married to Catherine of Aragon at the time).

He promises this repeatedly to Anne:

"The demonstrations of your affection are such, and the beautiful words of your letters are so cordially phrased, that they really oblige me to honour, love, and serve you forever....”

"For my part, I will outdo you, if this be possible, rather than reciprocate, in loyalty of heart and my desire to please you."

"Beseeching you also that if I have in any way offended you, you will give me the same absolution for which you ask, assuring you that henceforth my heart will be dedicated to you alone, and wishing greatly that my body was so too."

Anne was aware of Henry’s womanizing reputation and most scholars agree that she held out on him for at least seven years---refusing to have sexual relations with him.

Then I read the letter below, and I can’t quite tell—but maybe by this time Anne had given a little (all?) of it up? Their relationship was most certainly physical to some degree, since “dukkys” translates to “breasts” in modern English.

“Mine own sweetheart, these shall be to advertise you of the great loneliness that I find here since your departing, for I ensure you methinketh the time longer since your departing now last than I was wont to do a whole fortnight: I think your kindness and my fervents of love causeth it, for otherwise I would not have thought it possible that for so little a while it should have grieved me, but now that I am coming toward you methinketh my pains been half released.... Wishing myself (specially an evening) in my sweetheart's arms, whose pretty dukkys I trust shortly to kiss. Written with the hand of him that was, is, and shall be yours by his will.
H.R.”

Henry's desire for Anne was one of the driving forces behind England's breaking away from the rule of Roman Catholic Church. It became the Henry’s goal to secure an annulment from his wife, Catherine of Aragon, so he would be free to marry Anne. When I read his letters (written during this time), I find them passionate and tender, and yet a little disturbing. Perhaps because I know how this all ends. Just eight years after most of these letters were written, Henry was ready to move on, still in search of a woman who could give him a son (Anne did not and had fallen out of favor). Based on false charges of adultery, incest and witchcraft, he had her beheaded at the Tower of London in 1536.

The letters show Henry did really love Anne passionately in the beginning---but he had to arrest and execute friends, fight with his family, face unpopularity, banish his wife and child, and have a crisis of faith, to wed and bed her.

So I can’t help reading these now and coming away feeling like there was a hint of something sinister (obsession?) in his writings from the very beginning. What about you? Anne may have been blinded by her own ambition but is there something in these letters that sends up a red flag and would have alerted you to the danger?

A Day in the Life

How I wish someone would publish an annotated edition of Jane Austen's letters which I'm reading, or dipping into, as part of my research for my (tentatively titled) Immortal Jane books.

I wouldn't go so far as to agree with the description of the letters as "a desert of trivialities punctuated by occasional oases of clever malice" (H.W. Garrod) but they can be hard going. I've picked a letter Jane wrote to her sister Cassandra 210 years ago, on Tuesday, June 11, 1799, and will share with you what I found.

Jane was probably finishing Susan (renamed Northanger Abbey) around this time. There's a reference in this letter to First Impressions, revised almost a decade later to become Pride & Prejudice. Jane, Mrs. Austen and Edward Austen/Knight had arrived in Bath on May 17, and were staying at 13, Queens Square. They returned home at the end of June.

Much of the letter is to do with fashion. Jane had certain shopping errands she had to fulfill in the big city, including finding trimmings for Cassandra's hat:

Though you have given me unlimited powers concerning Your Sprig, I cannot determine what to do about it, & shall therefore in this & every future letter continue to ask you for further directions.--We have been to the cheap Shop, & very cheap we found it, but there are only flowers made there, no fruit--& as I could get 4 or 5 very pretty sprigs of the former for the same money which would procure only one Orleans plumb, in short could get more for three or four Shillings than I could have means of bringing home, I cannot decide on the fruit till I hear from you again.--Besides, I cannot help thinking that it is more natural to have flowers grow out of the head than fruit.--What do you think on that subject?

Sure enough, the Lady's Magazine of May 1799 pronounced: No woman, truly loyal to the divinity of fashion, can possibly appear now without feathers and flowers.

No mention of fruit, however, which Cassandra seemed to have her heart set on, and the Orleans plum[b] was a fairly ordinary dark-red English-grown fruit, nothing particularly exotic. To me, that begs the question of why you'd want it on a hat in the first place.

Jane mentions in the letter that they have not been out anywhere public, but in her previous letter of June 2 she mentioned that they were planning several outings, including attending

a Concert with Illuminations and fireworks;--to the latter Eliz. & I look forward with pleasure, & even the Concert will have more than its' usual charm with me, as the Gardens are large enough for me to get pretty well beyond the reach of its sound.

This was Jane Austen the music lover? Or should we assume that the musicianship at Sydney Gardens was of a particularly low standard? This outing was to have taken place on June 4, George III's birthday, but rain required the event to be postponed until June 18. It had been a particularly unpleasant spring and early summer in England that year, cold and rainy. The oboist in the orchestra, which Jane was so avid not to hear, was Alexander Herschel[l], brother of astronomer and composer William Herschel.

I'll blog another time about Sydney Gardens, a fashionable pleasure garden at the end of Great Pulteney Street, complete with a moated castle ruin, bowling green, labyrinth, and many other delights.

Here's another quote from today's letter which strikes a particular chord with me:

I do not know what the matter is with me today but I cannot write quietly; I am always wandering away into some exclamation or other.

I think I've probably answered my own question of why no one has annotated Austen's letters, or, more likely, demonstrated my incompetence at an attempt. Have you read Austen's letters? Whose letters from the period would you recommend? And do you agree with Austen that it's more natural to have flowers than fruit growing from one's head?

Le Faye, Deirdre. Jane Austen: A Family Record. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Le Faye, Deirdre (ed.). Jane Austen's Letters. Oxford University Press, 1997.
Snaddon, Brenda. The Last Promenade: Sydney Gardens, Bath. Millstream Books, 2000.

And now, in a blatant burst of self-promotion:
New website and contest at janetmullany.com and a chance to win a signed copy of A Most Lamentable Comedy in Pam Rosenthal's latest contest.
Plus today I'm blogging over at Risky Regencies about John Constable, whose birthday it is today, and talking about Immortal Jane at Austenprose and Jane Austen Today.

Marriage in Trouble Plots

I recently returned to reading Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil, which I had started last summer and then put aside (I sometimes hit moments when I’m writing when I just can’t read anything). I was drawn back immediately by the richness of the writing and the sharp emotional details. I was also struck by comparing and contrasting the book with the recent film, which I also liked. The major events are the same, but the emotional arc is quite different (though Kitty Fane does grow and change in both). It’s rather as though someone were to film Secrets of a Lady with the same basic plot but have the story end with Charles and Mel realizing they’d never really known or loved each other but staying together for practicality.

The other the thing The Painted Veil got me to thinking about is one of my favorite literary tropes–marriage in trouble plots. They’ve always fascinated me, long before I started writing about the marital angst of Charles and Mélanie Fraser. That’s why, when I cite influences and inspirations for the Charles & Mélanie series, in addition to the more obvious ones like The Scarlet Pimpernel, Scaramouche, Dorothy Dunnett, and Dorothy Sayers, I mention Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, and Len Deighton’s Bernard Samson books.

Reading The Painted Veil, I pondered the fascination of this plotline. The intimacy of marriage ups the stakes in the conflict between two people. Percy’s devastation at Marguerite’s seeming lack of trustworthiness is all the greater because she has just become his wife. Betrayal, I think, is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. How much worse is it when that betrayal comes from a spouse? Years of living together also gives characters a knowledge of each other that recent lovers wouldn’t have. In The Real Thing, the hero has a wonderful speech about knowing one’s spouse, in a way that goes far beyond carnal. That knowledge can be used for good or ill. George and Martha know just how to push each other’s buttons. So, for that matter, do Maggie and Brick.

Particularly in an historical setting, marriage makes it difficult for two people to walk away from each other, no matter how poisoned their relationship has grown. When I blogged about this topic on my own website, JMM commented that I admit, I like marriage in trouble plots more in historical settings. The stakes are higher because divorce was harder or impossible. There’s a fascinating tension in two people pretending to be a couple to the outside world, while being estranged when they’re alone. Think of Percy and Marguerite keeping up appearances to the beau monde yet unable to communicate in private, Maggie and Brick maintaining the charade of their marriage (or at least Maggie trying to) in front of his family. Kitty and Walter Fane sharing a bungalow in a cholera-infested town, seen by most as a devoted couple who’ve risked infection so as not to be separated.

On my website, Stephanie commented that I tend to think of “marriage in trouble” plots as falling into two categories:

1) The marriage begins in unpropitious circumstances–a forced alliance, a shotgun wedding–and the couple has to try to make it work.
2) The marriage starts out solid, even loving, and then has to weather a serious crisis.

Kitty and Walter in The Painted Veil fit the first example. The know each other very little (hence much of the tragedy). Ross and Demelza's relationship, in Winston Graham's wonderful Poldark series, begins as the first example and then morphs into the second as they fall in love but also face various crises in their marriage. Dorothy Sayers's Busman's Honeymoon shows the very much in love Peter and Harriet weathering the first crisis in their marriage as they adjust to being a couple. (As Mélanie thinks in Beneath a Silent Moon, "Marriage was a shocking invasion of privacy.")

Lesley brought up a third variation and cited our own Pam: Another variation on the theme is Pam Rosenthal’s ‘The Slightest Provocation’, where they married young, there was bad behaviour on both sides, and a long separation, but with maturity they realise that what draws them together is more important than past mistakes.

RfP added What I love about TSP is exactly what you mentioned–the way Kit and Mary know how to push each other’s buttons. Combined with the flashbacks, Rosenthal convinces me the button-pushing is a sign of intimacy and of something worth salvaging, not a sign of toxicity.

One of the many things I love about The Slightest Provocation is the way the flashbacks are interwoven, so the reader learns about Kit and Mary’s marriage as they reflect back on it. A rich portrait of their marriage emerges.

Taryn wrote that she likes marriage in trouble books because there are so many secrets, hidden hurts, and long history to unwrap and sort through. With any married couple, there’s a past to explore–how they came to be married and why, what they both expected from the marriage, how that expectation compares to the current reality. And history is something I love to explore as a writer, whether it’s historical events or the personal history shared by two people.

Do you like marriage in trouble stories? Why or why not? Any favorite examples to suggest? What do you think makes them work? Writers, what are the particular challenges of writing this type of story? If you've written this type of book, do you find yourself spending more time than usual making notes on the characters' history?

Accuracy or Intelligibility?

Recently there has been a lively discussion about this topic on a loop for historical writers. It was kicked off by one writer’s horror upon discovering that “foyer” (OED: The entrance hall of a hotel, restaurant, theatre, etc. 1915 ‘BARTIMEUS’ Tall Ship iv. 77 There were at least half a dozen mothers in the foyer of the big..hotel.) was not a period word for the Regency setting of her novel. The proper term historically is “hall” (OED: The entrance-room or vestibule of a house; hence, the lobby or entrance passage. 1663 GERBIER Counsel 10 The Hall of a private-house, serving for the most part but for a Passage.), which led many to realize with growing horror that “hall” (in the way we use it: a corridor in a building which allows access to multiple rooms) is also not period. (OED: orig. U.S, An entrance-hall or passage leading to various rooms in a house or building. 1877 J. HABBERTON Jericho Road 173 It passed through the narrow hallway which separated the cell from the jailor's apartments.)

It’s one thing to avoid words that encompass ideas that are themselves anachronistic for our setting, such as mesmerized (OED: To subject a person to the influence of mesmerism; to lead or direct by mesmerism; to hypnotize. 1829 R. CHENEVIX in London Med. & Physical Jrnl. 6 222, I mesmerised the patient through the door.), sadistic (OED: Of, relating to, or characterized by sadism; cruel. 1892 C. G. CHADDOCK tr. R. von Krafft-Ebing Psychopathia Sexualis iii. 79 The perverse sadistic impulse, to injure women and put contempt and humiliation upon them.) or surreal (OED: Having the qualities of surrealist art; bizarre, dreamlike. 1937 Burlington Mag. Jan. p. xiv/1 Some ‘surreal’ influence haunts the regions of the Black Forest.). It’s harder to know what the best choice is when faced with using the modern term for something mundane (such as “hall”). If accuracy is the ultimate goal, then another word should be used “passage” (OED: A corridor giving access to the various rooms or divisions of a building, ship, etc., or running between two rooms; a gallery, lobby, or hall. a1525 Bk. Sevyne Sagis 2344, in W. A. Craigie Asloan MS (1925) II. 75 Ane preve passage for to mak.), corridor (OED: A main passage in a large building, upon which in its course many apartments open. Also fig. Cf. COULISSE 4. 1814 BYRON Corsair III. xix, Glimmering through the dusky corridore, Another [lamp] chequers o'er the shadow'd floor), but IMO, accuracy must be balanced with intelligibility. Somehow, as a woman of the 21st century, “passage” or “passageway” simply don’t make me picture a “hallway”. Passageways lead to oubliettes and smugglers’ dens and secret rooms.

I know. I know. I over think these things, but what do you think should rule the day: accuracy or intelligibility?

Rumi: "That which frees you from your tiny self"

The Persians love poetry so much that one 10th century poet, Rabia Balkhi, wrote his last poem in his own blood. The Persian Sufi poetic tradition spans 1,000 years and is part of a living tradition within the larger tradition of Persian mysterical poetry. Jalal al-Din Rumi, born in 1207, was one of the first major Persian poets to receive attention in the West. About 80 years ago his poems were translated into accurate, word-for-word Victorian prose (English is closer to Persian than either Arabic or Turkish); later reworkings by poets such as Robert Bly took more creative license.

You are like the sun–
Come!
Without your face, the garden is yellow and pale–
Come!
Without you, the world is like dust–
Come!
Without you, the circle of love turns cold.
Come! ( The Missing Sun)

Rumi was born in Afghanistan, and fled along the Silk Road to Turkey when the Mongols invaded in the 13th century. He wrote in Persian, his native language, and his works include 30,000 verses of impassioned lyric poetry and an additional 20,000 verses contained in his master work, the Mathnawi. This is a tapestry of Aesopian fables, everyday life scenes of his time, revelations from the Koran, and metaphysics in the Sufi tradition. His work is a synthesis of all Islamic culture drawing on Arab traditions through Hellenistic, Christian, Jewish, and Persian cultures.

Rumi was regarded as a “completed” human being who embodies divine attributes.

Reason said, “We live in a world
of six directions – and that’s it!”

Love replied, “There is a path beyond,
and I have traveled it many times.”

Reason saw a market and set up shop,
but love trades in another currency altogether.
(Trading in Love's Currency)

Some Muslims considered Rumi a second Mohammad, Christians as a second Christ, and Jews as a second Moses. Sufis, the most spiritual of Islamic traditions, are drawn to the mystical and expound a religion based on Love. In Persia, particularly, the metaphor of Love, the Lover, and the Beloved was developed so vividly that metaphoric significance sometimes was mistaken for sensuality.

At breakfast tea a beloved asked her lover,
“Who do you love more, yourself or me?”

“From my head to my foot I have become you.
Nothing remains of me but my name.
You have your wish. Only you exist.
I’ve disappeared like a drop of vinegar
in an ocean of honey.” (The Ruby)

For the Sufi, love is the cause of existence, “the hand behind the puppets.” Recognition of the Beloved (or Friend) in human form is a recognition of spiritual gifts Allah bestows on His creatures. Friendship and love are essential values, the celebration of “hereness.”

In love’s circle there’s another kind of serenity;
in love’s wine, another kind of hangover,
What you learned in school is one thing–
love is something entirely different. (Something Different)

In poetry, very little is what it appears to be. Sufi poets, especially, inhabits many worlds simultaneously, “worlds within worlds.” Their favorite themes are spiritual separation and solitude; the experience of connectness and unity; and passion and immediacy--in other words, “that which frees you from your tiny self.”

Don’t go away, come near.
Don’t be faithless, be faithful.
Find the antidote in the venom.
Come to the root of the root of yourself.
(The Root of the Root of Your Self)

Sufi works were sung or recited with music at Sufi gatherings as an outward expression of a spiritual meditation. Poems are often written in quatrains (4-line poems) with extensive symbolism. Wine = divine love; drunkenness = ecstasy of direct knowledge of God; a tavern = a Sufi gathering place; a tavern-goer = lower class, poverty, humility; rogues or profligates = Sufi dervishes. The language of love = the longing for divine nearness. When you lose yourself, you will reach the Beloved (God).

Heart came on solid footing with breath refined
to warn the best of communities.
Heart placed your head
like a pen on the page of love.

We are joyous pennants in your just wind.
Master, to where do you dance? (Love Is a Stranger)


Sources: The Essential Rumi (tr. by Coleman Barks); Love Is a Stranger (tr. by Kabir Helminski); Love’s Alchemy, Poems from the Sufi Tradition (tr. by David and Sabrineh Fideler)

Judging Books By Their Covers

This past Monday, at Lady Jane’s Salon, Laurel McKee’s editor gave a presentation on the process by which her cover reached its final form. As publishing guru Ron Hogan played Vanna White with the pictures, we got to see the gradual development from concept to final version. Some of the changes were sparked by practical concerns, such as there being too many curlicues on the cover font for easy reading across a crowded bookstore.

The other major change, however, came about when the author pointed out that the initial color of the heroine’s dress—for lack of a better term, slut red—would have been entirely inappropriate for a lady of that period and especially a lady in morning. The dress went to purple.

I was very impressed. I don’t like to think of myself as a cynic, but my general take on covers is somewhat akin to my feelings about “historical” movies: fact is honored more in the breach than the observance and you just expect that and deal with it so long as the final result is pretty.

This has been a pretty good maxim for most of my covers so far, all of which have been gorgeous (I love the Dutton art department), but most of which have featured paintings from, well, let’s just call them neighboring time periods. My first cover was spot on in that it featured a painting of a dark-haired woman with a bunch of carnations (how they found that, I’ll never know). It was less spot on in terms of the clothing. The book is set in 1803. The painting and the dress are later nineteenth century, although they look, at a quick glance, very eighteenth century.

The most obviously anachronistic of the lot was my third book, The Deception of the Emerald Ring. The girl in the painting actually looks very much as I imagined my heroine. And it’s certainly very, very green, which was the idea. But the dress is very clearly Victorian rather than Empire. I got a few snarky emails over that one.

I’ve noticed the same phenomenon with other authors’ books as well. Karen Harper’s Mistress Shakespeare, about the secret first wife of the immortal late sixteenth/early seventeenth century bard, features the exact same picture I had in poster form over my desk freshman year: My Sweet Rose, by nineteenth century Preraphaelite painter, John William Waterhouse.

Readers, does it bother you when the cover art on historical fiction reflects the wrong time period? Authors, would you rather have a pretty cover or a historically correct one? (Well, clearly both, but if you had to pick one....) Have you ever objected to a cover on historical grounds?