Some Interesting Insights into Victorian Era Life

   Scythrop Glowry on Oct 28 17:16:27

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The Facinating Facts Behind Fainting

Keep in mind:

"IN a recent newspaper controversy about the conventional silliness and sameness of all the human generations previous to our own, some body said that in the world of Jane Austen a lady was expected to faint when she received a proposal. To those who happen to have read any of the works of Jane Austen, the connection of ideas will appear slightly comic. Elizabeth Bennett, for instance, received two proposals from two very confident and even masterful admirers ; and she certainly did not faint. It would be nearer the truth to say that they did. But in any case it may be amusing to those who are thus amused, and perhaps even instructive to those who thus need to be instructed, to know that the earliest work of Jane Austen, here published for the first time, might be called a satire on the fable of the fainting lady. ' Beware of fainting fits ... though at times they may be refreshing and agreable yet believe me they will in the end, if too often repeated and at improper seasons, prove destructive to your Constitution .' Such were the words of the expiring Sophia to the afflicted Laura ; and there are moderns capable of adducing them as a proof that all society was in a swoon in the first decade of the nineteenth century. But in truth it is the whole point of this little skit that the swoon of sensibility is not satirised because it was a fact, even in the sense of a fashion, but satirised solely because it was fiction . Laura and Sophia are made ludicrously unlike life by being made to faint as real ladies do not faint. Those ingenious moderns, who say that the real ladies did faint, are actually being taken in by Laura and Sophia, and believing them against Jane Austen. They are believing, not the people of the period but the most nonsensical novels of the period, which even the people of the period who read them did not believe. They have swallowed all the solemnities of the Mysteries of Udolpho, and never even seen the joke of Northanger Abbey."

- G.K. Chesterton 1922 in a preface to Love and Freindship by the young Jane Austen

I agree with G.K. Chesterton and I believe Jane Austen...as far as they go. But Jane Austen was just the daughter of an obscure country clergyman. She never got married and she had limited experiences. She did not know all about the world at large...or even England at large. And she was only in her teens when she wrote Love and Freindship .

If you are facinated with victorian literature, history, or writing novels taking place in the victorian era (or all of the above as I am) you will find in this article a feast for the mind. It is indispensable if you wish to write books taking place in the victorian era because it teaches you who, when, and how to have your victorian characters faint. The article has not been "peer checked", but it makes perfect sense with all I've read before and I think it as trustworthy as anything. I do not, however, think bicycles did quite so much as she thought they did. It is also clearly written by someone who is not prejudiced for or against victorians and it has no ads. So enjoy...

Fainting in Victorian Novels and Victorian Life

P.S. It also tempts me to read Wilkie Collins (a victorian domestic-detective fiction writer) books. They sound worthy of recommending and I would read them if I had any interest in detective fiction.

Read Louisa May Alcott's Little Women books and An Old Fashioned Girl to find confirmation of some things in that article.

Magic Lanterns, Zeotropes, and Stereoscopes

Magic lanterns, zeotropes, and stereoscopes were the precursors to moving pictures...in fact, some of them were , literally, moving pictures.

Magic Lanterns - Magic Lantern Shows

Zeotropes - Object Lessons

Magic Lanterns & Stereoscopes - Smithsonian

Magic Lanterns & Stereoscopes - CNN

The magic-lantern was already enough well known by the 1820s to be used as a metaphor for sketches of life, hence this interesting book: The Magic Lantern; or Sketches of Scenes in the Metropolis which may be especially interesting to those who love Jane Austen or Regency Romances.

An 1854 book about magic-lanterns

How to buy and use a Magic Lantern - 1866

Magic Lantern Manual - 1878

Tags: Victorian Era Life