Burgwin-Wright House Pianoforte from 1816
Nov 06 2023

How Pianos Evolved Over History

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People in the 19th century didn’t have radios, YouTube, or downloadable or live streaming music from the Internet. If they wanted any kind of music, they had to produce it themselves. Therefore, among those who could afford it, one could walk into almost any home and find a piano or a pianoforte, depending on the era–much like today you’ll find it rare to walk into a house and not find a TV. A young woman was expected to play the piano and it usually qualified as part of her studies. The first photo below is of a mahogany square piano dated 1790. It was made by Charles Albrecht in Philadelphia. I apologize that the image isn’t better or up close. I took this image in the Joseph Manigault Museum House in Charleston, SC. The main photo above is of a pianoforte dating around 1816 at the Burgwin-Wright House in Wilmington, NC. Pianos first originated from the clavichord and the harpsichord instruments. The clavichord was widely used through the Medieval period through the Renaissance era. It wasn’t as loud as the harpsichord, and therefore, it was mostly used as a practice instrument. The harpsichord is much larger as a winged shaped instrument with strings perpendicular to the keyboard. It was invented around the middle ages (abt. 1500). In the photo below, the harpsichord resembles an earlier version of our modern day grand pianos. In the 1720’s Bartolomeo Cristofori of Italy invented what we know as the modern piano. It virtually replaced the clavichord and the harpsichord in many homes. Throughout the next century, many changes where invented and adapted to the modern piano. The below photo is of a pianoforte dated 1820. It is made by William Rolfe & Company in London and sold by Siegling Music House of Charleston, SC. I apologize for the lack of clarity. I snapped this photo through the glass at the Charleston Museum and I couldn’t use a flash. This final photo is of a beautiful piano that is one of my favorite antiques. I love the unique carving of the wood. It was made in 1860 by Timothy Gilbert of Boston, MA. It belonged to Mary Jane Williams (1833-1904), wife of James Harvey Carlson. It was donated by their great-grandson and now sits in the Rosedale Plantation House in Charlotte, NC. I love piano music and I often listen to Beethoven or Bach, Claude DeBussy or Peter Tchaikovsky when I’m writing my Regency and Victorian era novels. It helps put me in the mood and mindset of the period I’m writing about. I never got the opportunity to learn how to play the piano. So I’ll do the next best thing, keep pounding out my stories on my keyboard to the wonderful music that others have created and recorded. It’s ironic, but I suppose I was destined for a keyboard–just not the piano.

Christmas Sweets
Oct 07 2023

An Authentic Christmas in the Regency Era

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Christmas as we know it today was much different in the Regency era, which existed in the early 1800’s to 1820. Most of the historical traditions that have survived throughout the years date back to the Victorian period after the Regency era, which is the rest of the 1800’s through Queen Victoria’s reign until 1901. For this reason, finding true Christmas references dating back to the Regency era is hard to find and very limited. Many of these references refer to books and letters written by Jane Austen and others during this time. The Christmas Regency Calendar While today you might start seeing holiday decorations in stores as early as September and October, during the Regency period people did not begin to celebrate until around advent, the fourth Sunday before Christmas Eve. Some traditions in England and other countries were very localized. This meant that decorations could vary based on their local region. Some may have waited to decorate until Christmas Eve, while others may have chosen to decorate sooner. Others may keep up their decorations for the whole Christmastide, the twelve days of Christmas, which began on December 25th through January 6th. Some even kept up their decorations through February 2nd for Candlemas, or the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus Christ. Decorations Regency homes would not have had any Christmas trees, no Santa Claus or St. Nicholas or reindeer or wrapped gifts. There were no stockings hanging by the fireplace, no snowmen, or Christmas caroling from house to house, or nutcrackers in the sense of what we have today. A Regency Christmas season would have been quite merry with a variety of festivities such as balls, parties, dinners, house parties, card parties and small gatherings. People would have gone out into the cold wilderness of nature and collected holly, ivy, rosemary, evergreen, hawthorn, laurel, box and firs and mistletoe. These evergreens would have been made into boughs, garlands and sprigs to adorn windows, tables, mantles and stairways. They not only provided color to decorate homes, but brought new aromas for the season. While candles are closely associated with the holidays, back then candles and lanterns were the main means of indoor light at evening and at night. However, placing evergreens around the candles brought a festive decoration to the season. Feasts and Desserts The first course for dinner would often be soup. Turtle soup was a popular staple and in order to have enough, the host would need to order a turtle per person. They were most likely imported from the Cayman Islands. Other soups include white soup, which can be thick and creamy. Gravy soup could have ham or beef with a variety of onions and carrots and herbs. Fish was often served such as brile, gudgeons, gellin, crouch, perch anchovy, along with other seafood favorites like scallops and wilks, periwinkles, cockles, mussels, bearbet or hollebet. The main course typically included roast beef and venison and mutton, but other options included goose, capon, pheasant, bustard, swan and/or peacock. They did typically create a stuffy for the fowl. The goose was most popular and affordable for most households until turkey was later introduced by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the mid to late 1800’s. The main dish was supported by potatoes, squash, brussels sprouts and carrots. The final course would include Christmas pudding or plum pudding, as it is sometimes called since plums were often the main ingredient. It was traditionally prepared with 13 ingredients to represent Christ and the 12 apostles. The pudding was stirred clockwise, to honor the journey of the Magi and with a wooden spoon in honor of Christ’s manger. Some families would begin their Christmas celebrations with the plum pudding on Stir Up Sunday, the fourth Sunday before Christmas Eve. This would give the pudding time to age so it would be ready to serve at Christmas. Ironically, the name does not come from the amount of stirring required, but instead is based on the Book of Common Prayer dating back to 1549, which begins with “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” Other treats during this course included black butter in which there is no actual butter, but preserved fruit similar to apple butter, fruit cake, gingerbread cakes and cookies, mince pie, sugar plums and ginger nuts. For beverages, they typically served wine, or punch and wassail, which consisted of rum, brandy, port, fruit juice, orange, lemons and their rinds and sugar. Of course, recipes varied from family to family and individual preferences. Christmastide Charity During this time, charity was an important part of the season. On St Thomas’ Day (Dec 21st), a day for elderly women and widows went ‘a’thomasing’ at wealthy homes hoping for gifts of food or money. This was in honor of St. Thomas the Apostle. An old song still lingers among our Christmas carols today. Here are some of the familiar lyrics that you might recognize: Christmas is coming and the geese are getting fat, Please spare a penny for the old man’s hat,If you haven’t got a penny, a ha’penny will do,If you haven’t got a ha’penny, God bless you. Boxing Day was often the day after Christmas, also known as St. Stephen’s Day. It has nothing to do with the sport of boxing in the U.S. as we know today. Instead, this was an activity where people would box up gifts for servants or items they no longer needed or wanted and would give these boxes to the poor and needy. Christmas Carols or Hymns While people did not sing traditional Christmas carols at parties and balls and gatherings as we might today, there are some of today’s Christmas carols that date back to medieval times and the Regency period, but they were mostly sung as hymns in church. One custom that dates back to medieval…

Southampton Coast
Jul 10 2023

Hampshire is the Perfect Book Setting

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The setting of my upcoming novel, A Season of Atonement, the working title, is set in Hampshire County in England during the Regency period in 1811. In order to write this novel with as much authenticity as possible, I needed to do significant research on the area of Hampshire during that time. For those who may be unfamiliar with the area, it’s a little over an hour southwest of London and includes the cities of Southampton, Portsmouth near the coast and Winchester, the county seat. For the geography of my story, my heroine, Regina Westfall lives in Westfall Manor which is five miles south of Winchester and three miles from Hanover Terrace where the hero, Marcus Silverstone lives. Westfall Manor is about eight miles north of Southampton, a beautiful port city at the coast. Other historical landmarks include the Winchester Cathedral. Jane Austen died in Winchester in 1817 and was buried at the cathedral. Winchester College is the oldest public school in the United Kingdom with many original buildings still in use today. Both Southampton and Portsmouth are port cities at the southern coast of England. The main image above in this blog post is an area of coastal Southampton. The characters in my novels would have not only been familiar with these two locations, but most likely they would have visited these areas and may have even had friends and/or family there. About Wolvesey Castle Wolvesey Castle, also known as Old Bishop’s Palace is a castle in ruins that still has parts of it that exist today. It was already in ruins during Jane Austen’s time and during the setting of my novel in 1811. The first building was built as early as 970 and served as the residence of the Bishop of Winchester. It came under siege in 1141 and was later enlarged and fortified. It came under siege again in 1216 by France. It wasn’t destroyed until 1646 by the Roundheads during the English Civil War. They succeeded in establishing the Commonwealth of England, which ultimately set up Parliament and abolished the monarchy’s complete administrative control of the country. About Winchester Castle Built in 1067, the castle served as the government seat for the Norman kings for over 100 years. Henry II added a stone keep to store the royal treasury and the Domesday Book, a manuscript record of England and Wales that was recorded at the request of William the Conqueror. The castle was besieged in 1141 during the same war when Wolvesey Castle was besieged. In 1235, Henry III added the Great Hall. The Winchester Round Table hangs in The Great Hall as a round tabletop bearing the names of legendary King Arthur’s court and dates back to King Edward I, but the more recent painting was ordered by King Henry VIII. The castle remained a royal residence until 1558 when Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne and it was handed over to the city. The Great Hall continued to be used for criminal trials over the next few centuries until 1974. It is now an historical museum. Jane Austen’s Life in Hampshire When most people think of a Regency romance novel, they typically think of Jane Austen. She is not only associated with her written work set during the Regency era (officially 1811-1820, but often expanded to include 1795-1837), but is often considered the epitome of the period since she lived in this time. While we are writing historical novels that we can only experience through research and stories, she was writing contemporary novels about life as she knew it. With the exception of the time Jane lived in Bath, she lived the majority of her life in Hampshire where she wrote most of her now famous novels and formed her ideas and perspective on life. She was born in 1775 at the Steventon Rectory in Hampshire. Her father was the reverend of the parish with a very modest income. They were considered a poor family. The rectory in which they lived is now gone, but the church shown below is still standing and where she attended and worshipped with her family. Later in 1809 she moved to a cottage with her mom and sister in Chawton, Hampshire near where her brother Edward lived at Chowtan House. She often visited him at the great house. By 1816, her health began to decline and a few weeks before her death, her family brought her to Winchester for care, but it was too late. She died on July 18, 1817 at the young age of 41. She was buried at Winchester Cathedral. Seasons of Hampshire With it’s rich and colorful history, Hampshire seems like the perfect place to set an historical novel. So much of the history continues to thrive in today’s culture. It’s both a visual representation of what life was like back then, as well as how it continues to be today. Originally, I planned to write a trilogy called the Seasons of Hampshire with this setting, but it was for a different genre. I may still write the full trilogy, but I have decided to start the first book, A Season of Atonement, as a new historical romance novel. While the title and number of books may change, one thing is certain, it will be full of Hampshire history. Share this post with your connections: