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Loading... What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to…by Daniel Pool
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  jmaloney17 | Dec 3, 2009 |  An entertaining and interesting read, but I was a bit worried about the facts in the book. The author didn't cite where he got any of the information from, and I'm pretty sure that at least a couple of the facts he blithely ran off were entirely wrong. (  )1  kaffles | Jul 7, 2009 | This is one of those books you can open anywhere and get caught up in whatever the subject happens to be. If you're a fan of Victorian England, you'll be surprised to know the real story behind the country houses, servants, juicy sex lives, and other stuff that made up the lives of 19th century Britons. (  )1 ChocolateMilkMaid | Jun 17, 2009 | A good reference on Victorian times but poorly organized. ( )1 ddelmoni | Mar 27, 2009 | Pool looks at everyday life in 19th century England. Everything from card games to fox hunting to orphanages. His goal in writing this book is to illuminate some of the cultural mysteries of the era for the reader of 19th century novels, which he does with a sense of irony and wit. The book is composed in two parts. In Part I he describes everyday life, using quotes from popular 19th century novels to illuminate his descriptions. In Part II he includes an in-depth glossary (somewhere in the range 100 pages long), which I was quite happy to flip through discovering new-to-me words that have long since become archaic. This book is an invaluable introduction to the 19th century, giving the basic ins and outs of everyday life. As a writer, this would be the first source I would turn to if I ever decided to write a historical set in that era. Definitely a book I would like to have on my shelf for easy reference. (  )1 blythe025 | Mar 25, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
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For every frustrated reader of the great nineteenth-century English novels of Austen, Trollope, Dickens, or the Brontës who has ever wondered whether a duke outranked an earl, when to yell "Tally Ho!" at a fox hunt, or how one landed in "debtor's prison," here is a "delightful reader's companion that lights up the literary dark" (The New York Times).
This fascinating, lively guide clarifies the sometimes bizarre maze of rules, regulations, and customs that governed everyday life in Victorian England. Author Daniel Pool provides countless intriguing details (did you know that the "plums" in Christmas plum pudding were actually raisins?) on the Church of England, sex, Parliament, dinner parties, country house visiting, and a host of other aspects of nineteenth-century English life -- both "upstairs" and "downstairs."
An illuminating glossary gives at a glance the meaning and significance of terms ranging from "ague" to "wainscoting," the specifics of the currency system, and a lively host of other details and curiosities of the day.
(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:56:38 -0500)
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Wikipedia in English
I recommend this book to anyone that reads classic Brit lit. You will likely learn something that will help you understand the books better. There also is a glossary at the end of the book, so if you ever come across something that you do not quite get, you can look it up! (