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TOULOUSE-LAUTREC AND JANE AVRIL...

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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (November 24 1864 - September 9 1901)


Today, November 24th, in the year of 1864, the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born in Albi, in France. He was to grow up and find his fame in the Post Impressionist period, inspired by all the Bohemian excesses of Paris in the 1890's. It was there he created his glamorous paintings - and in many of those creations he was to depict a dancer whose name was Jane Avril.




Jane Avril was a beautiful girl (though she was extremely thin, with pale skin and tresses of red gold hair) who had become quite infamous for performing the Cancan at the Jardin de Paris: a fashionable Parisian dance hall situated in the Champs-Elysees.




Lautrec had been employed to illustrate an advertisement for the hall, and the dancer who featured in his striking poster soon became very fond indeed of the diminutive artist - for whom congenital childhood illnesses resulted in legs which did not grow, with an adult height of around five foot.




The two friends came from very different backgrounds. Lautrec had been born into one of France's oldest noble families, and that family must have been disappointed when this talented young man's ambitions were not quite as lofty as they might have been - being so irresistibly drawn to night clubs such as the Moulin Rouge where he used his art to record the seedier side of Montmarte life; the area that was then a haunt of artists, writers and philosophers.


At the Moulin Rouge (1892-93)


There, amongst all the working girls, he was to meet Jane Avril. She was living in a Parisian brothel where it was said that she was the child of a famous courtesan, her absent father rumoured to have been a foreign aristocrat. She was originally named as Jeanne, but preferred to use Jane for her stage career - thinking it sounded English, and the epitome of 'chic'. Perhaps that renaming was also an attempt to forget an abusive past which resulted in her leaving home when she was only thirteen years old - very soon afterwards taken in by the Paris' Salpetriere psychiatric hospital.

While there, when attending a fancy-dress ball, Jane discovered her love of dance - the art form that would become her 'cure'. However, some nervous mannerisms exhibited during her illness (perhaps the condition St Vitus' Dance) were never quite lost when she performed, leading to some observers saying that she looked like a big jerky bird, or 'an orchid in a frenzy'. She was also known as 'La Melinite' (a form of explosive dynamite), and Jane La Folle (Crazy Jane).


Jane Avril (1891-92) - looking somewhat artistocratic


Lautrec saw Avril as more than a nickname, much more than another dancing girl. He viewed her as a complete being. Yes, she was the flame that shone in the darkness of his demimonde when he painted her in such glamorous poses. But he also presented her everyday - the somewhat more melancholic Jane. In those paintings she often seems to be somewhat older than her years, looking frail and tired, and nervous.


Jane Avril leaving the Moulin Rouge (1892)


Lautrec was prone to visit his muse at all hours of the day and night, often studying her features and mannerisms while taking her out to restaurants. In 1895, when she bore an illegitimate son, some suggested the child might be Lautrec's. But others think it doubtful that the friends were ever lovers. Lautrec had many insecurities, acutely aware of his physical defects. He took more and more to drinking (being particularly fond of cocktails with Absinthe and Cognac) and was also infected with Syphilis. He was only 31 years old.





It seemed that Jane was luckier, for a little while at least. At the age of 42 she met and married the German artist, Biais. The couple duly set up home in the Parisian outskirts. But her husband soon began to stray and when he died in 1926 she was left to live in poverty, eventually dying in an old people's home when she was seventy-five years old.




But her youth will always be preserved in the portraits created by Lautrec, along with his other visions of the French late nineteenth century nightlife. His brave and original style is filled with suh colour and vibrant life which still continues to lure us now - as does the life of Jane Avril, more recently reinterpreted when, in 2001, Nicole Kidman played the part of the dancer in the film Moulin Rouge.

Signature of Toulouse-Lautrec

THE CHRISTMAS PANTOMIME BEGINS...

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From the V&A Archives


The VV really loves this engraving. It reminds her of the time when she wrote The Somnambulist, her first Victorian novel which opened up with a theatre scene from a Christmas show at Wilton's Hall. But then a trip to a pantomime was such a traditional thing to do in the Victorian era: a mixture of story and music, with  rhyming couplets, double entendres, and lashings of topical wit.



From the V&A Archives


However, the name 'pantomime' derives from Ancient Greece, when an actor or 'pantomimus' told stories by means of mime or dance, and that act was often accompanied by music and a chorus line.






In the middle ages, the Italian Commedia dell’Arte (from whom we also owe thanks for the creation of Punchinello or Mr Punch) was a type of entertainment where travelling troupes performed dramatisations in marketplaces or fairgrounds. They improvised their story lines around the character Harlequin, who wore a diamond-patterned costume and carried a magic wand. Later, this part was famously played by Grimaldi the clown who died in 1837, the year Queen Victoria came to the throne.



Joseph Grimaldi as Harlequin


As Victoria’s reign progressed the stories told by Harlequin became entwined with the antics of rural English Mummers. Eventually those events evolving into very much grander productions – although many pantomimes back then were still then based around Harlequin's character. 



From the V&A Archives



The proof of this is illustrated in elaborate titles for the shows, such as Harlequin and the Forty Thieves, or  Jack and the Beanstalk; or, Harlequin Leap-Year, and the Merry Pranks of the Good LittlePeople (surely some dwarves had been employed). In 1863 W S Gilbert wrote Harlequin Cock Robin and Jenny Wren; or, Fortunatus and the Waters of Life, the Three Bears, the Three Gifts, the Three Wishes, and the Little Man who Wooed a Little Maid - though that particular production may have been somewhat ambitious in its scope and its complexity. Years later Gilbert was heard to confess that perhaps it was not the best title to use.




Augustus Harris


For whatever the reason, as years went by the Harlequin character was used much less. Productions such as those put on by the manager Augustus Harris at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane were based on traditional fairy tales such as Jack and the Beanstalk or Cinderella. These were extravagant stagings featuring ballets, acrobatics and grand processions of specially recruited children. There were magicians  and slapstick, cross dressing and innuendo. There was audience participation in the vein of the still familiar refrains of  'Oh no, he isn’t…Oh yes, he is'. 


From the V&A Archives


There were also the popular ‘skins’, when actors would dress in animal garb - quite scarily as insects in the version of Cinderella (above), or more often, and more comically, to play the back or the front end of a pantomime horse or cow – a role once undertaken at the Stockport Hippodrome by an aspiring young actor by the name of Charlie Chaplin.





Back in 1881 Augustus' Harris’ production of The Forty Thieves began at 7.30pm and ended at 1am the next morning. One scene lasted for forty minutes while the thieves (each of whom had his own band of followers) processed across the stage. The pantomime cost £65,000 – the equivalent of several millions today. But then, with popular music hall acts such as Marie Lloyd and Dan Leno employed to take the starring roles, Harris’ shows were always a success – artistically and financially. 


How the VV wishes that she could have been around to see one!



PRINCE ALBERT'S DEATH AT CHRISTMAS

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The royal Christmas tree at Windsor Castle


Queen Charlotte (the consort of King George III) had first introduced the tradition of decorating a  pine tree in the royal rooms at Christmas time. But it was Prince Albert who really encouraged and popularised the festive event; that habit soon adopted in every English parlour.

However, at Windsor Castle, on December 14th 1861 when the tree would have normally glittered and shone with hundreds of tiny candles, all such joyous plans were discarded and every decorative light was doused ~ because of Albert's sudden death at the age of only 42.


Victoria and Albert enjoying Christmas with their children



Following Prince Albert's death Victoria still celebrated Christmas day, but she hated to spend it in Windsor, the place of her husband's death. Instead, she travelled to the Isle of Wight and the Italianate palace of Osborne House where the family had previously spent happy times together.


The royal family in happier times


However, after 1861, Victoria no longer shared this time with her eldest son, the Prince of Wale who preferred to go to Sandringham, claiming that he found Osborne House to be 'utterly unattractive'.


Bertie, (Edward) the Prince of Wale, and his father, Prince Albert, on the right.


Perhaps an element of guilt influenced the young man's decision, for shortly before his father's death there had been a notorious scandal involving the future king and an actress by the name of Nellie Clifton. All of the press publicity had caused his father enormous distress. Albert wrote several letters to Bertie and then, in appalling weather, set off to Cambridge to meet his son, to implore him to change his decadent ways.


 Prince Albert's deathbed at  Windsor


The stress of that situation, combined with pre-existing poor health (and some say the state of the Windsor drains) led to a fatal illness. Diagnosed as suffering from Typhoid fever, Albert came home from seeing his son and died in the Blue Room at Windsor Castle.

Queen Victoria never recovered from the shock of Albert's loss. She entirely blamed the Prince of Wales, as illustrated by this line which is taken from a letter written to one of her daughters: "That boy...I never can, or ever shall look at him without a shudder."





In the VV's new novel, The Goddess and the Thief, Victoria's grief is dramatised - as is her ensuing interest in the hiring of spirit mediums. She continued to try and contact her husband from where he dwelled on 'the other side' throughout her remaining widow years. As time went on she relied more and more upon her closest friend, John Brown - the game keeper who also claimed to be a spirit medium. There were said to be many rumours of private seances being held, and that these were described by the Queen herself - a notoriously regular diarist. But these records were destroyed at the time of Victoria's own death; viewed by her advisers and family members as being an embarrassment.

What a shame that is!

SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN...

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Winking Santa by Essie Fox



The VV has found her old box of watercolour paints and created this greetings card of Santa Claus to say thank you and to wish a very Happy Christmas to each and every one of you who follow The Virtual Victorian blog.

While painting she started to ponder on how odd it is that, before Queen Victoria came to throne in 1837 there were no commercial Christmas cards – that tradition only beginning in 1843, after the introduction of the Penny Post, when Sir Henry Cole had the bright idea of printing up thousands of images and selling them in his London shop, priced at just one shilling each. 

What an industry that enterprise began!


The design for Sir Henry Cole's commercial Christmas card


But, as far as jolly santas go, very few people in England then would even so much as know his name. And yet, by 1870 most every child would have been aware of the magical sleigh drawn by reindeer, and a stocking full of precious gifts - if only an orange to signify a gift from Father Christmas.

The names Santa Claus, and Father Christmas have become somewhat interchangeable. But their origins are quite different.


Father Christmas, on whom Charles Dickens based his Christmas Present was derived from an old English festival when Sir Christmas, or Old Father Christmas, or Old Winter, was depicted as wearing green; a sign of fertility and the coming spring – which is why many homes were decorated with mistletoe, holly and ivy. He did not bring gifts or climb down the chimneys, but wandered instead from home to home feasting with the families and bringing good cheer to one and all - as described in the mediaeval carol printed below this illustration...

Illustration by John Leech from Dickens' A Christmas Carol


Goday, goday, my lord Sire Christemas, goday!
Goday, Sire Christemas, our king,
For ev’ry man, both old and ying,
Is glad and blithe of your coming;
Goday! 


Imagine the goblets being raised with the cheering rendition of 'Goday!


The image of Christmas Present which we are more familiar with today – Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas – arrived in America in the seventeenth century when Dutch settlers imported their own Sinter Klass. And it was there in 1822 that Clement Clare Moore wrote a poem to delight his little children, which still has an enduring influence -


He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his sack.
His eyes how they twinkled! His dimpled how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up in a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed like a bowl fully of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, - a right jolly old elf –
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.


A Visit from Saint Nicholas (now more popularly known as The Night Before Christmas) described the old man’s appearance – the very image that every child has come to know and love today. It is so beautifully shown in this woodblock print designed by the artist Thomas Nast, who based the illustrations on his childhood in Germany.

 Santa and his works by Thomas Nast, published in Harper's Weekly Magazine in 1866


Merry Christmas! Ho Ho Ho!

MR BENTLEY'S MAGICAL ICE CRYSTALS

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What could be more festive than a Christmas white with snow and ice? What could be more magical than the photographs of snow flakes which were made in the nineteenth century by Wilson Alwyn Bentley?




Born in 1865, 'Snowflake Bentley' was raised on the family farm in Jericho, in the American state of Vermont where the annual snowfall was about 120 inches. From childhood he was fascinated by nature and when, at fifteen, his mother gave him a microscope, he was said to be captivated by the close-up views of snow crystals which he placed upon a black velvet base to see them as clearly as possible. But to try and preserve the sights he saw – with the ice flakes often melting before he could manage to draw their designs – he set his mind to finding a way to attach a camera to the microscope lens (this is called Photomicography, of which Bentley was a pioneer), from then on beginning to compile the body of work which is still today considered as remarkable – combining science with nature and art.




Bentley proved that every snowflake is something quite unique. He poetically describing them as "ice flowers" or “tiny miracles of beauty.” He captured over 5,000 of these ephemeral works of art during the course of his life–time, by the end of which his work was sought by the Harvard Mineralogical Museum and the University of Vermont. Today his photographs are held by academic institutions all over the world. The Smithsonian (to whom he sent 500 prints in 1903 to ensure that they were preserved for the sake of posterity), now keeps that comprehensive record in their institution archives.




His obsession with water in various forms also led him measure raindrops and to photograph forms of frost and dew

The VV finds it sadly ironic that he died after contracting pneumonia, when he’d walked for six miles through a blizzard of snow to try and find his way back home.








Before Bentley died a book of his snowflake prints was published by McGraw Hill. The book, in various forms, is still available today.

THE VV WISHES YOU A CHRISTMAS OF THE VERY BRIGHTEST AND BEST...

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Star of Bethlehem by Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Exhibited at The Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery


The Christmas carol, Brightest and Best is featured in the VV's novel, The Goddess and the Thief. And now, it has a beautiful new arrangement, composed by Kirsten Morrison, and sung by Kirsten and Peter Shipman in the link attached below - just as they performed it at the book's launch party in Windsor.

It really is exquisite. The VV hopes you enjoy it, and wishes you the very brightest and best of Christmas days.



QUEEN VICTORIA'S CHRISTMAS GHOSTS

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The VV's latest Victorian novel, The Goddess and the Thief, is a Gothic Oriental: a story in which Queen Victoria plays a small but significant role, during which she consults with mediums while hoping to make some contact with the soul of the man whose Christmas death would haunt her life forever more – when Prince Albert died on December 14th in the year of 1861.


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The novel is a fiction, but some scenes are based on truths. The Queen’s Prime Minister, Gladstone, was himself a founding member of the Society for Psychical Research. Many eminent men of the time were convinced that, just as science had found a way to harness electricity, other invisible energies might soon be discovered and utilised - even the existence of a parallel spirit world.

Before Prince Albert’s sudden end the royal family would spend their Christmases at Windsor, with candles lit on the festive trees that Albert himself made fashionable, when he brought that tradition from Germany. But, following his passing the Queen preferred to spend her future Christmases at Osborne House.




It was there, on the Isle of Wight, that the couple enjoyed many happy times. It was also there, while Albert lived, that they met with spiritualist mediums. One of those psychics impressed the Queen so much that she received the gift of a golden watch, upon the back of which had been engraved the words: “Presented by Her Majesty to Miss Georgiana Eagle for her Meritorious and Extraordinary Clairvoyance Produced at Osborn House, Isle of Wight, July 17, 1846.” 




Perhaps Miss Georgina Eagle was also there when a table began to levitate and Albert was so horrified that he ordered the object be destroyed, and then demanded that they never dabble in such things again. But, he was also recorded as having told his wife: "We don't know in what state we shall meet again, but that we shall recognize each other and be together in eternity I am perfectly certain."




The Queen couldn’t wait for Eternity, though we’ll probably never know for sure how many spirit mediums were smuggled into her private rooms following her husband’s death, or whether his ghost was ever raised around the time of his Christmas death – as it seems he may have been in the plot of The Goddess and the Thief. However, there are verified accounts of meetings with a Mr Robert Lees – the first when Lees was just 13, when he wrote a letter to the Queen with reference to intimate details that no-one but she could have ever known. Victoria later invited him to join the royal household as resident spirit medium. However Lees was to decline, suggesting that another man would be better suited to fill that role.




That man was John Brown, the low-born Scottish gamekeeper who became Victoria’s confidante. He was also the spirit medium through which her husband often ‘spoke’ – so often that in later years the Queen expressed a strong desire to publish the diaries in which she wrote accounts of all those séances. However, her advisors were appalled at such a notion, no doubt relieved when, after her death, her diaries were heavily edited when re-transcribed by Princess Beatrice, her literary executor.

And as to the diaries of John Brown – every word was destroyed upon his death. What secrets might those words reveal if only we could read them now?

WISHING YOU ALL A HAPPY NEW YEAR!


FROM CAIRO TO CONSTANTINOPLE ~ THE PRINCE OF WALES ON TOUR IN 1862 ...

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Albumen print by Francis Bedford which shows The Sphinx, the Great Pyramid and two lesser pyramids, Ghizeh, Egypt. March 1862. 


Recently the VV attended the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace in London. There she viewed a collection of  photographs taken by Francis Bedford - which provide a fascinating record of the very first tour of the Middle East to be made by member of the British royal family.




The tour - which occurred just a few months after the death of Prince Albert - had been very carefully planned to keep his son, the Prince of Wales out of any scandal's way when he'd left university, but still had some free time on his hands before the planned date of his marriage to Alexandra of Denmark. 

But it was also considered as being politically important for Bertie - who would one day become King Edward - to understand an area that was in such close proximity to the Empire's Indian territories. 


The Prince of Wales with Prince Louis of Hesse (engaged to the Prince's sister, Princess Alice) taken in Europe in February 1862 when the Prince was travelling to Venice to join the Royal Yacht.


Those lands were fast becoming areas of fascination for historians, explorers, pilgrims and tourists - much helped by the fact that travelling times had by then been vastly reduced by steamships to Alexandria.

The Prince of Wales' own four month tour covered Egypt, Palestine and the Holy Land, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece. During that time he met rulers, politicians and other notable figures - even Abd al-Qadir, the exiled Algerian freedom fighter who was said to have protected a group of Christians in his home. 


Hasbeiya - Scene of the Massacre.
Albumen print, April 1862


During this adventure the Prince travelled with 'eight gentleman only...in as private a manner as possible'. The party set off from London on February 6, 1862, travelling by train to Venice and from there on the Royal Yacht, Osborne. From Alexandria they then spent most of the journey on horseback, camping out at night in tents - unusual experiences which the Prince then wrote about in his own account. But as he would have been aware that these diaries would eventually be read by his mother in England, the VV is sure that some of the prince's more intimate experiences may very well have been left out. Even so, some risqué incidents were alluded to in a post previously published on this site.


The Street called Straight - Damascus, April 1862


If you are interested in this exhibition it runs until February 22, 2015. It really is well worth a visit to see the stunning images - though as Bedford's brief was to focus on the sacred and historic landscapes, only three of the surviving 191 photographs actually show the young Prince and his travelling companions. 




However the exhibition does show many archeological objects that the Prince collected on his tour - including an Egyptian funerary papyrus which relates 'what is in the netherworld', and several ancient scarabs, some of the which the Prince then had set into Egyptian-style jewellery, which he presented as a gift to the woman who was to become his wife.









For the VV's own visit to the Queen's Gallery she was accompanied by her friend, the author Wendy Wallace, whose own historical novel which is called The Sacred River is set around the journey made by three Victorian women who travel from England to Egypt. During Wendy's research she and her son also travelled there, creating this atmospheric film -


ON SALT AND SILVER PHOTOGRAPHY ...

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Salt prints are the earliest photographs that still exist today, having first been presented in Britain in 1839. The technology very soon moved on, but where the salt prints are concerned the photographs are ‘captured’ via paper coated in silver salts which is then made sensitive to light.


Study of China, 1844. By Henry Fox Talbot


Henry Fox Talbot first had the idea of ‘drawing’ a picture in such a way while sketching on his honeymoon. On returning home to Lacock Abbey, he soon set about experimenting and the negative images he made were then exposed onto other sheets, using direct sunlight to create a positive image. 


Abbey Ruins by John Wheeley Gough Gutch, circa 1858


The results were almost like paintings with a soft interplay between light and shade creating such stunning photographs that then inspired many more to make light pictures of their  own. And, when seen in reality, rather than here on the blog, the pictures are incredibly fine in detail, tone and contrast.


Jean-Baptiste Frenet. Horse and Groom. 1855


Variations on such a portable method of recording people, buildings, and art, soon spread through Europe and beyond. This was also the age of steam, with ships and trains enabling explorers and artists to move around more easily than they could before.


La Porte Rouge, Notre Dame by Louis Desire Blanquart-Evrard. 1851


Eventually the process was modified and developed by the Frenchman, Louis-Desire Blanquart-Evrard, who first found a way producing prints in mass quantities for a public trade. And then, a few years later, he went on to invent an entirely new process; with the albumen method of making prints soon replacing the salt and silver one. 


So, only for a short span of time was the salt print method popular. And from now, until this coming June, you can view some of the finest examples which are currently being exhibited in the galleries of Tate Britain.


For related posts on photography, please see — 






THE FIRST WOMAN TO STAND FOR THE PRESIDENCY...

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Victoria Woodhull 1838-1927

The VV has been musing on the life of Victoria Woodhull – who was (although few have heard of her now) the very first woman who made a bid to stand for the American presidency, as far back as 1872. 

Not that her attempt met with success. At that time women had no legal vote and, on the day of Grant’s re-election his female rival was safely imprisoned on charges of libel and pornography. But, what had preceded such ignominy?
Buck Claflin in old age

Victoria's was a sensational life. She was born in Ohio in 1838 and during her early years was part of the family's travelling medicine show. Always having a talent to draw a crowd, the little girl would preach and tell fortunes, even claiming the power to cure all ills while her father – the one-eyed Reuben ‘Buck’ Claflin – stood at the back of his wagon and sold bottles of his opium-based Life Elixir.
At the age of fourteen Victoria fell ill, driven to the point of exhaustion after being deliberately starved by Buck as a means of enhancing  her spiritual ‘visions’. She later claimed that her father sexually abused her when drunk, even trying to sell her as a whore. But then, during her convalescence, she was wooed by another shameless fraud - the apparently well-to-do doctor who was known as Canning Woodhull.
Canning, who was then twenty-eight, asked for Victoria’s hand in marriage, which offered the girl a means of escape from her father’s tyrannical grasping ways. But, once again she was misused. Her ‘Doc’ was no more than a worthless quack, an opium addict and womaniser. Unable to support his child bride, he was so drunk at the birth of their son that Victoria very nearly died, and blamed her husband evermore for the boy’s severe mental impairments.
When contemplating returning to Buck, Victoria came to realise that her place in the family ‘enterprise’ had been usurped by her sister, Tennessee. So, with husband and idiot son in tow she made her way to San Francisco, there hoping to realise a dream. 

As a small child, Victoria claimed to have had a vision in which the spirit of the Greek orator, Demosthenes, foretold of a glorious destiny in which she would grow up to lead the American people – a position that she was destined to hold in a city of water, and ships, and gold. 

San Francisco seemed to fit the bill, being the scene of the gold rush and also a sea port town. But dreams of success were soon to be crushed. While Canning spent every cent he owned in opium dens and on prostitutes Victoria was left with little choice but to support her family, working as a cigar girl in a bar, as an actress, and probably a whore.
Returning at last to Ohio, rather than joining Buck’s latest venture (running a dubious hospital from which he advertised himself as ‘America’s King of Cancers),along with her sister, Tennessee, Victoriaworked as a spiritual healer – though many have come to suspect that the sisters also provided a somewhat more physical sustenance. 

Colonel James Harvey Blood 

While in such trade Victoria met Colonel James Harvey Blood; a glamorous civil war hero who shared her belief in ‘other realms’ and who also supported her ‘destiny’ as a future ruler of America.  Leaving his respectable life behind, as well as his wife and daughters, he joined Victoria and Tennessee when they set out to make their mark in New York – another city of gold and ships.



At first, times were very hard and the sisters' spiritualist business was bolstered by the selling of contraceptive devices to the prostitutes. Meanwhile, Blood was often absent, spending time with his brother’s newspaper business and learning the tricks of that trade – publishing pamphlets and magazines deemed to be a vital means of spreading the word of Victoria’s aims when she set her cap at the presidency.

Cornelius Vandervilt


Before that, the bad penny Buck Claflin turned up. Having heard that the widowed Cornelius Vanderbilt – then the richest man in America – was seeking the services of mediums, he contrived a means of introducing his daughters to the gentleman. Matters rapidly progressed. Victoria became Vanderbilt’s personal  medium with ’the ‘spirits’ offering financial tips which, in reality, were gleaned from gossiping bankers in brothels. Tennessee became Vanderbilt’s mistress – a natural progression of events after performing her ‘magnetic healing’ and curing the 'old goat's' niggling complaints.

A contemporary newspaper cartoon of Victoria and Tennie as Wall Street traders


Generously rewarded, the sisters caused a public sensation by going on to set themselves up as Wall Street’s very first female brokers - an enterprise that brought further wealth. With the aid of Colonel Blood, they then founded a spiritualist newspaper and Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly became their political voice – a voice that reached a great many ears, for the religion of Spiritualism was at that time one with a massive following, and it also offered a platform from which women could express their views. 
Victoria Woodhull addressing the House Judiciary Committee


Holding spectacular salons, Victoria was soon courted by the Women’s Movement who supported her bid for the presidency. She lectured to enormous crowds and under the popular banner of universal suffrage and equal rights, Victoria travelled to Washington where she was to petition the House at a Judiciary Committee in 1871.



But the plans began to fall apart. With Buck’s criminal antics raked up by the press along with stories of her dubious past, ‘The Woodhull’ was soon being demonised as no less than ‘Mrs Satan’. A crippling series of court cases followed which led to her being sued and imprisoned time and time again. Her outspoken thoughts regarding 'free love' caused even more offence when combined with an ill-advised liaison with the press man, Theodore Tilton.

Theodore Tilton

It was a complicated affair. Tilton's wife had been sexually involved with a popular married clergyman whose name was Henry Ward Beecher. Beecher in return had sworn to offer Victoria's campaign support before having second thoughts. Victoria then sought revenge by exposing Beecher's adultery, only to find herself immersed in the ‘Trial of the Century’.  Beecher was to emerge unscathed, but the Tiltons were socially disgraced, and Victoria had been portrayed as a promiscuous pornographer. Her life and ambitions were ruined – politically, personally and financially.



It was Vanderbilt who brought some salvation. When the old man died his heirs were keen to hush up the millionaire's immoral past. Victoria and Tennessee were given a generous settlement and with this they travelled to England, settling in London - another city of gold and ships in which they reinvented themselves. Leaving their lovers and scandals behind - along with all dreams of the presidency - they still attained some degree of success. 

Victoria and John Biddulph Martin - happy and 'respectable' at last


Tenessee married a viscount and was afterwards known as Lady Cook. Victoria married John Biddulph Martin, a bachelor merchant banker and a man of considerable personal wealth. When widowed she was heartbroken, withdrawing to the Martin's country estate. 

But she certainly didn't give up on life! She became a passionate motorist, and founded an agricultural college dedicated to training women. She also funded a village school, and a famous country club – at which Edward, the Prince of Wales was said to be a visitor.



The VV wonders how Victoria felt when, at the age of eighty, universal suffrage was finally won – when the 'modern' world had all but forgotten the woman who once caused a national sensation and was known as the wife of the devil. All but in exile when she died, she asked for no more than to be remembered with the following brief words:
‘You cannot understand a man’s work by what he has accomplished, but by what he has overcome in accomplishing it.’
In her own way, and by her own means, Victoria Woodhull achieved a great deal. She was one of those brave Victorians who lived in a time when a woman was seen as no more than a man's possession. She paved the way for equality – though who knows when her ultimate hope will come true, when a woman will stand in the White House as President of America.



The VV has hardly scratched the surface of Victoria Woodhull's amazing life. Should any readers wish to investigate further there is a wealth of information on the web. As far as books are concerned, Other Powers by Barabara Goldsmith is an excellent resource which gives a full and well-researched view of  relevant historical events at the time. Mary Gabriel's Notorious Victoria is another fine investigation. And, for younger historians, Kathleen Krull's A Woman for President is a good starting point which has the added bonus of being brought to vibrant life by Jane Dyer's watercolour illustrations. 

A GLORIOUS GOWN OF BEETLE WINGS...

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Ellen Terry (Alice Ellen Terry) was a famous Victorian actress who was born into a theatrical family and first appeared upon the stage when she was only eight years old.




Renowned for her voice and striking looks, and blessed with her stunning red hair, Ellen went on to become Henry Irvin’s leading lady, greatly admired for her sensitive portrayals of Shakespearian heroines.




Today we would call her a ‘star’.  Reporters followed her every move and fans were eager for any news, especially the details of her love life. She caused quite a sensation in 1888 when she played the part of Lady Macbeth at the London Lyceum Theatre, wearing a  spectacular emerald green costume constructed from more than a thousand Jewel beetle wings.




The gown was later immortalised in a portrait by the artist, John Singer Sargent, which can still be viewed today at London's *Tate Britain galleryHaving witnessed Ellen wearing it when alighting one day from a cab one day, Oscar Wilde went on to write: ‘The street that on a wet and dreary morning has vouchsafed the vision of Lady Macbeth in full regalia magnificently seated in a four-wheeler can never again be as other streets. It must always be full of wonderful possibilities.’


Choosing by G F Watts

Ellen had quite an effect on men, whatever their sexual persuasion and she clearly enjoyed male company, wedding her first husband (the artist G F Watts) when she was only sixteen years old and he was over twice her age. And although the marriage was short-lived, Watts painted some beautiful portraits of his wife.  

She had an affair with the architect and designer Edward Godwin, with whom she had two children, after which she married the actor and journalist Charles Kelly. She conducted an infamous affair of letters with the writer George Bernard Shaw, and then married again at sixty, this time to man who was half her age.



Today, the shimmering glory of the Macbeth dress can be viewed again. Funded by the National Trust, Zenzie Tinker of Brighton has restored and strengthened the fabric’s structure with many of the original beetle wings then being carefully reattached. Those that had broken were repaired using Japanese tissue and wheat starch paste. The remainder were donated by a generous antiques dealer.





The conserved garment is now on display at Smallhythe Place in Kent, the home in which Ellen Terry died in 1928.



Sadness - Ellen Terry aged 16, photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron






*The Sargent portrait of Ellen Terry in the gown of beetle wings is currently on display at The National Portrait Gallery as part of a show devoted to the work of John Singer Sargent.



For other VV's posts related to John Singer Sargent's work, please see:
  
                                  




THE TRUE VALUE OF THE PENNY BLACK

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Today, when we can send and receive a text message or email in seconds, it's hard to imagine the impact on social communication that was brought about by the manufacture of one little black penny stamp, which, when affixed to an envelope ensured a postal delivery to any part of British Isles.

Before 1840 any mail services were costly – except for subscriptions to newspapers which were then delivered free of charge. But as far as letters went, postal charges were calculated by the number of sheets that were written on, and then the distance travelled to reach their destinations - at which point the recipient would pay.

This is why many historical letters were written with vertical and horizontal lines which crossed each other on the page.




As early as 1822, James Chalmers, a bookseller and printer from Dundee, suggested the introduction of pre-paid postage stamps, along with a standard letter size. But not until 1837 did Robert Wallace (MP for Greenock) propose the use of an envelope onto which a stamp could be attached - before which the papers would simply be folded and sealed with ribbons, strings, or wax.


Parliament passed the Penny Postage Bill in the August of 1839, advocating the basic postal rate to be priced at one penny, with the Twopence Blue produced for the delivery of larger items. 

Roland Hill of the Treasury announced a competition for envelope and stamp designs, but when no submissions were considered as being suitable to use he chose an envelope designed by William Mulready (which proved to be not at all popular) and a stamp illustration of the Queen's profile based on an engraving by the artist Henry Corbould. 


Mulready's envelope design





Printed by Perkins, Bacon and Petch (the original press is shown above), the stamps featured the word POSTAGE at the top, and ONE PENNY at the bottom. At the top right and left were star like designs. At the base were two letters that indicated the position of the stamp when printed in a sheet of 240 others. And, until 1854, when sheets were perforated, the postmaster or mistress would have to cut each individual stamp they sold by using a pair of scissors.


Penny Black printing die



The first Penny Blacks were available on May 1, 1840, but they were only valid to use from the official launch date of May 6. The design is now iconic, but it was only produced for one year because the red cancellation ink was hard to see and too easily removed, meaning that the stamps could be reused. This led to the Treasury’s decision to reverse the colours, printing new postage stamps in red with the cancellation frank in black.




With 68,808,000 Penny Blacks having been produced in that one year alone and many still surviving, they are not that rare a commodity. But, for the VV their true value lies in the fact that so many stamps were bought, and so many Victorians took up what has now become a dwindling art – that of letter writing.

THIS VIRTUAL PUNCH AND JUDY SHOW...

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Punch Kills Judy 
From Gutenberg ebooks - author and illustrator unknown.


As another UK Election ends, during which political parties have all indulged in varying degrees of wit and repartee, the VV is reminded of a different Punch and Judy show: the popular fairground attraction which dates back to the sixteenth century and the Italian ‘commedia dell’arte’ - from which Pucinella, the Lord of Misrule, was later anglicised as Punch.



During the nineteenth century Punch and Judy shows were very popular, adapted for the entertainment of children rather than adults. At the seaside, in towns, and at country fairs, even in private houses, there was often a Mr Punch to be found. Set in a colourful mobile tent, the puppet was seen to be bobbing about, squawking in his distinctive, cackling voice (created by the use of a ‘swazzle’ or ‘squeaker’ through which the puppeteer’s voice was distorted).


A cast iron doorstop based on the image of Punch



Visually, Punch was instantly recognisable. A hunch-backed jester with enormous hooked nose and jutting chin, he wielded an oversized battering stick and created a state of anarchy as he murdered his baby for crying, before also beating his wife, Judy, to death. The dictator continued to mete out abuse on whoever happened to cross his path. Even the strict code of Victorian morality was thrown to the wind in the face of the tyrant who consistently avoided justice - either by tricking the hangman to place the noose around his own neck, or evading death with the devil himself. However, Victorian ‘Punchmen’ or ‘Professors’ sometimes removed the devil character, expanding the original story and cast by introducing the ghost of Punch's wife, and also black servant called Beadle. There might be a clown and policeman, a crocodile, and a string of sausages. There might even be Toby the dog, sometimes a living animal, trained to sit upon the stage, either biting or shaking hands with Punch, and sometimes even smoking a pipe.


From Gutenberg ebooks - author and illustrator unknown

For the politically correct, the visually grotesque Punch and Judy shows were often viewed as a bad influence; a means of inciting aggressive behaviour; creating the same sort of moral dilemma as today’s use of violent computer games. In his own contribution to the debate Charles Dickens was to write:
In my opinion the street Punch is one of those extravagant reliefs from the realities of life which would lose its hold upon the people if it were made moral and instructive. I regard it as quite harmless in its influence, and as an outrageous joke which no one in existence would think of regarding as an incentive to any kind of action or as a model for any kind of conduct.
Today, if you happen to witness a Punch and Judy show, remember that you are experiencing a flavour of Victorian life, for the dramatic presentation has altered very little since - and for many years before as well with the very first Punch and Judy show presented on an English stage on this  day in 1662.


‘That’s the way to do it.’


Punch and the baby - from Gutenberg ebooks


For further information, or to book a show, you might like to view the official site of the modern day Punch and Judy college of Professors.

YOURS FOR HEALTH: LYDIA PINKHAM ...

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Lydia Estes Pinkham - February 9, 1819 ~ May 17, 1883

Born in Massachusetts as the tenth of twelve other children belonging to a Quaker couple, Lydia Estes, as she was then known, had a relatively comfortable and well-cared for childhood. When she was sixteen she followed her parents political lead and joined the Female Anti Slavery Society, before at the age of twenty-four, settling down to married life. 

Isaac Pinkham was a widower who worked as a shoe manufacturer, though he went on to try other businesses - and rarely with very much success. Meanwhile, Lydia often made a brew using various natural herbs for general everyday maladies, and especially to alleviate certain specific 'female' complaints such as menstruation pains or the side affects of the menopause. 

For this brew she added to an alcohol base crushed plants such as Life Root, Fenugreek, Unicorn Root, and Black Cohosh - the latter being frequently used by native American Indians, and all being accepted to this day as valuable remedies to alleviate inflammation, or as diuretics, or to ease pelvic congestion and muscle spasms. 

At first, Lydia was happy to give this brew as gifts to family and friends - with glowing testimonials - until her husband's fortunes failed and, in 1875, she started to manufacture it in very much larger quantities, selling it for a dollar a bottle to try and bring some much needed money into the family coffers, and resulting in newspaper advertisements such as the one below -




Thus, Lydia E Pinkham's Vegetable Compound became one of the best known patent medicines that was used in the nineteenth century, going on to gross $300,000 a year at the greatest height of its success. Not only this, but a bi-product was for Lydia to then become a sort of agony aunt when many women customers wrote to her with problems - which Lydia mostly answered - although it was quite a scandal when her answers continued to arrive long after the woman herself was dead: when a picture of her tombstone was publicised to expose the deception. 

Even so, whether Lydia herself, or her daughter in law - Jennie Pinkham - ran the Department of Advice, the fact is that information was sent on a great many personal issues that were then barely ever spoken about. A pamphlet was also printed up presenting all female facts of life through puberty, childbirth and to menopause. As such, Lydia Pinkham was quite a trailblazer when it came to women's health issues, family planning, and general family advice.




The family-owned business finally sold out to Cooper Laboratories in 1968. Even to this very day some of the Pinkham remedies are available to buy in American drug stores. And perhaps it was publicity about that sale in '68 that led a group in Liverpool who called themselves The Scaffold to release a single that became a great hit in the pop charts at number one, and which went by the name of Lily the Pink: The Saviour of the Human Race - being a modern version of a much older song about Lydia's medicinal brew. 

The VV remembers it very well, and may well have a sing-a-long right now ...





ALPHONSE MUCHA ~ ART NOUVEAU

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Alphonse Mucha July 24 1860 - July 24 1939


Born in the Czech Republic, the name of Alphonse Mucha was later to become forever linked with the artistic style of Art Nouveau. The mass appeal of his illustrative work was often used for advertisements and commercial designs for which he was always in great demand. Even today his images appear to be fresh and modern. Back in the 1970’s when I first became aware of what is known as 'Mucha Style' (when many of his romantic designs were placed as posters on my walls) I imagined the work was contemporary.


Precious Stones and Flowers


In fact, Mucha’s artistic flair dated back to before he could even walk, when he was obsessed with drawing, when his mother tied a pencil around his neck to be there whenever he needed it. Even so, his first attempt to join the world of art and design was to fail, being refused an entry to the Prague Academy of Fine Art. However, by the age of 19 he found work as an apprentice, painting theatrical scenery in Vienna - until the theatre company closed down after a serious fire. 

In 1881, at 21, Mucha found himself travelling in search of work and was commissioned by Count Khuen Belasi to decorate his Moravian castle, mainly with murals of himself and other family members. The count was then so pleased and impressed that he sponsored the talented young man to go on and study more seriously at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts.



Another lucky break was to come at the age of 27 while Mucha was living in France, where the count had agreed to sponsor him for three more years of Parisan study. It was there, when the three years were up and Mucha was desperately looking for work that he visited a print shop one day and, with every other illustrator they used being unable to help out, was asked if he could quickly produce a lithograph poster for Gismonda: a play featuring Sarah Bernhardt.


From the Zodia series


The posters were so popular that people stole them from public boards. Sarah Bernhardt was so pleased with the work that she then contracted Mucha to produce her posters for the next 5 years - during which time his work also featured at the 1900 Universal Exhibition of Paris. Meanwhile, he continued to produce an enormous amount of commercial work - most of which featured subtle and muted tones, with neo-classical looking young women, often with halos around their heads and with and intricate floral border work.


Byzantine Heads: Brunette


The work continued to flood in, with Style Mucha always in demand for more theatre posters, decorative panels, magazine covers, menus, postcards, calendars, jewellery and tableware; even fabrics for the home. He was also frequently asked to teach at the Academie Colarossi, and then the Academie Carmen.




Despite his huge commercial success which eventually led him to New York, Mucha always insisted that his art was primarily a gift he had to communicate a spiritual message. This led to a growing dissatisfaction with the constant demands of professional life.


Mucha at work on his Slav Epic

Returning to his Bohemia homeland, he preferred to use his talents to promote pride in nationalism - creating monumental friezes to show the history of the Slavic race, and also many murals for official and political residences. He also designed national postage stamps, banknotes and government documents.


Detail from The Slavs In Their Original Homeland


It was perhaps not a great surprise when Mucha was arrested on charges of inciting national fervour when German troops entered Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1939. During interrogation by the Gestapo he became very ill with pneumonia and died shortly after his release. He is buried in the Vysehrad cemetery in Prague.



If you would like to see some of Mucha’s work at first-hand there is currently an exhibition in the UK, in Bournemouth, at the beautiful Russell-Cotes Gallery.

For more comprehensive information on the artist, his work and life visit The Mucha Foundation

THE GODDESS AND THE THIEF ...

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A very brief post today to show the book trailer that has been made for the novel, The Goddess and The Thief. 




ADA LOVELACE AND THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE...

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Ada Lovelace 1815-1852

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, was the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Milbanke. However, Ada never knew the father who deserted his wife only a month after her birth and who died when his daughter was nine years old.

Byron


As a child, Ada was often ill and suffered serious complications following a severe bout of measles. After that her domineering and hypochondriac mother kept her in isolation whilst also attempting to allay any trace of ‘immorality’ or inherited poetic tendencies. She insisted that her daughter was tutored in music and mathematics. She must have been very relieved when Ada proved to be gifted in scientific areas  - the child even going so far as to produce a design for a flying machine.


Charles Babbage 1791-1871

Ada’s talents really came to fruition when, at the age of seventeen, she met with Charles Babbage, Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University. Babbage had already begun his work on the world's first mechanical computers, even though his machines were never constructed with parliament refusing to sponsor his plans for the ‘Difference’ and ‘Analytical’ Engines. 


Ada Lovelace

Babbage did find some sympathy abroad when aided by the Italian mathematician, Louis Menebrea. And when he returned to England again, Ada - his little Enchantress of Numbers - helped him with translating Menabrea’s notes. From these she formed an algorithm: a code to enable the actual processing of the machines that her mentor had in mind, even though they were never constructed during their inventor's lifetime. But, as such, she is now viewed as being the first computer programmer, and there is also some evidence that Ada suggested punch cards for use with the Analytical machine, even suggesting that its scope might aid the composition of music.

Ockham Park in Surrey


Ada married the 1st Earl of Lovelace, afterwards residing at Ockham Park in Surrey where the couple produced three children. But Ada was destined to die when young. Suffering from uterine cancer, at the age of 37 she perished from an excess of medicinal blood-letting - at the same age and from the same cause as Lord Byron before. She was then buried beside the famed father who, in life, she had never known.



Finally, if you like the idea of ‘steampunk’ Victorian fiction, then why not try reading The Difference Machine, an alternate historical novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. In their combined story, the Analytical Engine has been built, changing the balance of world power. Babbage has great political influence. The Prime Minister is the scandalous Lord Byron (still living, rather than dying in Greece) who heads the Industrial Radical Party: a party in which his daughter, Ada, is also a prominent figure. Her computer ‘punch cards’ have been developed to enable a gambling ‘modus’ – betting being a penchant of our heroine, just as it was in real life.
And, with steampunk in mind, the VV would like to end this post by sharing something seem recently on the Datamancer website; a wonderful hybrid laptop encased in a Victorian music box – something that Ada Lovelace would surely have loved to own.



THE VICTORIAN CULT OF DEATH...

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Recently, the VV gave a talk to the Dracula Society, discussing some aspects of her research into the Victorian Cult of Death. This is a transcript of that talk... 


I adore the gothic genre. Even when I was a little girl there was nothing I liked much better than to spend wet winter afternoons snuggled up on the sofa by a fire, with the curtains closed against the rain which was rattling against the window panes, while I watched all the flickering black and white films... like Fanny by Gaslight, or Wuthering Heights, not to mention the Hammer Horror films shown late on every Friday night. How they informed my teenage years!




And then, at university, I discovered Victorian Sensation novels such as Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, or Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret. All those twisting, turning, daring plots filled with such audacious themes – divorce or illegitimacy – doomed love affairs – lost inheritances – and very often harking back to Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto which inspired a host of fevered tales, perhaps even Castle Dracula, where an isolated protagonist, usually female, usually young, is engaged in a mental and physical battle against monsters, madness, murder, disease, sex, and the supernatural; with visions induced by drugs or despair which may be real, or otherwise might be explained as little more than the fears of an irrational mind. And all with claustrophobic scenes, such as crumbling castles with dripping crypts. Even a rotting corpse or two.





I think these isolated ruins – painted by Sebastian Pether in the early nineteenth century – add so much to the Gothic atmosphere of what looks like an illustration to grace an adult fairytale. A story subversive and dark enough to disturb the most cynical of minds, and to cause a shiver of delight. Just as when small children thrill to hear those opening few words: ‘Once upon a time’... 

When it comes to my own novels, I try to distort that fairy tale theme, with the concept of good versus evil sometimes being confused with twilight realms where nightmares meld with reality. Sometimes even the spirit world. But, at the heart of all my books is a gritty and real Victorian backdrop, with the darkness of what is often now referred to as its Cult of Death – though I would say that everyone, whether in the past or the present day, holds such a fear inside their hearts. It’s just that today our modern lives are somehow much more sanitized, making it easier to forget. Unless we are directly involved in what we might call the funeral trade, we rarely see the ‘face of death’. The ill are contained in hospitals. Even those who die at home are very quickly whisked away to undertakers’ mortuaries. We busy ourselves with the rituals. The choice of a coffin, the fittings, the flowers – all of which almost distract us from what we’re really dealing with; which is the pain of grief and loss. 

During the Victorian era, it was much harder to forget.

Mortality rates were very high. There was no National Health Service. No inoculations protecting the young against fatal childhood diseases. No antibiotics to kill off infections, some of which we might consider as being trivial today. But a finger scratched on a rose thorn while gardening this afternoon might result in a case of blood poisoning that would see you off within the week; not to mention the complications faced by women during childbirth.

Death could strike at any time. Ruthless, swift, invisible, whatever your age or social class. And for those who strayed too far away from the path of moral righteousness there were other forms of death as well, so virulent and widely spread that they only enhanced the sense of dread. 

One of them was  syphilis – that infection being rampant in nineteenth-century England where beneath a moral social veneer many scandals were simmering below. The consequence of such ‘sins of the flesh’ became the time’s great leveller, not discriminating in the least between rich, or poor – or famous.


Today, the disease can be easily cured by a course of antibiotics. Then, there was no hope at all. It was true to say that sex could kill, and sex was on sale most everywhere, on any Victorian city street – with many so-called respectable men (the married and bachelors alike) seeking to satisfy those needs that we accept as natural now.




Hidden in veils of silence and shame, the disease spread through every social group. This photograph was taken of Isabella Beaton who I often used to imagine as a battle axe of the kitchen range. But, the domestic goddess of her age died when she was twenty-nine, and may well have been infected as a virgin on her wedding night – as were so many others then, quite unaware of any wrong until the symptoms took a hold. Although she died from childbirth fever, she was also said to be in a much weakened state from illnesses brought on by infection with syphilis.

A state of near national hysteria led to the passing of an act whereby any woman on the streets, whether a prostitute or not, could be apprehended and physically examined for showing signs of the disease. Those found to be infected were placed in isolation, in medical institutions such as the London Lock Hospital: a cross between a prison and a convalescent clinic where there was no hope of any cure. But at least their souls might yet be saved to die and enter heaven’s gates. Meanwhile, they suffered hellishly, kept out of sight and out of mind, while the highly infectious but physically well continued to spread the plague about. 

Illicit sex was a gamble. The risks were very high. ‘One night of love with Venus...a lifetime spent with Mercury.’ 

Ah, mercury – the so-called cure – the toxic effects of which could be as grim as the disease itself, with ulcers, hair loss, headaches, fatigue and gross disfigurement, paralysis, blindness, madness too. A nightmare! A real life horror tale – which may have been in Bram Stoker’s mind when he wrote his novel, Dracula.




I’m sure you may well be aware that the author was often rumoured as suffering from syphilis, even though the official cause of death was said to be physical exhaustion. This was a popular euphemism, very often used in Victorian times, but whatever the truth of the matter I often ponder on this fact, especially when considering the central theme of Dracula – seeing anew in its pages the descriptions of a vile and unrelenting corruption of the blood: a corruption passed on sexually, from a man to his wife, then through her blood to infect the child inside a womb. The fate of the Beatons yet again.

So, a sort of immortality. A scourge that did not always die, even when its victims had.




For those who were then left behind there was grief, but life still carried on. While observing the mourning rituals that very often took their leads from the widowed Queen Victoria, who – following her husband’s death at the age of only 42 (and not from syphilis, I stress), went on to turn her misery into a grand obsession, and something of an art form, with the man she had adored in life then worshipped as a god in death – with the Queen very often heard to say that wished that she could have died as well, to join him in Eternity.




But, while waiting for eternity, her mortal flesh still needed clothes – and, it was around about this time that the fashion for mourning dress became such a massive industry. Victorians really revelled in what we might describe today as a mawkish sentimentality, with items worn and placed in homes to signify remembrance; all the things that could be purchased from enormous mourning emporiums – either by going to the shops in a personal capacity, or else by ordering items via adverts placed in newspapers, magazines, or traders’ catalogues. The mail order business is nothing new!




Hats were an essential. But, a mourner might also like to choose some black-edged stationery to use, or black embroidered handkerchiefs, even black satin ribbons to thread through the lace of their undergarments.




And, oh, what fashions could be found - as displayed in 'Death Becomes Her'– an exhibition held last year at the New York Metropolitan - though, the strictest rules and traditions were applied to the colours of the dyes, with various shades being allowed, depending on the time elapsed since the beloved’s end was met – and also the griever’s relationship. So, after the blacks, there were greys and browns, purples and various shades of mauve, though some, such as Queen Victoria, the so-called Widow of Windsor, remained in black forevermore.





Jewellery was acceptable, but nothing too bright or colourful, which was why jet was so popular – a great boost for places like Whitby where the very finest was said to be found; with necklaces, brooches, bracelets, rings very often being customised with a loved one’s name or initials. Even the numbers to signify the date or age when death occurred. 

Hair was a treasured keepsake too – allied with the fact that a woman’s hair was her crowning glory when alive. And then, the rather creepy fact that it often grew, long after death, as exemplified in the story told about the artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who, when Lizzie Sidall, his muse and wife had died, wound a book of his poetry through her hair before her coffin was interred in a grave in Highgate cemetery. But then, seven years later, when he was in need of money, and in something of an artistic rut, he decided to reclaim that book, digging her up at the dead of night and then ...




... as shown in this lurid still from Ken Russell’s Dante’s Inferno– was shocked to see the way his wife’s lustrous red locks had grown so long, as if she never had been dead! As if she was a vampire. 
Poor Lizzie was no vampire – and who knows if she had syphilis. But she certainly was the victim of another great scourge of the era – and that was the use of opiates. 

No-one had look too far to find their chosen daily dose. Following the Empire’s expansion into other eastern lands, Victorian England was awash with the drug. It was sold in every pharmacy and no need for a prescription, after which it was ingested in the forms of powders or potions, which often led to overdose, with many children being lost while doped with supposedly innocent tinctures of cough medicine, or teething drops.




Mrs Winslow had much to answer for, with respectable and assuring ads that offered -

“ADVICE TO MOTHERS!—Are you broken in your rest by a sick child? Go at once to a chemist and get a bottle of MRS. WINSLOW’S SOOTHING SYRUP. It is perfectly harmless and pleasant to taste, it produces natural quiet sleep so that the little cherub awakes “as bright as a button.” It soothes the child, it softens the gums, allays all pain, regulates the bowels, and is the best known remedy for dysentery and diarrhea. Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup is sold by Medicine dealers everywhere at 1s. 11⁄2d. per bottle. Manufactured in New York and at 498, Oxford- street, London.” 




But perhaps the most popular potion to sit in Victorian medicine chests, or to lie close at hand on bedside stands, were the ladylike bottles of laudanum, which even Queen Victoria used for her headaches and menstrual cramps. A potent narcotic it was as well, containing all opium alkaloids, including morphine and codeine.




Lizzie Siddal was addicted, and this hopeless situation is thought to have been the inspiration behind a poem her husband’s sister wrote. Christina Rosetti’s, Goblin Market - illustrated here by Arthur Rackam – is a subversive, so-called fairy tale, which is full of longing for sex, and drugs, and in which another Lizzie is seduced by the juice that the goblins sell: ‘Their fruits like honey to the throat, But as a poison to the blood.’ 

That poison may have been the cause of the stillbirth of Lizzie’s daughter too. The next child conceived was never born, when its mother slipped into a coma, following an overdose - after which Rossetti painted his famous Beata Beatrix, where a woman holds a poppy flower. The source of the drug that killed his wife.





I wonder if, when he dug her up, Rossetti saved poor Lizzie’s hair to place inside a locket – which was how so many Victorians remembered loved ones lost to them. 





Or he might have had those longer lengths woven into the ‘lace’ of a mourning wreath – though it does seem rather creepy now; this ritual of remembrance by ‘hair’. 

Today we are more likely to remember those who’ve passed away by looking at photographs we keep. And, of course, we have videos – voicemails too. But, in the Victorian era, photography was very new. Even when studios opened up in which personal portraits could be made, this was something of a luxury; an expense that many poorer folk could very ill afford to bear – which is why some people at this time only had their pictures taken once, and often only when they’d died – when a family member would rush out to call in the photographer while the body would be washed and dressed and then posed as if still living – sometimes alone, and sometimes in the midst of the rest of the family, thus creating a personal memory to treasure in years to come. 

Such Post Mortem photographs are easily found online if you want to do a Google search. But I warn you, they can be disturbing, which is why tonight I’ve only loaded two for you to view on screen.




The first one is this photograph of beloved family pet.




The second, is this...where two children are standing beside the bed in which their younger sister seems to sleep, where, due to the long exposure time the living children look like ghosts, because they are blurred, because they moved, whereas the little girl who died is very clear for us to see. But then, of course, she was quite still. A beautiful, sad photograph. 

Such accidental blurring soon became a deliberate method used by Victorian charlatans who claimed to take photographs of ghosts as they hovered about in the background while their living loved ones posed in front. I’m actually writing about this now in a novel about the film industry – which was another miracle that began in late Victorian times, when stage magicians often turned to the trade of directing films, using their smoke and mirror tricks as the forerunners of the special effects that we often take for granted now.




But, back to spirit photography. It was double exposure, nothing more. Still, it is astonishing to think how people were convinced. But then, we see what we want to see. We often believe what we want to believe, particularly in times of grief.




How Victoria grieved for Albert, seen here upon his death bed when the soul had clearly fled the flesh. But his wife often tried to call it back, at the forefront of another part of the Victorian cult of death when she met with spirit mediums.




This ardent belief in the spirit world was thought to have gained momentum in America with the Fox sisters, and during and after the Civil War, when so many young men had lost their lives and survivors were desperate to contact them. And again, there were lots of tricks involved. Many mediums were fine magicians. 

But clairvoyance was also strongly linked with the early suffrage movement – with women not allowed to speak so controversially ‘themselves’ – but they could utter all sorts of views through the voice of any spirit guide!





I’ve written a lot about this in another article on this  blog - in the form of Victoria Woodhall; an amazing American woman who was also a newspaper publisher, a woman’s suffrage activist – and the very first female broker on Wall Street. She even went so far as to stand against Grant for the US presidency, back in 1872. What a woman! And there’s so much more about her exciting and scandalous life, She was not at all a retiring rose who fainted away at the slightest threat of any inconvenience. And she realised that power lay in the cult that was known as Spiritualism, followed as a religion by so many in Victorian times, with a lucrative ‘entertainment’ trade growing up around it. 

It’s not really as odd as it might seem – that so many people could be duped – if, in fact, we think they were. Victorians often had strong faith, with a fervent belief in an afterlife. And with scientific discoveries, such as the harnessing of electricity, or X Rays to see beneath the flesh, or voices heard through the ether as they travelled along a telegraph wire – why should it not be possible to discover another invisible force, and to tap into the energies of the spirit dead who still lived on: only waiting for us on the other side of the ever present veil of death? 

I’ve actually covered some aspects of this cult in The Goddess and the Thief, in which we see Queen Victoria meeting with spiritualist mediums. In fact, though the mediums in my book are entirely fictional, Victoria really did consult with famous clairvoyants of the time; and those meetings began even before the time of her husband’s tragic end. On one occasion when the royal couple were holidaying on the Isle of Wight, they met a Miss Georgina Eagle, who impressed the Queen so much that Victoria gave her a golden watch, on the back of which she had engraved – ‘For Meritorious and Extraordinary Clairvoyance. Produced at Osborne House, Isle of Wight, July 17th, 1846’.




Perhaps Miss Eagle was also there when a table began to levitate, leaving Prince Albert so horrified that he ordered the object be destroyed, and then demanded that his wife never dabble in such things again. 

But, she did – when he could not stop her – perhaps mindful of some words that he once wrote to her in happy times: ‘We don’t know in what state we shall meet again, but we shall recognise each other and be together in eternity I am perfectly certain.’ 

Another man who fervently believed in the afterlife to come was Robert Lees, the medium who wrote a letter to the Queen when he was just 13 years old, detailing certain private things about her life with Albert that he could not possibly have known; all of which so impressed Victoria that later on she invited him to join the court in London as its resident Spirit Medium. Lees, however declined that role, and suggested the situation would be better filled by another man. Many have surmised he had a certain Mr Brown in mind; the gamekeeper turned confidente, who claimed to have a psychic gift, and who, it was said, became the channel by which Prince Albert’s soul could visit with his wife again! If only Victoria’s diaries had not been edited when she died. What entries might have been destroyed. 

Whatever she wrote of them while alive, both men – in one way or another – were to share her final resting place, and perhaps in her eternity, when her body was laid besides Albert’s at the Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore.




In death Victoria took along mementoes of those she’d loved in life. So, she lies with Albert’s dressing gown, one of his cloaks, and a plaster cast that was made of one of her husband’s hands. She also has her wedding veil, some shawls, some family photographs, and various items of jewellery – but according to many intimates, including her physician, the royal tomb also contains some private mementos of John Brown. A lock of his hair, a photograph, several of his letters, and a ring that belonged to his mother.




The Queen – like many Victorians, went to her grave a Christian. But she was also influenced by the eastern religions and ideas encountered through the Empire’s reach; with those myths and supernatural themes also inspiring Stoker - with the fear of something alien arriving on our English shores, as well as the sense of attraction for the sensual and darkly exotic. 

The Empire built in India also inspired The Moonstone, a novel by Wilkie Collins’, which is filled with drugs, and which also involved the theft of an infamous diamond. He based it on the Koh-i-noor, which caused quite a sensation when claimed by the British Army at the end of the second Anglo Sikh war, after which it was brought to England and displayed in the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition of 1851.




I’ve also woven this diamond – which was said to be both blessed and cursed, with supernatural magic powers, into my latest mystery, the story of Alice Willoughby, who was born and raised in India with her father, an army doctor – until at the age of eight, she is sent away to England, where she lives with her Aunt Mercy, and finds herself reluctantly involved in Mercy’s business as a fraudulent spirit medium. But, Alice in fact is not a fraud, often seeing things she’d rather not – and while still a young defenceless child she is often forced to play a ghost during Mercy’s séances; as described in this extract from the book - 

And that is how I was reborn: to walk the path of Mercy’s ghost, to act in Mercy’s Mysteries. I became an apprentice in the trade for which she placed advertisements: discreet invitations in magazines for “Tea and Table Moving” - though my aunt did not spread local lures, not wishing to cause more offence to the vicar, not wanting to encounter those who might recognise her spirit guide as being so like the orphaned niece who had recently come to live with her. However for the first few months, there was less risk of being known – when I spied from behind the sitting room door where I could eavesdrop on those ‘guests’ who sat in the hall and waited, until my aunt walked down the stairs, as resplendent in her finery as any actress on a stage. 

I would listen to those visitors, (nearly always women, nearly always old) exchanging confidential woes, and thus revealing vital clues. And later, when they had been called to sit beside the parlour fire, when the front door bell would chance to ring, requiring that Mercy be called out on a matter of some urgency – that subterfuge was all it took for me to show my aunt the page on which I’d scribbled down the facts that I had learned while hiding: those names and sorrowful events that might then drip from Mercy’s lips. 


When guests returned as regulars, when no more secrets need be learned, I wore the garments of the ghost, the hushing silks, the sheer black veils, the darkness of which obscured the face on which my aunt brushed silver paste, with ashes smudged around my eyes, to make me look half skull, half corpse. At other times a mask transformed my face into that of an infant child’s, whose tiny rosebud mouth would cry, ‘Mama - dear Mama. I am here!’ 


In daylight, it was pitiful to see those crude deceptions. I felt ashamed to play a part, to cause yet more unhappiness. But in the parlour’s darkness, the power of those wicked acts! Truly it was astonishing when, at Mercy’s given signal – a pre-arranged word, a certain look – her spirit guide materialised from behind ‘The Filmy Veil of Death’, which was generally the Chinese screen or the drapes in the room’s dimmest corner. From there I would float across the room, leaving a trail of apports behind – the rosebuds, or other fragrant blooms that might be construed as Spirit-sent: as were the kisses that I gave – the touch of veiled lips on tear-damp cheeks – the diversion of which then gave my aunt the chance to fling some sprays of dust from her pocket down into the hearth – where those chemicals would cause the flames to crackle purple, orange and red, exuding a dense grey pall through which I opened the door and left the room, during which my aunt would stand and chant: 

Through the mists that hide the Light of God, 
I see a shapeless form of Death. 
Death comes and beckons me today to glimpse the sacred Summerland. 
And with commingled joy and dread, I hear the far-off whispers . . . 



My heroine’s own Indian past is often whispering to her, in the characters, myths and legends that stem from her lost childhood, with stories of souls being born again, of deposed maharajah’s, and vampires - such as Vikram and the Vampire, translated by Sir Richard Burton: a story you can find online in the Gutenberg digital library. 




She is also very taken with the exploits of Varney the Vampire in the penny dreadful magazines that she finds beneath her grandmother’s bed – and in these lurid tales (which I’m sure Bram Stoker would have known) while she’s under the influence of opiates, having taken a dose of cough medicine, she falls asleep having reached the part in which she reads of Varney's dramatic death, when – in a fit of dark despair – he flings himself into the flames rising up from Mount Vesuvius. My heroine then has nightmares, thinking of Varney’s charred black skull – and that image is revived again in the form of an extreme Hindu sect: another sort of cult of death.




The Aghori in my Victorian tale are real, and they still exist today. They worship the god Shiva – who dances and beats his drum to conjure life into the world, but also to beat the dance of death. Shiva is said to represent both the good and the bad held in the world, and only by immersing themselves in equal measures of both things do the Aghori faithful hope to find Nirvana. Meanwhile, they inhabit burial grounds, immersed in death and vile decay, drunk on drugs and alcohol and eating human excrement. It is also a custom, or trial of sorts, for each new member of the sect to find himself a human skull from which he must drink human blood; finding this in the decomposing flesh of the dead who are left in the burning ghats – cremated before their ashes are scattered in sacred rivers.




Fire as a means of final death – for humans, or for vampires – is something my book also explores through the ancient practice of Suti, when Indian widows were burned alive with the bodies of dead husbands, although this was something outlawed by the British when they ruled there.




Cremation was also illegal in England until 1885, after in 1884 an 84 year old Welsh druid, a Dr William Price, cremated the corpse of his baby son. The old man was arrested, but released when no crime was found to be proven – and soon the law was also changed, and as early as the following year the first formal cremation was performed on a Mrs J Pickersville, taking place in the town of Woking – a setting less exotic than some in The Goddess and the Thief.

And now, in this final extract now, I’ll read a part of a letter that occurs at the novel’s opening, when a pregnant English woman (actually this is Alice’s mother) who has married an army officer and come to live in India, goes on a night time visit to a temple in Benares – as inspired by this painting by the artist, Albert Goodwin.




There was a temple that looked like a palace. It gleamed like silver against black skies where a bright full moon was shining down upon the domes and balconies, and the ornate marble arches, and in every arch a deity, and every deity shimmering in the flare of the torches set below. A pair of golden fretwork doors drew back to show a golden god... hailed by a thousand beating drums, the crashing of cymbals, the blaring of conches. I could not drag my eyes away, even though the god’s were closed. I kept thinking, ‘He cannot see me’. And yet, I knew he could, as if he could look into my soul through the gleaming ruby in his brow, or the ruby eyes of the cobra that coiled around his throat. That put me in mind of the devil in Hell, as did the trident in one of his hands. But then, the way he raised one palm – that seemed a benediction – and when a gust of air rose up, it was the strangest thing, because, I thought, “A gift, a blessing. A kiss from the lips of Shiva.” 

Such sacrilegious thoughts I had. I forced myself to turn away, to run on down the steep stone steps that led me to the river’s shore. How wide it is, that river? I could barely see to the other side where the flames of fires were burning and such strange shadows dancing. It must be one of the funeral ‘ghats’, where the Hindoos go to cremate their dead. But if only I’d not noticed ... that sudden stench of burning flesh...and then, the hand upon my wrist. A hand with fingers more like claws, with nails filthy, cracked and long. And there the horror did not end. In the other hand he held a staff, a drum, and what looked like a human skull. He wore nothing more than a loincloth. His flesh was black and wrinkled. And the toothless face that leered above... I could only watch when he dropped my wrist, unable to speak when his fingers spread and lowered to my belly. And just at that moment my baby kicked and that motion so sudden and violent that I gasped at the very shock of it. But it did bring me back to my senses again. I screamed. I pushed that wretch away. And he made no attempt to prevent me, only smiled as his hand was lifted, the palm extended forward, just like the golden god’s before. And then, he said the queerest thing... 



‘Do not fear thine death. Death is the blessed sacrifice with which to glorify The Lord. The Lord will claim thy womb’s new fruit, the goddess thus to be reborn.’ 




Poor woman! To hear such a prophecy: a prophecy that will come true, to curse her, and the child in her womb – a child who then grows up to see Hindu gods, and ghosts, and skulls – and to face the madness of a man who has lived among the Aghori, who then follows her to England, hoping to employ her skills in deceits far worse than any to be found in Mercy's parlour games.




And on that note, I’d like to end the talk I’d given you tonight with a thought about the only certainty that we all share in life - which is so perfectly described in the Latin Memento Mori - which means,  Remember You Must Die. 

DOCTOR WILLIAM PRICE ~ WELSH DRUID

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Doctor William Price was a scholar and surgeon who gained fame at the age of 84 when cremating his dead baby son on the side of a Welsh mountain. 




A charismatic and charming young man, Price socialised as easily with the Welsh working class people among whom he grew up, as he did with the wealthier London elite met while he studied medicine. Being a talented student, at the age of only 21 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. 

When returning home to work in Wales be became very much involved in the Chartist movement, and also did a great deal to improve the health of the local workers - being very much against smoking, and keen on natural medicines, with a healthy diet (vegetarian here), and plenty of open air exercise. Such pioneering practice in a social healthcare system went on to have great influence on the views of Aneurin Bevan.

One of the earliest feminists, Price believed in Free Love in relationships and the abolition of marriage. He was also very much immersed in alternative religious faiths - studying Hinduism, Greek Mythology, as well as Egyptology, not forgetting the cult of Druidism that was very popular indeed in the Welsh Victorian era.

At this time there was a rising fear that the country may lose its identity and, inspired by the work and faith of the Druid, lolo Morganwg, Price hoped to encourage interest in the Welsh culture, language and history. (This was also the era when Lady Charlotte Guest was translating The Mabinogion to English, with competitive eisteddfods run to encourage the arts and the spoken word.)

Price believed the land’s many standing stones were places of spiritual worship and hoped to created his own ‘temple’ at the summit of a mountain overlooking the town of Pontypridd. When attempts to raise £10,000 to build a great museum failed, he refused to doubt his mission, especially after making a visit to the Louvre in Paris - after having been forced to flee to France when involvement with Chartists’ rioting placed him at risk of imprisonment.

At the Louvre he was said to have viewed a 2,000 year old Greek Stone, and believed that he could understand every one of its engravings, claiming that the stone had ‘spoken’ to him of his future as a ‘bard of the moon’, whose first born son would then become the Messiah of the Druid faith.

Back in Wales again, from around the age of 40, Pryce became yet more unconventional in his dress as well as his beliefs. Growing his black hair down to his shoulders and also wearing a long beard, he dressed in flamboyant outfits, often coloured emerald green, and wore a crown upon his head that was made from the body of a fox.




At the age of 71, having fathered three daughters, but still no son, he went to practice medicine in the medieval hilltop market town of Llantrisant. It was there, at the age of 83 that he met a young woman, Gwenllian Llewellyn, who was almost 60 years his junior, and who - despite all previous statements of not agreeing with marriage - he then went on to marry in a pagan open air ceremony, at which three women friends appeared as The Three Graces.

The longed for son was born to them on August 8, 1883 and was named as lesu Grist Price (the Welsh version of Jesus Christ). When that child then sadly died from a convulsion at only 5 months old, his father attempted to perform a cremation on East Carlen hill.

No doubt he had been influenced by the Hindu cremation ceremonies, and stories of ancient druids who were also said to burn their dead. But, ever the social activist, Price was very much aware of the growing movement in Great Britain for people to chose cremation ceremonies over traditional burials: an option then illegal.

There was a great deal of outrage and also suspicion that the child may even have been murdered, with Price only attempting to destroy any evidence of the crime. Crowds gathered and the corpse was taken away before the flames could devour it. A sensational court case followed on where Price defended himself and claimed:



“It is not right that a carcass should be allowed to rot and decompose in this way. It results in a wastage of good land, pollution of the earth, water and air, and is a constant danger to living things.

After being found not guilty, Price demanded his child’s body back, and while his wife kept a mob at bay with pistols and Irish wolfhounds (that, the VV would have liked to see!) the cremation was finally performed, after which Price erected a 60 foot pole with a moon symbol on top of it, as a token of remembrance.




The event was a cause celebre which went on to greatly influcence a law that was passed in 1902, to legalise cremation. Meanwhile, Price fathered two more children, another son and then a daughter until, at the age of 92, he stood at his doorway one day and announced, “I will lay on on my couch and I shall not rise again.” When his wife tried to give him some cider to drink he demanded to have champagne instead, and while he sipped away at that Price peacefully passed away.

Following her husband’s death, on January 31 1893, Gwenllian ordered 9 tonnes of coal to be delivered to the summit of East Caerlan. There a great iron grid was built to hold the coffin. 20,000 tickets were sold to those who wished to view the cremation, with many of those spectators coming dressed in full Welsh costume, with an almost carnival atmosphere.



Price’s daughter, Penelopen Elizabeth grew up to devote herself to promoting the Cremation Society of Great Britain. In 1947 she unveiled a statue of her father in the Welsh town of Llantrisant.


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Dylan Thomas’ short story, The Baby Burning, is said to be based on these true events.

The film in this link , and also shown embedded in the post below, was based on this story, and was created by Matt Brodie as part of his senior thesis at Emerson College.




Also with thanks to www.llantrisant.net

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