Reviews
If You Love Jane Austen…
Allow me to introduce Emily Eden–aristocratic spinster, political hostess, accomplished painter, and talented novelist. I first discovered Emily Eden through her connection to India. Her brother George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland, was appointed Governor-General of India in 1835. Emily accompanied him to India and served as his Burra Lady Sahib (the rough equivalent of…
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The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England
My junior high school library had a series of books called Everyday Life in [fill in the historical period]. They had line drawings of period clothing, architectural drawings of buildings (common houses as well as castles), and details about food, games, school, etc. I suspect they were written in the 1920s or 1930s; they have…
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How to Create the Perfect Wife.
The myth of one man’s effort to create a perfect woman is a recurring theme in Western literature, from Ovid’s telling of the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea in classical Rome to Lerner and Lowe’s My Fair Lady in twentieth-century America.* In each version of the story, the creator falls in love with his creation,…
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