It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a love of history, must be in want of a blog.
Wigs and false hair have a long and noble history, but they really came into their own in the later 17th and 18th centuries. During this period, they were not just aids for balding men, but were de rigeur for anyone who wanted to look fashionable. The first half of the 17th century saw long …
In 1842, William Thackeray published the second of his satirical pieces titled Miss Tickletoby's Lectures on English History, in Punch magazine, for which he was a regular contributor. They are a hilarious send-up of 19th-century English education, as captured through the lectures of the imaginary schoolmistress/historian, Miss Tickletoby. Readers who can remember Our Island Story may see some similarities …
Continue reading Miss Tickletoby’s Lectures on English History: Celts and Romans
What exactly is a monster? According to the Oxford English Dictionary it is an 'ugly or deformed person, animal or thing'. The narrator of the 14th century The Travels of Sir John Mandeville categorises a monster as 'a thing deformed against kind, both of man or of beast'. Given society's changing standards of beauty and …