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What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England
 
 
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What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Guineas, shillings, half-pence. You know what they are?..." (more)
Key Phrases: junior lords, perpetual curate, trump suit, Vanity Fair, Jane Austen, Oliver Twist (more...)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (74 customer reviews)

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What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England + Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners: Compliments, Charades & Horrible Blunders + An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England
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  • This item: What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England by Daniel Pool

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This useful guide to Victorian life enlightens on such subjects as grave robbing, debtors' prison and putrid fever. Illustrations. BOMC, QPB and History Book Club alternates.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal

This guide to daily life in 19th-centuryEngland is a welcome companion for readers of Austin, the Brontes, Dickens, and Trollope. The first section is a collection of engrossing short chapters on various aspects of British life, including clothing, etiquette, marriage, money, occupations, society, and transportation. For example, customs now lost but very much practiced at the time were primogeniture, which ensured that the great family houses would not be split up, and the avoidance of eating cheese by the middle class, who considered it a food for the poor. The second part of the book is a glossary of commonly used words or phrases that may be unfamiliar to the modern reader; for instance, tar was a colloquial name for a sailor. Although there are many books on the social history of 19th-century Britain (including several companions to Victorian fiction), this volume is useful because of its concise chapters and lengthy glossary. Recommended for general literature collections.
- Caroline Mitchell, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 416 pages
  • Publisher: Touchstone (April 21, 1994)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0671882368
  • ISBN-13: 978-0671882365
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (74 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #19,908 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

    #43 in  Books > History > Historical Study > Social History
    #75 in  Books > History > Europe > England

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Daniel Pool
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What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England
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Customer Reviews

74 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (74 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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75 of 77 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Book on 19th century Social History, December 1, 2003
By Chrissy1018 (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
If you love to read historical novels, whether they be the classics of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters and Anthony Trollope, or historical romances by such authors as Judith McNaught and Julia Quinn, this is a great book for you. It will also appeal to history buffs, and those with just a passing interest in the social customs and etiquette of bygone days.

Accessible and covering a broad range of topics, it's a reference book that touches on everything from social hierarchy (an Earl outranks the eldest son of a Marquis who outranks the younger son of a Duke, the eldest son of a Duke, however, ranks above an Earl and just below a Marquis), how to name your estate (what is the difference between a hall, a manor and a house?), how to play Faro (you need a machine to deal), manage the servants (especially when they're just not getting the silver bright enough) and walk with a member of the opposite sex (a gentleman, remember, always walks on the side nearest the street).

The book also includes an extensive glossary of terms of the period (just what is a costermonger and a mantua-maker?) It is also filled with literary references and citations from the great British 19th-century authors, including those mentioned above. Don't worry if you haven't read any of the books, the references are used to illustrate points, though this book may inspire you to finally pick up a few of those classics you've always been meaning to read.

My one complaint about this book is that it's just not as thorough as I would have liked. It covers a wide range of topics, and in trying to keep the book readable, it only touches the surface rather than becoming deeply involved in any one topic.

As an overall reference book, it's very good, and is very useful to anyone who might be writing a novel set in this period, or just enjoys reading books set in 19th-century England.

The closest book I am aware of to this book is "The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England" by Kristine Hughes, which follows in the same general reference covering a lot of topics, but without the references to classic novels. Also, the recent "An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England" by Venetia Murray is a collection of accounts of some of the most notorious real people of the era. And for the literary angle, "A Dab of Dickens and a Touch of Twain" by Elliot Engel offers a biographical overview of many of the authors referred to in this book.

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80 of 83 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Way better than "Everyday Life...", July 17, 2000
By R. Todd Ogrin (Columbia, MD United States) - See all my reviews
I picked this book up after reading _Everyday Life In Regency and Victorian England_, which I thought did a decent job of describing the mundane details of English life in the 1800's. Daniel Pool's book is immensely more interesting, detailed, and enjoyable.

_What Jane Austen Ate..._ is divided into two parts: a series of essays on daily life in the 19th century, and an exhaustive glossary of words common to the folk of the period, but not to us. Both parts are engaging and

interesting, suggesting all sorts of interesting ideas for characters, scenes, plots, and schemes (Most people will read this for background on other works, but I read it to ensure historical accuracy in something I'm working on). Pool refers to classical works by Dickens, Austen and Eliot when describing a certain facet of life to help pull it all together.

This book gets 5 stars not because it's the greatest book in the world, but because it's clearly the best of its kind. Readers and writers of 19th century fiction would do well to read it.

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54 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Misinformation for the Regency Era, September 10, 2002
By "noumea3" (Australia) - See all my reviews
A book which attempts to provide a general background to daily life in 19th century England for readers of 19th century English authors such as Jane Austen (a Regency author) and Charles Dickens (a Victorian author). This book is useful for the beginner to this period but does contains historical misinformation. It is impossible to cover a whole century in a book of this type, and thus the Regency and Victorian periods are not carefully distinguished. My warning for readers of this book is to remember that life in the Regency was often very different to life in Victorian times. For example, Poole categorically states marriage by widower to deceased wife's sister was illegal, actually it was legal in England till 1835. Kristine Hughes and Venetia Murray in their books also confuse the matter. Are they reading each other for reference instead of primary sources? I don't mind a good introductory book to a period, and this could have been one, but I really dislike it when something totally untrue for a period is presented as absolute fact. Marriage to one's sister-in-law was legal in civil law but voidable in ecclesiastical courts if anyone bothered to bring a suit, and many such marriages were made. Until 1835 and Lord Lyndhurst's act. I would double check anything that the author says about the Regency period. This book really tried to do too much to lump the earlier Regency period in with the Victorian period. Over the course of the 19th century many things changed greatly, so if using this book as a guide, remember Jane Austen was a Regency novelist and Charles Dickens a Victorian novelist and laws, social mores and fashions change greatly over a whole century.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars What We Once Knew...
It is easy to forget, in reading the novels of Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, that their characters inhabited a world almost 200 years removed from our own world of prepackaged... Read more
Published 1 month ago by D. S. Thurlow

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but uncited information (sometimes wrong!)
An interesting book, but the author doesn't tell us where any of the information comes from. I don't know how many inaccuracies crept in, but I was more than startled when he... Read more
Published 1 month ago by K. Watson

1.0 out of 5 stars Highly inaccurate - don't use as a reference
My copy of this book has a zillion post-its that I stuck on the pages that had errors or inaccuracies. He even got the names of the characters in the books wrong!! Read more
Published 2 months ago by Carlye R. Nystrom

4.0 out of 5 stars Great reference.
The author's extremely difficult style of writing can be somewhat distracting from the otherwise well-researched well of facts and details about the life in the Victorian England... Read more
Published 6 months ago by CuriousGrl

4.0 out of 5 stars Designer's View
I am very excited to finally have this book. I am a costume designer and this book was recommended to me when working on The Importance Of Being Earnest. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Allynma

3.0 out of 5 stars Could've been SO much better
I couldn't tell you how excited I was to pick this book up. I am a big fan of Dickens, Austen, and Eliot, so I was hoping to gain more insight about the many details to 19th... Read more
Published 9 months ago by J. Plummer

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Quick Reference Book
It took me so long to read this that parts of it are sketchy now. However, it was very interesting, filled with details that I found very helpful. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Laura Miller

5.0 out of 5 stars Great reference for Americans!
If you are English, you probably don't need this book. I can't live without it.

This is the first book I've run across that helps me understand English currency, the... Read more
Published 10 months ago by M. Homan

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully organized, good info, and easy reading!
I ordered this strictly as a reference book for a novel I am writing but found it so well organized and written that I read it cover to cover for pleasure. Read more
Published 10 months ago by M. Morrison

4.0 out of 5 stars A good little reference book for the period
This book had lots of information I didn't know about the time period or information I hadn't completely figured out through reading books about the time period. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Nora Davanzo-ward

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