Regency Notes

Wealthy Georgians desperate to have a child in 1780 would have heard about Dr James Graham’s Grand Celestial bed with curiosity and hope. (Lord Cranston’s parents tried it without success.) Dr Graham rented a house in Pall Mall and constructed this contraption that he advertised as an aid to fertility. Patrons paid £50 a night for a chance to use it. In modern money given the fluctuating state of inflation one night would have cost over 4000£ (that’s about $7000 US dollars) for the privilege of spending one night in a bed, but this was no ordinary bed! Dr Graham (a real doctor who became known as the Doctor of Love) designed this bed himself as an aid to procreation. It was based on his previous experiments with electrocution and magnetism (and I assume his own fertile adventures).

[Read more…] about Georgian infertility…a money making opportunity

Quite often I accidentally come across strange Regency related information. (I plan to start sharing these nuggets of the weird and bizarre regularly if you’re interested). Today I was perusing the Gutenburg Project with the intention of reading Edgar Allan Poe and looking up Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Vindication of the Rights of Women. I read “The Purloined Letter” and then out of curiosity I thought I’d skim through the list of authors starting with A. I ended up in Anonymous and came across the title, “Goody Two Shoes”. Having spent most of my teen years in the 80’s this title conjurs up that irritating song by Adam Ant. It was a phrase that I assumed had come out of the 1940’s or 50’s. But no…it was a book. I clicked on it and found that it was a children’s book first published by John Newbery in 1765. The following excerpt is taken from the preface of a Victorian edition. It’s like a peep-hole through time.

“…in 1802, (the Regency link) Charles Lamb in writing to Coleridge (the poet), said–

[Read more…] about A Regency Note…