Distracted by some good books

They are both utterly terrific reads although the Below Stairs is easier if one doesn't know a lot about early 20th century Britain.

My Grandmothers and I really made me understand WHY the people of Diana Holman-Hunt's generation went in for white walls and why they sometimes hated the Victorian Age.

I, on the other hand, grew up in those white, barely furnished modern awfulnesses and was thrilled when I discovered the luxury and opulence that had once existed and that people once lived in and with.

Tea and a decor tidbit

Just a picture of tea had this past weekend.  The teacup is one of two I purchased back in 2005 and I get it out in February every year.   The only reason you don't see an Old Country Roses sugar bowl is that it's handle was being glued back on.  Bit of story with that.   In 1986 I bought a set of 4 dishes including rimmed soup bowls and I have kept them and used them and not broken a single one (or even chipped one) in the 26 years I have had them.
I also bought, back then, a teapot, creamer and sugar.  It took me some time to pay for it all too!   But the tea set was (while I was not home) bounced off of a bookshelf where it sat by the loud music of an ex-husband.   He was very contrite to be fair but it chipped the pot and broke the handle and lid of the sugar bowl which I have been regluing on ever since.   The creamer was undamaged.   The teapot lasted another 12 years but the crack from the chip slowly went down the side and finally it was done for.
One day while in Ayres buying a coffee carafe I saw this nice round version of an Old Country Roses teapot and that was it - I had to have it and so I bought it.   I am very, very happy with it and hope it will last the rest of my life. 

The decor tidbit is this.  I FINALLY got finials for the valance rod and tiebacks put up.   I mad the valance pole back in 1999 but I couldn't find just the right size, shape, color of finials until now.   It completes the look and also eliminates the danger of the pole sliding out when you move the ringed curtains back and forth as we do every day.
The tie back I have had but just hadn't gotten round to the bother of putting them up, measuring and all that.   But they too FINISH the look and make me very happy!

The thermostat in the hallway

...how to disguise it?   I feel that I cannot cover it as it might affect the poor ugly thing. 
Surround it with items of interest seemed the only answer and so it it done.

The oval mirror, one of two, were given to me as empty frames by my mother-in-law.   They sat for some years since I couldn't think of what to put in them.  After a perusal of my collection of Victorian Homes magazines it finally dawned on me to have mirrors put in them and I have been thrilled with them ever since.     The piece of Bradbury and Bradbury wall paper is all I will ever have (alas) on my walls, but it is my very favorite one.   The pressed flowers on velvet I purchased in 1989 at a small store that sold boxes, oddly enough.   The small picture below the thermostat is an ink drawing done by myself (copied from a photograph) when a teenager.

Bracket tale

I will spare you the long story of how I got these 4 brackets but I will show you what I have done with two of them, so far.    Once I read in Victorian Splendor that walnut was the preferred wood of the mid-to-late Victorians because of its ease of carving, I decided to go ahead with my plan for them.

I painted them with acrylic paint (Burnt Umber) and this took about a week in order to get all the nooks and crannies.
Then I applied 1 coat of water-based poly-urethane very carefully since it can disturb the paint.

When finally dry I was quite pleased with the result, just what I hoped for.

I put the first pair up in the hallway to hold some of my brass items (which badly need polishing).   They are flanking my Perfect Nonsense.  What is that you may ask?  It is by Samuel Foote and was illustrated by Walter Crane in a book that floated about during my childhood and which mystified me no end. 

"So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming up the street, pops its head into the shop. "What! No soap?" So he died, and she very imprudently married the barber; and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblillies, and the Garyulies, and the grand Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots."

I have just learned that this was actually extemporized by Samuel Foote in the mid-1700's in a mock lecture which makes it not officially Victorian.  But it is Victorian in spirit and thanks to those wonderful illustrations - I wish I knew the name of that book.....

Some of My Library (Part the second)

 The condition of this group of books isn't the best but I have a great fondness for all of them.  On the top shelf starting at the left is a book which I was "loaned" in the late 1970's and made items from (which I will take pictures of) and thought I'd never see the book again in my life.  Lo and behold, at a university library book sale, there it was around 10 years ago and now it is part of my collection.

There is another book titled The Age of Paradox which details what all was going on in England, year by year from 1841 to 1851.   I love to reread that as a breakfast book once each decade because nothing has changed much in this world besides fashions.

The book next right is Our Times: The Turn of the Century which is 1926's snooty view of the not-too-distant-past.    Since 1926 is now a very distant past, this makes for great fun to dip into and smile over.   It is actually one of a set but this is one I encountered back in the late 1970's and just fell in love with because of it's kind of snootiness.

Examples of these will be provided in later posts....             The rest of the volumes are Harper's Bazaar collections starting from 1858 and going up through the 1880's.   The university library I used to work in had an ENTIRE collection of these and a guide book which I happily poked through for the 8 years I worked there.

Please excuse the dust and condition of these books.   I won't try and fix the condition of the books but I have since dusted after seeing these pictures!     This is a complete set of Bulwer's works which I am pleased as Punch to own.   I have to confess I have not yet read even one of Bulwer-Lytton's novels but I intend to before I quit this earth.

Now here is what I call my etiquette book collection.  It has more than that if you look closely but there are some really, really fun books like 600 A Year which is a woman in the 1850-60's writing on how her family got along on $600 a year.   She describes how she made furniture from packing boxes which is simply fascinating.

Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio is a series of essays which are just fabulous and most just as pertinent today as when they were written which was I think the 1850's and 60's.

And just check out the titles on this close-up of the bottom shelf:

   
             I special-ordered from England the book by Anna Maria Fay titled:  Victorian Days in England.  It is such a fun read.  Anna Maria Fay was an American girl who in the 1800's (mid I think) spent some time at a country estate.   Her views are truly great reading.

This is a set that took me some time to save up and buy.   The book to the left was what got me interested in George Templeton Strong's diaries.  His diaries from the Civil War years are the most read but the early years are almost more interesting.  He discusses having a bathroom put in and taking his first bath in the 1840's and how wonderful it is.

These are some of my "old south" novel collection.   I have read them all except Red Rock which I am only about halfway through.

 And last but not least is my Emile Zola collection.   Most of them are period and illustrated and they were just rollicking good reads.   I need to re-read them sometime soon.   I know I just loved "The Ladies Paradise".

My Library (Part the first)

oozes out all over the apartment.   I will imitate Victorian Parlor II and give you a tour of some of my Victorian Era books.   This first is the upper half of one of the bookcases, all of which are cheap sorts (although no bookcase is ever really cheap).   But these three shelves house my Victorian novels and many are just rollicking good fun to read.

I have read over half but have yet to enjoy (top shelf left side red with gold lettering) John Halifax, Gentleman.    Next to it is Sister Sue which I have read and it was just alright.
I just love the titles of many of these:   Scarlett Car/Princess Aline,  Won by Waiting,  Pleasures & Palaces (that was a good one), The Easiest Way, Only the Governess, Mistress and Maid, His Official Fiance to name a few of the top row.
   
If you want to enter the Victorian world, reading one of these old novels is, I think, the best way to do so.    This one is just pure fun:  Repented at Leisure by Bertha M. Clay. .    I read it all in one go on a weekend many years ago.

On the second shelf is a set of what were called double-deckers, two-volume novels and I have a very good one titled Marcella.   I found them separately way back when I was 17 years old.  I read it then and didn't get half of it.   I have recently reread them and gotten a LOT more out of them.  
On the third shelf far right are 2 modern printings of Victorian novels.  One I have read, East Lynne and one I have not yet The Heir of Redclyffe.
On the far left is my Marie Corelli collection.

 This is what I call my eclectic set of Dickens.  I haven't read all of these but I have read a few and of course, I've watched nearly all of them thanks to the BBC.  The big fat grey thing that read's Dickens is an EXCELLENT biography of him which I have read.
Below is my truly fine set of Henry James' which I got for $10 in a library estate sale.
To it's left are a two William Dean Howell's novels only one of which I am in the middle of reading and Zulieka Dobson by Max Beerbohm which I read long ago and enjoyed hugely.
My collection of Trollope is in this bookcase but none of them are old editions except the first of the Barchester series.

 Still in the parlor or living room (I can't help calling it that), are also my beloved set of Booth Tarkington not pictured here, and shown below is my young girls collection (on the top shelf including the four years of college of Betty Wales books which I enjoyed rereading after my hysterectomy.    Next to those four grey backs are my Louisa May Alcott volumes.
The 2nd and 3rd shelves show some of my favorite novels by an author I love, Kathleen Thompson Norris.  I've read ALL of them some many times over.  I'm still working on collecting all of them in hardback if possible.  She has been a delight in my life.

And if there was ever a disaster and I could only have a few books, one of them would be this one.   It has how to do EVERYTHING in it besides the cookbook part in the second half.   It give instructions on building an outhouse and where to place it.  

I think this nice somehow to know that this copy belonged to:
Mrs. James A. Wells, Jr.
Sept 11, 1916
600 N. Sycamore St
Kokomo - Indiana.






















And here is my Thackeray collection flanked by Hints on Household Taste & The House Beautiful and my Sinclair Lewis volumes (the ones I have read and liked).
Last are some of my poetry collection, the Victorian authors:

In part II I will go through the other rooms that have books.

February Breakfast

In February breakfast table.   I finally got it set last night, i.e. I got the pink cloth on and the topper and other bits out.   I'll  have to get better pictures of the details.  I gave hubby a plain red mat as all the roses are a bit much for him.