Week-end Compendium: 27 January 2016

Leap Year ladies wooing a very self-satisfied snowman.

Mrs Daffodil, who entered into the so-called “Week-end Compendium” arrangement at the behest of that persuasive person over at the Haunted Ohio blog, wishes to poll her readers as to the continuation of the compendium. Mrs Daffodil can revert to posts designed to educate, elevate, and amuse or continue this omnibus format. Mrs Daffodil will ask that you write your vote for “Continue” or “Revert” in an impeccable copper-plate hand on white or ivory note-paper with your crest engraved at the top and send it to the comments section of this blog. Mrs Daffodil thanks you.

In this week’s posts:

Mrs Daffodil is shocked, shocked by the vile goings-on among a group of club-women arranging a patriotic entertainment in A Lady Washington Tea Party Comes to Grief.

A 1903 enamel and paste motor-car brooch. http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/18191/lot/45/

The Automobile Girl, it is explained, has chosen motoring for its fashion possibilities. Other voices, advocating veils and warm coats, weigh in.

It being Leap Year, Mrs Daffodil thought it would be amusing to look at some of the topsy-turvey traditions of the Leap Year and its Proposals.  Mrs Daffodil sees much potential for an economical refurbishing of one’s wardrobe if one chooses one’s prey carefully.

On Sunday, in spite of her reluctance to encourage prattling tots, Mrs Daffodil shares the touching story of “Nellie’s Leap Year Proposal.”

Leap Year Joke: If there is any girl who doesn’t like to pop the questions even if it is leap year, she can get around it by asking her young man if he’d be willing to fill in his name on her marriage certificate. The Christian Recorder 9 October 1884

From Mrs Daffodil’s archives: Two rival prostitutes fight it out.

Contemplating the possibilities of Leap Year.

Over at the Haunted Ohio blog, we find much that is distasteful:

A Ghost With the Smell of a Charnel House infests a property near London. Olefactory unpleasantness ensues.

A visit to a Dead-House at Munich, (part of the “Little Visits to the Great Morgues of Europe” series) reveals grewsome sights and the smell of antiseptic. Much nicer than the Paris Morgue, however.

From the archives, a shocking history of electric practical jokes.

There are some quite exciting links this week: An author solves a 160-year-old mystery involving an erstwhile portrait of Pocahontas.

The quest for Dicken’s pet Raven, Grip.

A truly evocative Great War knitting project, which inspired a documentary: Tell Them of Us.

And an amusing look at historic advice for writers of romantic fiction.

Mrs Daffodil wishes all Leap Year Ladies the best of luck. (Girl with Good Luck Charms, Raphael Kirchner, 1902) http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/girl-wearing-lucky-charms-from-the-series-girls-with-good-luck-charms-553207

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead.

Week-end Compendium 20 February 2016

Painted feather fan, c. 1870s http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/120682?rpp=30&pg=1&ao=on&ft=fan&deptids=8&pos=21

The wind is howling outside Mrs Daffodil’s window and she wishes she had the fetching fan pictured above to hold outside so she could watch it spin in the breezes, which are more March-lion-like than anything February. As we are half-way through the month of February, Mrs Daffodil reminds any of her marriage-minded readers that it is a Leap Year. Proposals must be drafted; venues and rings selected.

A young man’s impulsive sending of a Valentine has life-changing repercussions, in “What Became of a Valentine.” Moral: “Always be Kind to Seamstresses.”

(That heartless person over at Haunted Ohio also shared a Spiritualist sentiment for the holiday in “The Medium’s Valentine.”)

The little-known history of the techniques behind false-eyelashes in “Art Eyelashes and Eye Winkers.”  Suffering for beauty.

A strange story of a mysterious woman who saves the life of a dying man far from home in “A Curious Porcelain Bowl.”

On Sunday, Mrs Daffodil will relate shocking deeds and vile insults as a ladies’ club in a small town tries to stage a “Lady Washington Tea.”

Over at the Haunted Ohio blog, a young man is tormented by a “discontented daemon” who strangles him, slashes his clothes, and levitates him over his master’s house into a quagmire in “Some Discontented Daemon.” Mrs Daffodil is pursing her lips dubiously.

In a late example of a witchcraft trial, a beautiful foreigner is tried for being “The Witch of Leadville,” in 1899 Colorado.

If one wishes to peruse the Haunted Ohio version of the Weekend Compendium, of a decidedly less elevated tone, one should follow this link.

A lavish set of carved and stained ivory comb and hair pins, c. 1850-60 http://www.historicnewengland.org/collections-archives-exhibitions/online-exhibitions/JewelryHistory/themes/Female_Adornment.htm#female9

From the archives, The Chignon Horror: hair-curling horror about what evils lurk in false hair and Chignon Satire: Victorian hairpiece humour.

Also art imitates life or vice-versa? in a story about a green jungle hell and a terrifyingly large spider.  Of special interest to M.R. James fans.

Some of the favourite links of the week: A toothsome post on Irish fairies and Irish food.  Incidentally, “The Fairy Investigation Society” now has an official Face-book page and invites all interested to visit for fairy news and art.

Speaking of “daemons,” EsoterX takes on demon-speak in They Talk Funny in West Hell.

Crash go the chariots: The discovery of the first complete Bronze-age wheel at the site called the “Peterborough Pompeii,” is confounding the experts.

A chariot automaton c. 1760-70 to amuse your dinner guests. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/207038?rpp=30&pg=1&ao=on&ft=automaton&pos=4

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead.

 

 

Week-end Compendium: 13 January 2016 Valentine Edition

Cupid triumphant, c. 1770-90. Perhaps painted for a lady’s boudoir. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/189538?rpp=30&pg=3&ao=on&ft=cupid&deptids=12&pos=69

Mrs Daffodil has noticed the fluttering in the dove-cote that is the Servants’ Hall over the upcoming Valentine’s holiday. Mrs Daffodil does her best, but managing a mixed-sex staff is sometimes like directing a Feydeau farce translated into Mandarin.  Here are the somewhat distracted posts for this week:

Hints for the Photographer shares tips on looking one’s best in front of a camera including the colours that photograph as dark or light and how to achieve the desired facial expression. “Say ‘bosom!'” says the photographer.

A Stolen or Stray’d Heart at Vaux-Hall is a rare look at a so-called “missed connections” personal want-advertisement from 1738.

That grave person over at Haunted Ohio contributed some occupational valentine verses in Hearse Verses: Valentines for Undertakers

On Valentine’s Day, Mrs Daffodil will share a heart-warming piece of Victorian Valentine’s Day fiction. Happy endings are guaranteed.

A late 18th-century buckle: a cameo showing “the education of Cupid” framed in pastes http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/19760/lot/230

Over at the Haunted Ohio blog, in honour of the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Monkey, a post featuring a Cornish road-demon and monkey ghosts in Aping the Devil.

And for the anniversary of the first appearance of the Virgin Mary to Bernadette, a post on the giant angel a psychic saw drifting over Lourdes.

Bonus holiday post: The Medium’s Valentine, should one be in love with one who talks with the dead.

From the Archives:  Speaking of vile valentines, the “vinegar valentine” roused some recipients to violence in The St. Valentines’ Day Massacres.

Favorite recent posts:

Posthumous portraiture: Is it live or is it a memorial?

The sad lives of some of the First Children.

That unlucky fellow who married not one, but two women accused of witchcraft. Or were witches just his type?

The best quotes about gin, AKA “Mother’s Ruin.”

Cover art, Richardson’s New Fashionable Lady’s Valentine Writer or Cupid’s Festival of Love, 1830

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead.

 

Week-end Compendium: 6 January 2016

Carnival has begun! An 18th-century mask fan http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/104528?rpp=30&pg=1&ao=on&ft=fan&deptids=8&pos=1

Mrs Daffodil has not been idling in fancy-dress this week, but shares a caustic commentary on “The Ladies’ Man,” in case the upcoming High Feast of St. Hallmark throws one into the company of one of those serial adorers so unwittingly fatal to a girl’s reputation.

She also tells of a Wisconsin lady-inventor, a Mrs Gearing, who created a woodsy costume: a romper lined with sawdust, which was somehow supposed to emancipate Womankind. Simply barking.

Then Mrs Daffodil shares an interview with a hairdresser who takes pride in her profession of dressing the hair of the dead and comments on the use of “dead hair” in wigs and chignons.

On Sunday Mrs Daffodil intends to give some tips on how to look one’s best for the photographer of 1865 or 1921. Bring talcum powder and blue gauze.

This week at the Haunted Ohio blog:

A flap at Drayton Church, haunted by a uncanny black bird seen perching in the sanctuary and heard fluttering in the vault.

While it is hard to conceive of such a thing, a French widow claimed that her bouncing baby boy was begotten by her ghostly husband–dead for several years. Perhaps a too-fertile imagination was at work here.

From the archives, to whet one’s appetite for Valentine’s Day, Hearts and Powers, Cardiac Witchery and Vintage Advice on Choosing a Spouse.

Some favourite links: A woman after Mrs Daffodil’s own heart: Resistance fighter Nancy Wake.

A ritual horse burial from the War of 1812?

Never say never when it comes to historic dress.

A dash of humour in this cartoon, which, not to give away the punch-line, is about Roman soldiers.

The Chinese Year of the Monkey begins on Monday. This is the leader of the monkey orchestra and chorus by J J Kaendler, Meissen, c. 1755 http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1245667

This is the lead singer in the monkey chorus by J J Kaendler, Meissen, c. 1755 http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1440310.12

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead.

 

 

Week-end Compendium: 23 January 2016

“The Snow Queen”

Mrs Daffodil  hopes that all of you are warm and safe from the impending snow-storms, or, if house-bound, have sufficient bread, milk, and brandy laid on.

This week’s links for Mrs Daffodil:

Sixteen-button Bouffants: A Chat with the Fashion Gazette Editor: 1888, in which an innocent young girl is given some quixotic fashion advice by a well-meaning male editor.

The Flapper and Her Corset: 1921 offers dire warnings to all flappers who wish to leave off their under-pinnings. An early example of “fat-shaming.”

The sad story of Old Lisbeth and her ghostly visit to a former master who had treated her kindly.

See Mrs Daffodil on Sunday for how to make a sandstorm on stage.

Over at the Haunted Ohio blog we find the following:

“Uncanny Meteors:” Spook Lights in New Zealand, in which a naturalist relates his very close encounter with apparently sentient glowing orbs.

The Ghost of Mary Seneff, who haunted the site of her watery grave, after she was hacked to death and thrown into a local creek.

From the Archives: Enough Rope: The Hangman’s Rope in the Press, a light-hearted look at specifications for hangmen’s ropes and the superstitions surrounding them.

Favourite posts of the week: Cellphones and the Paranormal. And The Awful Greatness of the Cherry Sisters.

A “Snowflake” costume by “Zig,” c. 1925. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1222891/costume-design-zig/

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead.

Week-end Compendium: 16 January 2016

A beaded cobalt (or is it violet?) velvet evening muff, c. 1949 http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/117259?rpp=30&pg=1&ao=on&ft=muff&pos=3

Mrs Daffodil is not altogether satisfied being yoked with that curious person over at Haunted Ohio who calls the pairing “cross-fertilisation.”  Still, needs must when the devil drives, so here is Mrs Daffodil’s weekly collection of posts:

A bewitching young widow and her lavishly dressed infant son enchant an English customs official in The Widow’s Baby. But not all is as it seems….

An explanation of the very exacting requirements, as well as the perquisites, for the mannequins of the French couture houses.

That crepuscular person from Haunted Ohio presents a guest post on Mortuary Professions for Ladies, wherein such jobs as funeral stenographer and professional mourner are profiled.

And speaking of Haunted Ohio, the week’s posts are:

An offer of a large Mystery Box of Ghost Books.

The strange stories whispered about medium Dr Henry Slade’s sex.

A chilling ghost story from the land of ice and snow, Minnesota, in which a dead man tells where his body may be found: “Why, Weston, I thought you were frozen.”

A favourite post from this week: Brilliant essay on fairy mounds and barrows.

From the Archives:  Poisoned Stockings: Something Was Afoot.  (If you go to the Haunted Ohio version of this Compendium, you will find a frightfully lurid story of “Professor Segato’s Petrified Corpse Furniture. But there will be no pretty pictures of muffs.)

This week’s fashion photo-gravure—perfect for the frigid temperatures outside:

A muff beautifully embellished with applique and netted lace. Possibly French. http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/muff-120607

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead.