I’ve
written posts on historical detail before because I’m a little compulsive about
it. Below are a few new resources (plus some I may have mentioned earlier).
Many are Georgian but some contain links to other periods.
Language:
http://www.fromoldbooks.org/NathanBailey-CantingDictionary/transcription.html
There
are links to several resources here but I use it for N. Bailey’s 1737
dictionary of canting (criminal) slang.
A New Dictionary of the Terms
Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew, by B.E. Gent.
Originally
published in 1699, there is some overlap with the Bailey dictionary, but it
also contains hunting terms (“Yearn: When beagles bark and cry at their game”)
and slang terms generally.
And this:
Webster's Third Dictionary (of American English; 1828) Searchable. Perhaps
useful.
http://www.1828-dictionary.com/
Bailey's 1763
Dictionary, searchable, and viewable and downloadable
as an image of the original: An universal
etymological English dictionary
A bit about the book: An Universal
Etymological English Dictionary - Wikipedia ...and there's more at the bottom of that page than
you might ever want to see.
https://www.etymonline.com/
Useful
for checking for the first known use of English words and terms.
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/samuel-johnson-s-dictionary-of-the-english-language-1785
Early Modern English
Dictionary (16th-18th century)
Contains several
excellent resources.
And this curious
one, a treatise on understanding British-American handwriting and printed text,
with notes on the language:
How to Read 18th Century
British-American Writing
Period
Detail:
Eighteenth
Century London Life by
Rosamund Bayne-Powell
English
Country Life in the Eighteenth Century by Rosamund Bayne-Powell
Travellers
in Eighteenth Century by
Rosamund Bayne-Powell
Housekeeping
in the Eighteenth Century by
Rosamund Bayne-Powell
The
English Child in the Eighteenth Century by Rosamund Bayne-Powell
These are all out of print but
available from online used book sellers. Full of useful details culled from the
letters and essays of the period.
A Tour Through the Whole Island
of Great Britain,
by Daniel Defoe
Written
between 1724 and 1726, it contains a wealth of local color and a good deal of
information about trade. Try to find a copy with print that isn’t teeny-tiny.
Dance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=___I5dy4PhQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wlU4PP1eUI
18th century dances
performed. There were more dances than just the minuet.
Specifically
Georgian sources and information:
http://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/index.html
Full of
interesting and useful Georgian sources and information. There’s a collection
of terms for various occupations. “Green bag” was a term for a lawyer; Tom Turd
was a night-soil collector.
What They Ate:
http://www.angelfire.com/md3/openhearthcooking/aaCookbookindex.html
A collection of cookbooks online
by period. What people ate in the Georgian or Regency periods was quite
different from what we eat today, or even what we ate a hundred years ago.
http://www.staff.uni-giessen.de/gloning/kobu.htm More online cookbooks, from the
Middle Ages on, including European cookbooks, and links to other useful sites.
Some of the European collections have been translated.
Weather:
https://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/geography/weather.html
Weather
in Great Britain, by year, from 1700 to 1849.
Medical matters:
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=cotton_ms_vitellius_c_iii_f011r (11th c. AngloSaxon herbal)
(Medieval
Herbal Remedies: The Old English Herbarium and Anglo-Saxon Medicine by Anne Van
Arsdall is a translation of above 11th c. Anglo-Saxon herbal).
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/medieval-potion-kills-stubborn-bacteria-180975459/?utm_source=smithsoniandaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20200803-daily-responsive&spMailingID=43109185&spUserID=MTA1NDMyMzIyNTgyNQS2&spJobID=1820231855&spReportId=MTgyMDIzMTg1NQS2
A medieval cure that seems to
work.
Clothing:
LACMA historical patterns
downloads for a variety of periods.
Instructions for Cutting out
Apparel for the Poor,
printed 1789, available for free on Google Play Books.
Scotland:
The Statistical Account of Scotland,
1791-1799, edited by Sir John
Sinclair, reprinted 1900.
I found copies of two volumes (there were twenty volumes in all)
online for a dollar each. With shipping (from Scotland) the order came to under
$10. They’re fat books, with more detail than even the most OCD writer of
historical novels needs. On the other hand, they contained some tidbits of
information that were well worth the price for the background I needed. They
contain sections on each Scottish region with a description of the terrain,
climate, statistics, natural resources, local history, and so forth, by
parish.
For example, the parish of Auchtertoul, Fife, contains sections on
the origin of its name, size and surroundings, terrain and soil, minerals,
climate, population, including the number of persons practicing various trades,
agriculture, church, schools, the poor, and miscellaneous observations.
As the series was published in the 1790s, most of the information
should still be relevant into the early 19th century, and a good
deal of it is useful for the earlier part of the 18th century as well.
Be advised that having been printed originally in the 18th
century, you will have to become accustomed to the “s” in some words looking
like an “f”.