Willie Wilde & Mrs. Frank Leslie

Willie Wilde, Los Angeles Herald (1892).

"Vulgarity in journalism, like vituperation in argument, weakens the point." - Willie Wilde, The Los Angeles Herald, 13 February 1892.

I found this marvellous article in the Los Angeles Herald with a sketch of Oscar Wilde's wicked brother in it. Willie Wilde grows more and more wicked with every bit I learn about him. This article ends with Willie's American wife, Mrs. Frank Leslie, complaining about the way the press has treated her for her marriage to Willie. The author, Belle Hunt, also reveals that Willie was caught forging a cheque in Leslie's name a year before they were married. As George Takei would say: "Oh my!"

It certainly seems that Willie's vile reputation preceded him in the United States.

To be fair, Leslie was old enough to be Willie's mother. Within a year's time, she would send him back to his mother.

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Some Don'ts and Do's for Letter-Writers (Circa 1896)

I found the most wonderful book today, granted it's from the wrong London (but so am I).

Social Etiquette or Manners and Customs of Polite Society was written by Maud C. Cooke and published in 1896. I found it, while looking for more information on letter writing, so while Social Etiquette covers everything from "Introductions and Salutations" to "How to be Beautiful," I shall focus on those pages which provide an epistolary guide.

Cooke devotes several pages to the etiquette of letter writing summarizing it all in a list at the end: Some Don'ts and Do's for Letter-Writers. Much of her advice is contradictory and confusing. We are supposed to speak openly and naturally in a letter, but never say too much. Really one should sound like they are saying everything without saying very much at all.

And don't squirm as you think about how to go about this task. There are right and wrong ways to sit, when you are writing a letter, and it's different for ladies than it is for gentlemen.

The improper position for a man looks rather a lot like the proper position of a lady, if you ask me.

Guides and manuals, like this, were quite popular in the 19th century. Lewis Caroll published Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing in 1891. Of course, Caroll took a very tongue-in-cheek approach to an art form that changed from decade to decade. Earlier in the century, ribbons were very popular and letters could be decorated, like ladies visiting cards, but by the 1890s letters were plain - though not very simple.

Some Don'ts and Do's for Letter-Writers

Don’t write an anonymous letter; it is a cowardly stab in the dark.
Don’t pay any attention to an anonymous letter; it is not worth your regard.
Don’t conduct private correspondence on a postal card. Many persons consider this an insult. A purely business message may be thus sent, but even then the slight saving in postage is small recompense for the delay so often attending the delivery of postal cards.
Don’t use a postscript; it is unnecessary, old-fashioned, school-girlish, and in a particular, punctilious letter the omission of any important matter necessitates the rewriting of the entire letter rather than the use of a postscript. In very friendly letters one may be permitted to add the forgotten paragraph in the form of a postscript, omitting, however, the obsolete abbreviation, “P.S.”
Don’t write on a half-sheet of paper unless the nature of the correspondence permits the use of the ordinary business letter-head. If the note is short, write only on one side of the paper, but don’t tear a sheet in half for economy’s sake. The rough, torn edges, denote haste, ill-breeding, or carelessness on the part of the writer.
Don’t use tablet paper for ceremonious letters.
Don’t write on both sides of the paper to any but very intimate friends or relatives, they being disposed to tolerate slight departures from formality on our part.
Don’t meddle with foreign nouns or verbs unless conversant with the language itself; incorrect and ungrammatical usage is too apt to be the unhappy result. Even foreign names and titles should not be used without the exactest care as to their orthography and application.
This rule should be especially remembered with reference to all matters destined to pass through hands editorial.
Don’t erase misspelled words in letters of any moment. Recopy the entire missive.
Don’t quote too constantly.
Don’t underscore your words, unless they express something very important.
Don’t send enclosures in a letter written by some one else; only the greatest intimacy can excuse this practice. Write your own letters and send in a separate envelope.
Don’t write a letter in a towering passion; you would not care to have it confront you in some cooler moment.
Don’t cross the writing in your letters. Life is too short and the time and eyesight of your correspondent too precious for this.
Don’t fill up every available blank space and margin of your letter with forgotten messages. If these are very valuable, add an extra sheet to your letter, thus saving its appearance and the patience of its recipient.
Don’t divide a syllable at the end of a line. The printer may do this, not the letter-writer.
Don’t fall into the habit of using long words in a letter, they show a straining after effect. One should “say,” rather than “observe,” “talk,” rather than “converse,” if one’s missives are to be easy, well-bred and readable.
Don’t refold a letter, the marks always remain to show your carelessness. Fold it correctly the first time.
Do remember to answer all important questions in a letter clearly and decisively.
Do burn the great majority of your letters after answering. Those that are to be kept should be filed away in packages adding date and writer’s name on corner of envelope and by a word or two suggesting the topics with which they deal. This will save time in referring to them.
Do answer your friendly letters with reasonable promptness. To do otherwise is a breach of etiquette. An unanswered letter is an insult, a cut direct. Business letters, of course, must be replied to at once.
Do send a postage stamp when you write a letter of inquiry, the answer to which is of interest only to yourself. A stamped and addressed envelope would be a still better enclosure.
Do, if you are an absent son or daughter, write home promptly and regularly; the comfort this will be to the parents at home, and the pain they suffer at any negligence on your part, cannot be overestimated. Husbands and wives, when separated for a time, would do well to follow this same advice.
Do date your letters carefully. Events and proofs of the greatest importance have hung upon the date of a single letter.
Do put sufficient stamps upon a letter to make sure of no extra postage falling to the lot of your correspondent.

 

Do put your address plainly in all letters. This ensures a prompt answer and, in case of miscarriage, a speedy return from the Dead-Letter Office.
Do, if a business man or woman, have your address on the outside of your envelope. This will make sure of your uncalled-for letters returning to you immediately. It is well to do this in any case where a little uncertain as to the exact address of your correspondent.
Do read your letters over carefully before sending, that no errors may be overlooked.
Do give every subject a separate paragraph instead of running the whole letter, social items and sentiment, all into one indistinguishable whole.
Do begin the first line of each paragraph, at least, one inch from the margin, of the page.

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Mrs. Beeton, Boars' Heads, and Scotch Broth

My characters are gathered around a dining table in one of the most up-scale and scandalous households in 1891 London. A little scandal is all the more reason to be there, but it is no reason to lose sight of all civility. The ideal is to let scandals entertain and amuse you - not to become one (especially not by something so dull as eating the meal).

Mrs. Beeton

Dinner, in this house begins, with soup. All respectable dinner parties do. To help my protagonist get it right, I’ve consulted Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management.

THE GUESTS BEING SEATED AT THE DINNER-TABLE, the lady begins to help the soup, which is handed round, commencing with the gentleman on her right and on her left, and continuing in the same order till all are served. It is generally established as a rule, not to ask for soup or fish twice, as, in so doing, part of the company may be kept waiting too long for the second course, when, perhaps, a little revenge is taken by looking at the awkward consumer of a second portion. This rule, however, may, under various circumstances, not be considered as binding.

Right, so I only get one serving of soup, if I’m to avoid becoming as scandalous as my hostess. What has sploshed into my bowl now?

IT HAS BEEN ASSERTED, that English cookery is, nationally speaking, far from being the best in the world. More than this, we have been frequently told by brilliant foreign writers, half-philosophers, half-chefs, that we are the worst cooks on the face of the earth, and that the proverb which alludes to the divine origin of food, and the precisely opposite origin of its preparers, is peculiarly applicable to us islanders. Not, however, to the inhabitants of the whole island; for, it is stated in a work which treats of culinary operations, north of the Tweed, that the "broth" of Scotland claims, for excellence and wholesomeness, a very close second place to the bouillon, or common soup of France.

It’s astonishing that the English have known so long that their cooking was so bad for so long, but I’m happy to say that I know the delicious Scottish broth, to which Mrs. Beeton refers. It’s thick and incredibly filling. The meat is perfectly in balance with all of the other ingredients and my grandpa used to make it.

However, the first Sottish soup recipe I found perusing Mrs. Beeton’s book made me wish I wasn’t so curious!

KALE BROSE (a Scotch Recipe).

INGREDIENTS.
Half an ox-head or cow-heel, a teacupful of toasted oatmeal, salt to taste, 2 handfuls of greens, 3 quarts of water.

Mode.
Make a broth of the ox-head or cow-heel, and boil it till oil floats on the top of the liquor, then boil the greens, shred, in it. Put the oatmeal, with a little salt, into a basin, and mix with it quickly a teacupful of the fat broth: it should not run into one doughy mass, but form knots. Stir it into the whole, give one boil, and serve very hot.

Time.
4 hours.

Average cost, 8d. per quart.

Seasonable all the year, but more suitable in winter. Sufficient for 10 persons.

Of course, the off-putting aspect was the boiled head or foot. According to Mrs. Beeton, heads were of great importance in Scottish cookery.

IMPORTANCE OF THE BOAR'S HEAD, SCOTTISH FEUDS, &c. The boar's head, in ancient times, formed the most important dish on the table, and was invariably the first placed on the board upon Christmas-day, being preceded by a body of servitors, a flourish of trumpets, and other marks of distinction and reverence, and carried into the hall by the individual of next rank to the lord of the feast. At some of our colleges and inns of court, the serving of the boar's head on a silver platter on Christmas-day is a custom still followed; and till very lately, a bore's head was competed for at Christmas time by the young men of a rural parish in Essex. Indeed, so highly was the grizzly boar's head regarded in former times, that it passed into a cognizance of some of the noblest families in the realm: thus it was not only the crest of the Nevills and Warwicks, with their collateral houses, but it was the cognizance of Richard III., that

"Wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,
That spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines,
Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough
In your embowell'd bosoms,"

and whose nature it was supposed to typify; and was universally used as a sign to taverns. The Boar's Head in Eastcheap, which, till within the last twenty-five years still stood in all its primitive quaintness, though removed to make way for the London-bridge approaches, will live vividly in the mind of every reader of Shakspeare, as the resort of the prince of Wales, Poins, and his companions, and the residence of Falstaff and his coney-catching knaves, Bardolph, Pistol, and Nym; and whose sign was a boar's head, carved in stone over the door, and a smaller one in wood on each side of the doorway.

Most people agree that, historically, people were weird, and Victorians were kooky and even a little prissy. I have known all along that Victorians ate some weird food, and when Mrs. Beeton puts boiled heads in the context of her island’s history it begins to make more sense. I begin to imagine my Scottish grandfather’s graandfather serving him Scotch Broth at a wooden table in a room with a stuffed boar’s head on the wall, as he recounted the stories that Mrs. Beeton inserted into her book on household management.

The traditions and deeds of savage vengeance recorded in connection with this grim trophy of the chase are numerous in all parts of Europe. But the most remarkable connected with the subject in this country, were two events that occurred in Scotland, about the 11th and 15th centuries.

A border family having been dispossessed of their castle and lands by a more powerful chief, were reduced for many years to great indigence, the expelled owner only living in the hope of wreaking a terrible vengeance, which, agreeably to the motto of his house, he was content to "bide his time" for. The usurper having invited a large number of his kindred to a grand hunt in his new domains, and a feast after in the great hall, returned from the chase, and discovering the feast not spread, vented his wrath in no measured terms on the heads of the tardy servitors. At length a menial approached, followed by a line of servants, and placing the boar's head on the table, the guests rushed forward to begin the meal; when, to their horror, they discovered, not a boar's but a bull's head, a sign of death. The doors were immediately closed, and the false servants, who were the adherents of the dispossessed chief, threw off their disguise, and falling on the usurper and his friends, butchered them and every soul in the castle belonging to the rival faction.

A tribe of caterans, or mountain robbers, in the Western Highlands, having been greatly persecuted by a powerful chief of the district, waylaid him and his retinue, put them all to the sword, and cutting off the chief's head, repaired to his castle, where they ordered the terrified wife to supply them with food and drink. To appease their savage humour, the lady gave order for their entertainment, and on returning to the hall to see her orders were complied with, discovered, in place of the boar's head that should have graced the board, her husband's bleeding head; the savage caterans, in rude derision, as a substitute for the apple or lemon usually placed between the jaws, having thrust a slice of bread in the dead man's mouth.

The last tale sounds like an episode of American Horror Story or Game of Thrones! And I’m not sure how it made animal heads any more palatable to Mrs. Beeton’s Victorian readers.

However, I’ve gone entirely off topic and nearly abandoned the wonderful soup Mrs. Beeton initially told us about. As I’m often distractible and not planning to have them serve Scottish broth at the dinner party in my novel, I lost patience trying to find the recipe in Mrs. Beeton’s book, but let Google answer that question for me. BBC food has a good recipe here, which made me think that we’ve just replaced the boiled head with “stock” because that’s basically what you’d get after following Mrs. Beeton’s instructions.

For the purpose of my story, I think my wealthy and scandalous 1891 dinner hostess will be serving Mrs. Beeton’s Almond Soup.

ALMOND SOUP.

INGREDIENTS.
4 lbs. of lean beef or veal, 1/2 a scrag of mutton, 1 oz. of vermicelli, 4 blades of mace, 6 cloves, 1/2 lb. of sweet almonds, the yolks of 6 eggs, 1 gill of thick cream, rather more than 2 quarts of water.

Mode.
Boil the beef, or veal, and the mutton, gently in water that will cover them, till the gravy is very strong, and the meat very tender; then strain off the gravy, and set it on the fire with the specified quantities of vermicelli, mace, and cloves, to 2 quarts. Let it boil till it has the flavour of the spices. Have ready the almonds, blanched and pounded very fine; the yolks of the eggs boiled hard; mixing the almonds, whilst pounding, with a little of the soup, lest the latter should grow oily. Pound them till they are a mere pulp, and keep adding to them, by degrees, a little soup until they are thoroughly mixed together. Let the soup be cool when mixing, and do it perfectly smooth. Strain it through a sieve, set it on the fire, stir frequently, and serve hot. Just before taking it up, add the cream.

Time.
3 hours.

Average cost per quart, 2s. 3d.

Seasonable all the year.

Sufficient for 8 persons.

I'll have to remember not to let my protagonist ask for a second helping!

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Lady Meux (pronounced "Mews")

 

I prefer women with a past. They're always so damned amusing to talk to. — Lady Windermere's Fan (1892) 

The history of London in the 1890s would lose much of its charm without its most scandalous women, like Lady Meux - pronounced “Mews.”

Portrait of Lady Meux by James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1881)

Lady Meux was born a butcher’s daughter in 1847 and called: Valerie Susan Langdon, but it’s probably already hard for you not to call her Lady Meux. She grew up to be a London socialite, the wife of an incredibly wealthy brewer, Sir Henry Meux, 3rd Baronet (1856-1900). That’s right, she married a really rich man, who was nearly ten years younger than her!

That’s him in the Sherlock Holmes cap and her on the banjo.

So why would a wealthy young man marry a butcher’s daughter ten years his senior in 1878? Well, Lady Meux said: “I can very honestly say that my sins were committed before marriage and not after.” And, then 22 year-old, Sir Meux might have seen her on stage, the way that Dorian Gray encountered Sybil Vane. Or he might have met in her in a far more intimate setting, as it was widely believed that Lady Meux was not the actress she claimed to be before marriage, but actually a prostitute.

Consequently, Lady Meux was never accepted by her husband’s family or “polite” society. But then, what use did she have for either when she could afford to drive herself to London in a high phaeton, drawn by a pair of zebras!

Lady Meux loved spending money, expanding and enlarging their home at Theobalds in Hertfordshire - by adding things like: a swimming pool and indoor roller-skating rink! Guests to her parties included the Prince of Whales and Winston Churchill. (I’m thinking of inviting some of the characters in my book.)

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Wilde's Last Real Friend

The Picture of Dorian Gray recently ranked 27th in the Guardian's list of the 100 best novels. Robert McCrum goes on to explain that Dorian Gray wasn't met with the warmest reception in 1891.

Of all the books in this series, Oscar Wilde's only novel enjoyed by far the worst reception on its publication. The reviews were dreadful, the sales poor, and it was not until many years after Wilde's death that this remarkable work of imagination was recognised as a classic.

While this is all true, I'm writing today to give credit where credit is due. Readers around the world didn't suddenly start rereading Dorian Gray on their own. Wilde's name was tainted by his infamous trials; his descendants still go by the name their mother assumed when she fled the country. His work became tainted by Victorian ideas of homoerotic pornography. Black market pornographers unlawfully used Wilde's name on their books in an effort to sell more copies - even after Wilde's death. Lucky for all of us, Wilde had one good friend who worked tirelessly to preserve Wilde's name as an artist, while maintaining the integrity of his Work.

That friend was Robbie Ross (May 25, 1869 – October 5, 1918), a French-born Canadian.

Ross worked as a journalist and art critic and dealer in London, but is remembered for his relationship with Oscar Wilde, to whom he was a literary executor. Ross was important in his own right as part of the London literary and arts scene in the 1890's and for the remainder of his years. He even mentored Siegfried Sassoon.

Ross grew up in Toronto and Ottawa, but moved to England to study at Cambridge. Ross began his studies in 1888 and even at that young age - in the Victorian Era too - Ross was open about his sexuality. Other students abused him for it, even with the support of one of their professors, Arthur Augustus Tiley.

After catching pneumonia from being dunked in a fountain, Ross demanded an apology. His fellow students complied, but Tiley refused. Rightfully enraged, Ross fought to have Tiley dismissed from the university to no avail. Defeated, Ross left school and came out to his family.

Robert Ross (Age 24)

Ross is widely believed to have been Wilde's first male lover. What is certain is that he became Wilde's last real friend. Ross was no stranger to homophobia, which didn't disappear when he left school. Years before Wilde went to court, the parents of a young man, who had intimate encounters with Ross and Lord Alfred Douglas, hired solicitors to take legal action, but were persuaded not to go to court.

When Wilde was released from prison, Ross was there with emotional and financial support.

Upon Wilde's death, Ross became Wilde's literary executor. Before Wilde went to prison, most of his possessions were sold off in bankruptcy, including the rights to all of Wilde's texts. Ross tracked these down and purchased them. He enlisted others, like Christopher Sclater Millard, to assist in the fight against the black-market trade in pornographic texts fraudulently published under Wilde's name.

With the definitive bibliography intact, Ross gave Wilde's sons the rights to all their father's works along with the money earned from their printing/performance while he was executor.

In 1908, he produced the definitive edition of Wilde's work. Ross hired Jacob Epstein to design Wilde's final resting place, requesting that Epstein add a small compartment to the tomb for Ross’s own ashes.

If it sounds like Ross was a little obsessed with Wilde, then I have misled you. While Ross was doing all of this he led a full and vibrant career in the arts, including management of the Carfax Gallery, a small commercial gallery in London, from 1901-1908. There, he showed artists, like Aubrey Beardsley, William Blake and John Singer Sargent. Ross went on to become the art critic for the Morning Post. During the First World War, Ross mentored a group of primarily homosexual poets and artists, which included Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.

Ross suffered for helping Wilde even in death, and was wickedly harassed by Lord Alfred Douglas (Wilde's Bosie and Ross's former friend), who tried to have him arrested for homosexual conduct.

During the German Spring Offensive (1918), Noel Pemberton Billing, a right-wing Member of Parliament, published an article called: "The Cult of the Clitoris," in which he painted Ross and his circle as the centre of a conspiracy by 47,000 homosexual traitors, who were betraying the nation to the Germans. Maud Allan, an actress who had played Wilde's Salome in a performance authorised by Ross, was identified as a member of the "cult". She unsuccessfully sued Billing for libel, causing a national sensation in Britain.

The incident brought a lot of negative publicity to Ross and his associates.

Later that year, Ross died suddenly, while preparing to travel to Australia, to open an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.

In 1950, on the 50th anniversary of Wilde's death, Ross's ashes were added to Wilde's tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Now, if you want to get all teared-up like I just did, go watch this video on YouTube that pays tribute to their friendship.

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How to Curse Like a Gentleman: the F-Bomb!

The word "fuck" was first published in 1568. It seems counter to the ideal of Victorian culture, but the F-bomb shocked and titillated Victorians. It frequently appeared in Victorian pornographic writings, such as Philocomus’s Love Feast (1865)

That night I shall never forget; We fucked and fucked, and fucked and sweat.

And My Secret Life (1890).

I was dying with want of a fuck.

And elsewhere in the same text:

At daylight we were a hollow eyed, fucked out couple.

And:

The women had learnt a few English words explanatory of copulation—‘Me fuckee prick’ said one.

My Secret Life is the sexual memoir of a Victorian gentleman, called Walter. The first print only ran 25 copies. Subsequent copies were frequently suppressed, and subsequently pirated. Yet, the idea of "not giving a fuck" was Victorian, first appearing in print in George Augustus Henry Sala’s bawdy pantomime Harlequin Prince Cherrytop (1879).

For all your threats I don’t care a fuck. I’ll never leave my princely darling duck.

And fuck yourself appeared in New York in 1895.

By Senator Bradley: Q. Repeat what he said to you?
A. He said, ‘Go on, fuck yourself, you son-of-a-bitch; I will give you a hundred dollars’; he tried to punch me, and I went out.

The idea of being "fuckable" appeared in 1889.

The poor man had at last outwitted his careful wife and obtained a much longed for, fuckable cunt. - Charles Devereaux, “Venus in India” (1889).

Hugsome, carnally attractive, fuckable. - Farmer & Henley, “Slang III” (1893).

And in an 1862 letter from a soldier:

I together with several other officers went over to Petersburg, got drunk and f—ked out. We staid two days and nights, you ought to have seen me going to bed with a gal.

The English writer Edward Sellon has the honour of introducing the term “fuckee” to printed language in 1866.

For make fuckee business, sahib, that girl who is splashing the other one would be too much good.

But “fucker” goes back to 1598. Victorians were just having fun with it, introducing variations of the word “fuck,” such as “fuckhole” (1893), “fist-fuck” (1890), fucked (1863), and “motherfucking” (1889). Furthermore the fact that a word didn’t appear in print until 1893 doesn’t mean that it hadn’t been in use for twenty years or more.

Even I find it frustrating, as one who studies Victorian writers, that most of Victorian recorded language is preserved in the printed word. Their movies were silent, after all. The printed word differs from the spoken word greatly. Lots of great speakers don’t write well. Writing takes time and thought. It’s also subject to editing and we are all aware of the prim message that Victorian were trying to leave for posterity’s sake.

As a rule, a gentleman would never say “fuck” in front of a lady, but there were other kinds of women. I don’t think a Victorian should, or was even likely to use coarse language in front of their mothers, but when they were drunk, slumming, or one of those poor creatures who lived in the slums. In reality, Victorians probably swore about as much as we do, using many of the same terms.

“Shit” first appeared in print in 1325; “happy as a pig in shit” (1828); “the shit out of a” (1886); and “up shit’s creek” (1868). Certainly many Victorians saw the word “fuck” as classless and pornographic, but that really hasn’t changed.

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The First Brunch!

According to the Oxford English Dictionary more words were added to the English language than at any other time in our language's history. One of my favourite words to hear on a weekend is "brunch," which first appeared in print on 1 August 1896 - thanks to Punch or the London Charivari.

An excellent portmanteau word..indicating a combined breakfast and lunch. At Oxford, however, two years ago, an important distinction was drawn. The combination-meal, when nearer the usual breakfast hour, is ‘brunch’, and when nearer luncheon, is ‘blunch’.

Thank goodness "blunch" never caught on. Punch is every Victorianist researcher's best friend, now I love them even more!

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