Carolly Erickson's Our Tempestuous Day: A History of Regency England explores the seedy underside of the world Jane Austen lived and wrote in. 

Our Tempestuous Day: A History of Regency England by Carolly Erickson

Our Tempestuous Day: A History of Regency England
By Carolly Erickson
Robson Books Ltd, 2000 (first published 1998)

I really enjoyed this book. But then, I suppose I would, as I’m a sucker for anything having to do with Regency or Victorian England. Still, it’s sort of amazing to think that Erickson is describing the period that Jane Austen wrote in, as Austen’s books, while marvelous, don’t touch on the seedy underside where Erickson’s account often dwells (not that I mind in either case).

As I read, I found myself marking page after page where the writing or the information (or both) appealed to me. Here are a few of my favorite tidbits.

Women really did faint when Byron entered the room, but not for the reason you think

Women really did tend to faint when Byron entered the room. But the reason for it wasn’t always clear.

“Women still sometimes fainted when he entered a room, but whether from lovestruck admiration or shock and disgust was impossible to judge.”

Carrolly Erickson, Our Tempestuous Day: A History of Regency England, p. 233.

Apparently, by the time Byron returned from Venice, his personality and his physique had become a bit coarse.

Regency matriarchs were the original Tiger Moms

p. 254: In the chapter on childhood education/experiences, Erickson relates the experience of novelist Mary Sherwood who recalls

how as a child of five she had been strapped into an iron collar attached to a wooden backboard. ‘It was the fashion then,’ she wrote. ‘I generally did all my lessons standing in stocks…’

Carrolly Erickson, Our Tempestuous Day: A History of Regency England, p. 254.

The amazing bit?

Later in life [Mary Sherwood] ‘often thanked God and her beloved mother for the discipline to which she was subjected, which was very much to the good.’

Carrolly Erickson, Our Tempestuous Day: A History of Regency England.

The Tiger Mother‘s got nothing on this Regency matriarch.

Basically, the Victorian Age was one long teenage rebellion against the Regency period

On a broader note, Erickson made it easy to see how the excessive public morality of the Victorians (and their writers) would be a natural reaction to the amorality of the Regency period.

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