Back in January 2021, I released my Austenesque novel, The Mistress of Rosings Park. In that story, draper’s shops play a strategic role. In one of my latest novels from Dragonblade Publishing [book 4 of 5 in the Lyon’s Den Connected World Series, Lost in the Lyon’s Garden], my heroine is employed at a draper’s shop and the hero, though he is an earl, lives in Cheapside [just as did Elizabeth Bennet’s Uncle Gardiner]. Lord Benjamin Thompson hopes to bring back some of the “glory” of that part of London. Both hero and heroine of this new tale are children of clergymen and take the idea being “my brother’s keeper” to heart.
One of the first industries in Great Britain was the manufacturing of cloth. Wool and cotton fabrics [Think of all that cotton fibers swirling around Mr. Thorton in the Masterpiece version of North and South] were available with some ease. Cotton printed muslin was often found upon the backs of people of the age. By the end of the Regency era, Great Britain had imported 90 million pounds of cotton. Messrs. Harding Howell & Co in Pall Mall was one of the leaders of choice linen-drapers. In 1811, Jane Austen described a shopping excursion she made to a London establishment that sold handkerchiefs, gauzes, nets, veils, trims, and cloth as . . .
We set off immediately after breakfast and must have reached Grafton House by 1/2 past 11 -, but when we entered the Shop, the whole counter was thronged & we waited a full half an hour before we c’d be attended to. When we were served however, I was very well satisfied with my purchases.
It was not unusual for customers to haggle over the prices, but, by the Regency, the shoppers saw more “set” prices on items. Unfortunately, for the shopkeepers, they were “obliged” to extend credit to the aristocracy, which saw the privilege as a necessary part of their positions in Society. Being paid was purely on the backs of the shopkeepers, who often went bankrupt with little recourse, for peers could not be sent to debtors’ prison for non-payment. Though I chose not to paint my heroine’s [Miss Victoria Whitchurch] employer, Mr. Sustar, with an unstained brushstroke, I did attempt to show him in moments of strictness, as well as kindness, for he was making an unusal business decision that would make him money and expand Miss Whitchurch’s duties. You will see what I mean when you read the tale.
By the beginning of the 19th Century, it is estimated that 200 different shops could be found in London. These shops kept long hours, generally, 12-hour days. The shopkeepers and their assistants often lived on the premises. Warehouses were located in Covent Garden. Mercers and linen drapers could be found in Cheapside. Shops lined the streets with shopkeepers living above. We know that ladies of Society shopped on Oxford Street an Bond Street in Mayfair. Men frequented the shops and gentlemen’s clubs in St. James. Newer styled shops sprung up along the Strand.
Those of us who love Pride and Prejudice can easily recall Caroline Bingley’s disdain when speaking of Elizabeth Bennet’s unsuitable pedigree to Mr. Darcy.
“Yes; and they have another [uncle], who lives somewhere near Cheapside.”
“That is capital,” added her sister, and they both laughed heartily.
“If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside,” cried Bingley, “it would not make them one jot less agreeable.”
“But it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world,” replied Darcy. (Pride and Prejudice, chapter 8)
From Jane Austen’s World, we learn, “Shop keepers advertised through circulars, trade cards, newspaper notices, or board-men, who were employed to roam the streets. In the 1760’s, the large shop signs that had once hung over shops and identified the shop’s merchandise to a populace that largely could not read were deemed hazardous. They were removed by law, but a few managed to survive, as this account in the Book of Days describes:
In Holywell-street, Strand, is the last remaining shop sign in situ, being a boldly-sculptured half-moon, gilt, and exhibiting the old conventional face in the centre. Some twenty years ago it was a mercer’s shop, and the bills made out for customers were ‘adorned with a picture’ of this sign. It is now a bookseller’s, and the lower part of the windows have been altered into the older form of open shop. A court beside it leads into the great thoroughfare; and the corner-post is decorated with a boldly-carved lion’s head and paws, acting as a corbel to support a still older house beside it. This street altogether is a good, and now an almost unique specimen of those which once were the usual style of London business localities, crowded, tortuous, and ill-ventilated, having shops closely and inconveniently packed, but which custom had made familiar and inoffensive to all; while the old traders, who delighted in ‘old styles,’ looked on improvements with absolute horror, as ‘a new-fashioned way’ to bankruptcy.“
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The Mistress of Rosings Park: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary
I much prefer the sharp criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses. – Johannes Kepler
When she arrives at Hunsford Cottage for a visit with her long-time friend Charlotte Collins, Elizabeth Bennet does not expect the melodrama awaiting her at Rosings Park.
Mrs. Anne Darcy, nee de Bourgh, has passed, and Rosings Park is, by law, the property of the woman’s husband, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy; yet, Lady Catherine de Bourgh is not ready to abandon the mansion over which she has served as mistress for thirty years. Elizabeth holds sympathy for her ladyship’s situation. After all, Elizabeth’s mother will eventually be banished from Longbourn when Mr. Bennet passes without male issue. She inherently understands Lady Catherine’s “hysterics,” while not necessarily condoning them, for her ladyship will have the luxury of the right to the estate’s dower house, and, moreover, it is obvious Rosings Park requires the hand of a more knowledgeable overseer. Therefore, Elizabeth takes on the task of easing Lady Catherine’s transition to dowager baronetess, but doing so places Elizabeth often in the company of the “odious” Mr. Darcy, a man Lady Catherine claims poisoned her daughter Anne in order to claim Rosings Park as his own.
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The box contains a prayer book and “vampire-slaying equipment”
When I first became aware of the term “mashup,” I automatically thought of the music industry with its remixes and creative imaginings of oldies and the classics. By definition, a “mashup” is creating a new entity from two or more unrelated sources. Although some believe this subgenre has hit its peak, mashups still garner a substantial chunk of the market. Take for example, the film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The premise is that a reader of paranormal would find mixing a Jane Austen classic with vampires intriguing. Many authors are finding a new market, whether they write science fiction, fantasy, paranormal, mystery, or humor. Recently, we have seen mixes of William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Leo Tolstoy, and Louisa May Alcott. It is not just Jane Austen. There is a crossover appeal, very much like the steampunk genre. Think about Hemingway or Flaubert or F. Scott Fitzgerald; there are endless possibilities because the past is always in the process of being reinvented. That is, as long as copyrights are honored. 
Elbridge Gerry was born on July 17, 1744 in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the third of 12 children of Thomas Gerry and Elizabeth Greenleaf. His mother was the daughter of a Boston merchant; his father, a wealthy and politically active merchant-shipper who had once been a sea captain. Captain Thomas Gerry, was born in 1702 and came to America in 1730 from Newton Abbott, Devonshire, England. Gerry’s great-great-grandfather, Edmond Greenleaf, was born in Malden, England, came to America in 1635 and settled in Newbury. He and his family removed to Boston in 1650. One of his descendants was the famous New England poet, John Greenleaf Whittier.
In December 1771 his father Thomas Gerry moderated a meeting in Marblehead of the new Committee of Correspondence to discuss the resolves put forward by Samuel Adams. Elbridge joined his father there and helped craft the fiery resolves that were adopted. In May 1772 Elbridge was elected representative to the General Court and met Sam Adams, with whom he immediately bonded. When Parliament closed the port of Boston in June 1774, Marblehead became a major port of entry for goods and supplies, which Gerry then transported to Boston. Mercy Otis Warren stated that Gerry coordinated the procurement and distribution of arms and provisions with “punctuality and indefatigable industry.”
Gerry left Congress for the last time in 1793 and retired for 4 years. During this period he came to mistrust the aims of the Federalists, particularly their attempts to nurture an alliance with Britain, and sided with the pro-French Democratic-Republicans. In 1797 President John Adams appointed him as the only non-Federalist member of a three-man commission charged with negotiating a reconciliation with France, which was on the brink of war with the United States. During the ensuing XYZ affair (1797-98), Gerry tarnished his reputation. Talleyrand, the French foreign minister, led him to believe that his presence in France would prevent war, and Gerry lingered on long after the departure of John Marshall and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the two other commissioners. Finally, the embarrassed Adams recalled him, and Gerry met severe censure from the Federalists upon his return. An anti-French mob pelted his home with rocks and shouted obscenities at his wife and children. The United States ended up entering a two-years, undeclared war with France. 
Every Woman Dreams... 
