References for the novel Coronation Summer by Angela Thirkell
‘Relusions’ for the Oxford University Press 1937 edition and the Hamish Hamilton 1953 edition.
“I am so glad you liked C.S. [Coronation Summer] It was GREAT fun to do and took weeks at the B.M. [British Museum] and the B.M. newspaper place at Hendon … All the things that happen are real”.
– Written by Angela Thirkell in a letter to Margaret Bird, February 1953.
Chapter 1
(This chapter is set in 1840, two years after Queen Victoria’s Coronation.)
4 Sordello – a long narrative poem by Robert Browning, 1840
George Gordon Byron – 6th Baron Byron, died 1824
Ten Thousand a-Year – is a novel by Samuel Warren, 1840
The Weekly Despatch – was a radical newspaper, first published in 1801. It was Alderman Harmer – James Harmer (1777–1853). See Angela Thirkell’s own note on him, page 193. (He served as a model for Jaggers in Dickens’s Great Expectations.)
The first publication of the newspaper The Daily Universal Register – in Great Britain was 1 January 1785. Because people always omitted the word Universal, the title was changed on 1 January 1788 to The Times.
The Morning Post – a conservative daily newspaper published in London from 1772 to 1937,
Edward George Lytton Bulwer-Lytton (1803-73) wrote Leila – or The Siege of Granada, a historical romance novel published in 1838.
The Voyage of the Beagle – the title commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin and published in 1839 as his Journal and Remarks.
The Athenaeum – a literary magazine published in London from 1828 to 1921.
The Old Curiosity Shop – by Charles Dickens, 1841
Boz – the pseudonym used by Charles Dickens (1812-70) in his contributions to the Morning Chronicle and in The Pickwick Papers.
Oliver Twist – by Charles Dickens, 1837-8
Pickwick Papers – by Charles Dickens, 1836-7
Bell’s Life in London, and Sporting Chronicle – an English weekly sporting paper published as a pink broadsheet between 1822 and 1886.
The Gallery of Comicalities – a broadsheet newspaper printed on four sides with sketches ’embracing all the sketches which have appeared in that popular journal, Bell’s Life in London, since the 24th of June, 1831′. Each side contains a dozen or more small caricatures of London types. 24 December 1832, Woodcut and letterpress.
Extract from The Factory Act of 1833 – It shall be lawful for His Majesty to appoint four Inspectors of factories where … children and young persons under eighteen years of age [are] employed.
5 The Ingoldsby Legends – by English clergyman Richard Harris Barham under the pseudonym Thomas Ingoldsby, 1837.
Bentley’s Miscellany – an English literary magazine published between 1836 and 1868.
9-12 Notes to Barney Maguire’s poem – and the characters mentioned in it, appear on pages 193-6.
9 The Heralds of the College of Arms – wear black patent court shoes with gold buckles.
13 Fanny Elssler – (1810-84) was an Austrian ballerina who introduced theatricalized folk dance (character dance) into ballet. She was celebrated for her spirited, spectacular dancing and for her technique, especially her pointe work.
14 The Spectator – a weekly British conservative magazine first published on 6 July 1828.
Comic Novels – can’t trace this publication.
17 the new Penny Postage – Rowland Hill brought in his system of uniform penny postage in 1840. Franking, the carrying of official mail free, was ended, and letters were charged by weight at a flat rate, regardless of distance. Under Hill’s system the sender paid: in the past it had usually been the recipient.
Chapter 2
(From this point the story is set in 1838)
19 University College London – founded under the name London University in 1826 as a secular alternative to the religious universities.
20 Miss Twinkleton runs a “Seminary for Young Ladies”– in Cloisterham, in Dickens’s The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Sailor King – William IV, 1765-1837
Queen Victoria – 1819-1901
21 Eton College – founded in 1440 by Henry VI as ‘The King’s College of Our Lady of Eton beside Windsor’.
22 Alfred Jingle and Rachael Wardle – in The Pickwick Papers.
23 John Sell Cotman – 1782-1842, British painter and engraver of the Norfolk school and first professor of drawing at King’s College, London.
24 Queen Street – in Mayfair, therefore one of the most expensive districts of London.
25 Mrs Botherby – a housekeeper in The Ingoldsby Legends.
29 Wood paving – was introduced in London in the Victorian era as it was quieter than granite cobbles under iron-rimmed wagon wheels, and safer for horses than stone or tar, especially on hills.
30–34 Our Mutual Friend – Fanny comments on this long and loud exchange between the servants and the dustmen: “what a story this would make for Mr Dickens.” Thirkell does not allude to the title of the novel (written 1864-65) which makes it even more amusing!
Chapter 3
37 Harriette, Amy and Sophia – were daughters of a Swiss watchmender named Dubouchet and his wife Amelia, who supported the household by mending stockings, living in Queen Street, Mayfair. He assumed the surname Wilson about 1801. All three daughters became courtesans, the most famous being:
37 Harriette Wilson – (1786–1845) was a celebrated British Regency courtesan. She began her career at the age of fifteen, becoming the mistress of William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven, 7th Baron Craven. Angela Thirkell wrote The Fortunes of Harriette about her in 1936 (the year before she wrote this one).
38 The Leander Club – founded in 1818, is one of the oldest rowing clubs in the world, and the oldest non-academic club. Cambridge University had competed against the Club in the previous year, 1837.
43 The Carcel lamp – was an efficient lighting device used in the nineteenth century for domestic purposes and in France as the standard measure for illumination. The lamp was invented by the French watchmaker Bernard Guillaume Carcel (1750– 1818) to overcome the disadvantages of the Argand-type lamps then in use.
45 The Oxonian -can’t trace this publication.
47 Morpheus – god of sleep
48 John Pemberton Plumptre – (1791–1864), MP for East Kent 1832-52.
49 The Sunday radical Weekly Dispatch – published the letters of William Johnson Fox (1786-1864), signed ‘Publicola’.
Charles James Fox – English Liberal statesman, had indeed died in1806.
50 Charles Green – (1785–1870) was the United Kingdom’s most famous balloonist of the 19th century. In 1836 he constructed the Great Nassau balloon for Gye and Hughes, proprietors of Vauxhall Gardens, and on 9 September in that year made the first ascent with it from Vauxhall Gardens, in company with eight persons.
Vauxhall Gardens – was a pleasure garden in Kennington on the south bank of the River Thames. It was one of the leading venues for public entertainment in London, from the mid-17th to the mid-19th century.
51 The Palace of Westminster – the medieval royal palace used as the home of the British parliament, was largely destroyed by fire on 16 October 1834. The blaze was caused by the burning of small wooden tally sticks which had been used as part of the accounting procedures of the Exchequer until 1826. The sticks were disposed of in a careless manner in the two furnaces under the House of Lords, which caused a chimney fire in the two flues that ran under the floor of the Lords’ chamber and up through the walls.
52 Babraham Pet – can’t trace
Daniel Mendoza – (1764-1836) is considered to be the originator of modern boxing.
James Belcher – (1781–1811) was an English bare-knuckle prize-fighter and Champion of All England 1800-1805.
Henry “Hen” Pearce – was an English bare-knuckle prizefighter who was the recognised English Champion from 1804 until his retirement due to ill health in 1807. Pearce was known as “The Game Chicken”.
Chapter 4
57 Le Journal des Dames et des Modes – is one of the first French illustrated fashion magazines, created in 1797 by the bookseller Sellèque, taken over in 1801 by Pierre Antoine Leboux of La Mésangère and disappeared in 1839. This periodical appeared under several names: Journal des Ladies, Parisian Costumes, Journal des Modes or Journal des Ladies, Journal de la Mésangère, and finally the Gazette des Salons for its latest releases.
60 Gunter’s Tea Shop – in London’s Berkeley Square had its origins in a food business started in 1757 by Italian Domenico Negri. Various English, French and Italian wet and dry sweetmeats were made and sold from the business. In 1777 James Gunter became Negri’s business partner, and by 1799 he was the sole proprietor. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Gunter’s became a fashionable light eatery notable for its ices and sorbets.
61 There were exhibitions of the aurora borealis in 1838 – and Enke’s comet appeared.
Ebers’s British and Foreign Circulating Library – was at 27 Old Bond Street.
62 Captain Frederick Marryat -(1792-1848) wrote several novels of sea-life.
George Payne Rainsford James – (1799-1860) wrote numerous romantic novels.
Edward George Lytton Bulwer-Lytton – (1803-73) had a versatile and prolific literary output.
Mrs Catherine Gore – 1799-1861 wrote about 70 fashionable novels.
Frances Trollope – 1780-1863 wrote many popular novels.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon – 1802-38, wrote under the initials L.E.L. She wrote several novels among other literary works. She married George Maclean, governor of Cape Coast Castle, West Africa.G
John Henry Anderson – (1814–1874) was a Scottish professional magician known as the Wizard of the North.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – by Edward Gibbon (1737-94)
Thomas Bowdler – 1754-1825 published expurgated versions of Shakespeare’s texts, and Gibbon’s (above).
66 Frédéric Chopin – (1810-49), Polish composer, visited London in July 1837.
67 Felix Mendelssohn – 1809-47, composer
Her Majesty’s Theatre – Haymarket. Opened 1705. Its name changes from ‘Her’ to ‘His’ depending on who is on the throne.
Benjamin West – 1738-1820, American portrait and history painter.
The Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London – was an exhibition hall built in the ancient Egyptian style in 1812, to the designs of Peter Frederick Robinson.
68 The Royal Academy – was initially housed in cramped quarters in Pall Mall, although in 1771 it was given temporary accommodation in Old Somerset House. In 1780 it was installed in purpose-built apartments in the first completed wing of New Somerset House, located in the Strand. The Academy moved in 1837 to Trafalgar Square, where it occupied the east wing of the recently completed National Gallery (designed by an Academician, William Wilkins).
69 Sir David Wilkie – 1785-1841, Scottish painter
Daniel Maclise – 1806-70, Irish painter
Sir Edwin Landseer – 1802-73, British artist, painted animals
Joseph Mallard William Turner – 1775-1851, British painter
William Mulready – 1786-1863, Irish painter
Seven Ages of Man – from speech in Shakespeare’s As You Like It
Daniel O’Connell – 1775-1847, Irish nationalist leader
70 The British Institution – (in full, the British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom; founded 1805, disbanded 1867) was a private 19th- century society in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists. It was also known as the Pall Mall Picture Galleries or the British Gallery.
The Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours – initially called the New Society of Painters in Water Colours, was founded in 1831.
George Cattermole – 1800-68, English painter
Salvator Rosa – 1615-73, Italian painter and poet
71 The Match Boy – perhaps by Nicolino Calyo, 1799-1884, American painter
Mivart’s Hotel – Founded in 1812 in a terraced house it gradually grew into Claridge’s.
Gas lighting of buildings and streets – began early in the 19th century, with most streets in London lit by gas as early as 1816.
73–74 The poem beginning It was a litter, a litter of five – is indeed from The Ingoldsby Legends.
74 The second Corn Law of 1828 – sparked a wave of radical protest leading to the formation of the Manchester Anti-Corn Law Association in the autumn of 1838.
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne – 1779-1848, Prime Minister 1834, 1835-41. His wife, Caroline Lamb (1785-1828), was notorious for her scandalous love affair with Lord Byron. In 1836 Melbourne was charged with seducing Caroline Norton (1808-77), an Irish poet and novelist, in a divorce action brought by her husband, George Chappel Norton, but the charge was thrown out.
75 Miss Landon – see above, note to page 62.
Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country – was a general and literary journal published in London from 1830 to 1882.
Queen Anne – 1665-1714
Abigail Masham – (d. 1734) superseded Sarah Churchill as Queen Anne’s favourite.
76 The Monthly Magazine – (1796–1843) of London began publication in February 1796.
Chapter 5
79 Angela Thirkell wrote in a letter to Margaret Bird – in February 1953, perhaps with some glee, “All the things that happen [in Coronation Summer] are real, from … to R. Kipling selling stockings in the city”.
80 Margaret, Countess of Blessington – 1789-1849, Irish writer.
Alfred, Count D’Orsay – (1801-52) was a French amateur artist, dandy, and man of fashion in the early- to mid-19th century.
Daniel O’Connell – 1775-1847, Irish nationalist leader
81 Jeremiad – a prolonged lamentation or mournful complaint
82 Lord George Bentinck – 1802-48, English sportsman
Carlotta Grisi – 1819-99, Italian ballet-dancer. She married Count Gérard de Melcy in 1836. See also below, note to page 139.
Maria Taglione – 1804-84, Italian dancer
Viscount Robert Castlereagh – 1769-1822, British statesman. See also below, note to page 139.
83 James “Jem” Chapple -(1801-58) was a British Classic-winning jockey. He won the Derby in 1838.
John Frederick Herring – 1795-1865, a stable lad who became an artist.
84 Nine Elms Railway Station in the London district of Battersea – was opened on 21 May 1838 as the London terminus of the London & Southampton Railway.
86 Lils – a gipsy word for books: (Courtesy Norma Munson!)
88 Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition Bazaar – founded by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud (1760-1850) in 1835.
89 The Cosmoroma Rooms – at 209 Regent Street opened in 1823 as a high-toned version of the old peep show. The rooms served as a fashionable meeting place for coffee, talking, seeing works of art or wonders of nature with light refreshments available.
Miss Twinkleton runs a “Seminary for Young Ladies” – see above, note to page 20.
90 In 1838, 29 year old Lieutenant Henry Bennett – of Irish parentage, was serving with the 45th Regiment of Foot (Sherwood Foresters) in Canterbury. He led a unit called to deal with the last armed insurrection on English soil – that of the Cornishman John Nichols Thom, also known as ‘Mad Thom’ or as he preferred ‘Sir William Courtenay, Knight of Malta and King of Jerusalem’. Thom, who had suffered from serious long term mental instability, was leading the revolt of a small band of local rural workers. He shot Lieutenant Bennett dead on 31 May. On 2 June 1838 he was buried with full military honours in the cloisters.
Chapter 6
93 Jorrock’s Jaunts and Jollities – (1838) by Robert Surtees (1805-64)
94 John Gibson – 1790-1866, British sculptor
Antonio Canova – 1757-1822, Italian sculptor
Titania – from A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Would a fairy have shoes and stockings??
95 The Sorrows of Rosalie by Caroline Norton – See above, note to page 74
96 Margaret, Countess of Blessington – 1789-1849, Irish writer
Edmund Thomas Parris – 1793-1873 was an English history, portrait, subject, and panorama painter, book illustrator, designer and art restorer. Many of his single figures and groups, composed in a weak, sentimental style, were engraved in The Keepsake and similar publications
Lady Emmeline Stuart-Wortley – (1806–55) was an English poet and writer. She was editor of The Keepsake in 1837 and 1840.
98 Mrs Leo Hunter, poetess, and Mr Winkle – in Dickens’s Pickwick Papers
Benjamin Disraeli – 1804-81, British statesman and writer. MP for Maidstone.
101 Vivian Grey by Benjamin Disraeli – 1833
Henrietta Temple by Benjamin Disraeli – 1837
Almack’s Assembly Rooms – was a social club in London from 1765 to 1871 and one of the first to admit both men and women.
102 Mrs. Norton – see above, note to page 74
103 Eton Montem – (or ad Montem – literally to the Mountain) was a custom observed by Eton College from at least 1561 until it was finally suppressed in 1847, at the Montem Mound (or Salt Hill) in Chalvey, Slough, Buckinghamshire.
Jonathan Davies, Headmaster of Eton – 1773-1792
105 In 1440 Henry VI founded ‘The King’s College of Our Lady of Eton beside Windsor’ – and, a year later, King’s College Cambridge, which was to be supplied with scholars from Eton.
107 Victoria Mary Louisa, Duchess of Kent – 1786-1861, mother of Queen Victoria
Edward Craven Hawtrey – (1789–1862) was an English educationalist, headmaster and later provost of Eton College.
108 Joseph Goodall – (1760–1840) was an English cleric and Provost of Eton.
Dr Keate – (1809–34) was the longest-serving Head Master in Eton’s history. He had the reputation of being the greatest flogging Head Master, the symbol of unreformed Eton, and a figure of fun.
Chapter 7
110 The Vicar of Wrexhill by Frances Trollope – 1837
111 The Hanover Square Rooms or the Queen’s Concert Rooms – were assembly rooms established, principally for musical performances, on the corner of Hanover Square, London, by Sir John Gallini in partnership with Johann Christian Bach and Carl Friedrich Abel in 1774.
William Howley was Archbishop of Canterbury – 1828-48, presiding over quarterly evening dinners at Lambeth. See also AT’s note on him on page 195.
Thomas Paine – 1737-1809, defended French Revolution in The Rights Of Man.
112 Laura Cinti-Damoreau – (1801–63) was a French soprano.
Antonio Rossini – 1792-1868, Italian composer
Ignaz Moscheles – 1794-70, German pianist and composer
Johann Nepomuk Maelze – (1772–1838) was a German inventor, engineer, and showman, best known for manufacturing a metronome and several music automatons.
Cipriani Potter – 1792-1871, English composer
Edward Loder – 1813-65, English composer
Watts – can’t trace
113 William Sterndale Bennett – 1816-75, English composer and pianist
Laura Cinti-Damoreau – 1801-1863, French soprano, especially in Rossini roles. Also taught at the Paris Conservatoire and wrote a book on bel canto.
Mlle Placci – can’t trace. (Giuliana Placci ?)
The Hanover Square Rooms – were used by the Concert of Ancient Music from 1804 onwards.
114 Le Nozze di Figaro – (The Marriage of Figaro) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy – 1809-47, German composer
Nicolo Ivanoff – 1810-1880
Julius Benedict – 1804-85, German composer and conductor. He wrote the opera The Gipsy’s Warning (1838).
Baron Theodor Döhler – (1814–56) was a German composer and a notable piano virtuoso of the Romantic period.
Johann Sebastian Bach – 1685-1750, German composer
Giovanni Battista Rubini – (1794–1854) was an Italian tenor.
Frederick Lablache – (1815–87) was an English singer.
115 rowing match – see above, note to page 38
Jesus College – Cambridge
119 Edward George Lytton Bulwer-Lytton – 1803-73. His novel Ernest Maltravers published 1837.
Homer – is the name ascribed by the ancient Greeks to the semi-legendary author of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
122 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red – when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. – Proverbs 23.31
Helots – were slaves allotted to the Spartans.
123 Miss Landon – see above note to page 36
Lady Emmeline Stuart-Wortley – see above note to page 96
Alexander Pope – 1688-1744, English poet and critic
Lavinia Powlett, Duchess of Bolton – (1708-60), known by her stagename as Lavinia Fenton, was an English actress.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu – (1689–1762) was an English aristocrat, letter writer and poet.
125 Alfred, Count D’Orsay – (1801-52) was a French amateur artist, dandy, and man of fashion in the early- to mid-19th century.
Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis of Condorcet – (1743–94), was a French philosopher, mathematician, and early political scientist.
126 Marylebone Cricket Club v Gentlemen of Hampshire – Venue, Lord’s Cricket Ground, St John’s Wood on 21st, 22nd June 1838 (2-day match)
Chapter 8
127 Westminster Hall is the oldest building on the Parliamentary estate – In 1834, the Hall survived one of the greatest threats it had ever faced, when a fire broke out in the Palace of Westminster. Between 1834 and 1837, Sir Robert Smirke removed the wall refacings inside the Hall and substituted a layer of Huddlestone stone. He also lowered the floor to the level of a Purbeck stone floor and laid the present York stone paving.
128 After George Guthrie was at Westminster Hospital for a few years – a building fund was started with plans to create a new hospital. The site was identified on Broad Sanctuary across the street from the Westminster Abbey and a block or two; East of the Houses of Parliament and the Thames river. The building was completed in November, 1834
As an official architect of the Office of Works Sir John Soane – (1753-1837) was asked to design the New Law Courts at Westminster Hall. He was to extend the law courts along the west front of Westminster Hall providing accommodation for five courts: The Court of Exchequer, Chancery, Equity, King’s Bench and Common Pleas. The foundations were laid in October 1822 and the shell of the building completed by February 1824. Then Henry Bankes launched an attack on the design of the building, and Soane had to demolish the facade, set the building lines back several feet and redesign the building in a gothic style instead of the original classical design. The building opened on 21 January 1825. On 16 October 1788 Soane succeeded Sir Robert Taylor as architect and surveyor to the Bank of England. He would work at the bank for the next 45 years, resigning in 1833.
129 John Scott Eldon, Ist Earl – 1751-1853, English statesman
Henry Brougham – 1st Baron 1778-1868. See Angela Thirkell’s note, page 194.
“Cobwebless beams conceived of Irish oak”- seems to come from The History of the Worthies of England (1662) by Thomas Fuller (1608-61).
King George IV – 1762-1830, crowned 1820.
130 George’s Queen, Caroline of Brunswick – was barred from attending the ceremony.
Miss R. represents Miss Flite – in Dickens’s Bleak House.
132 A cofferdam – is a temporary enclosure built within, or in pairs across, a body of water and constructed to allow the enclosed area to be pumped out.
133 Melbourne – see above, note to page 74.
Sir Robert Peel – 1788-1850, British statesman
Sir Charles Barry – (1795–1860) was an English architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) in London during the mid-19th century.
Joseph Hume – 1777-1855, British Radical politician
“an admirable subject for our dear Boz … the Court of Chancery” – accurately foreseeing Dickens’s Bleak House, published 1852-3!
137 The Sunday radical Weekly Dispatch – published William Johnson Fox (1786- 1864)’s letters as from ‘Publicola’.
The royal touch was a form of laying on of hands – whereby French and English monarchs touched their subjects, regardless of social classes, with the intent to cure them of various diseases and conditions.
On the 14th of June 1838, a dreadful accident happened by the explosion of a boiler on board the Victoria – Hull steam-ship, by which nine men lost their lives. Another had occurred on the Thames a few months previously, on board the same vessel, by which several lives were lost.
138 Walter Hancock thought of building a private vehicle at a point when the commercial steamer was in trouble – On 22 June 1938 he demonstrated “a newly commissioned steam cab” in Hyde Park.
John Wilson Croker – 1780-1857, British politician
The Peninsular War – (1807–14) was a military conflict between Napoleon’s empire and the allied powers of Spain, Britain and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars.
Nicolas Soult – 1769-1851, French marshal
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington – 1769-1852, British Army Officer and statesman
139 The Battle of Waterloo – was fought on Sunday, 18th June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium.
The Battle of Vitoria – was fought on 21st June 1813.
The Battle of Talavera – 27–28 July 1809
In the Battle of Salamanca – 22 July 1812, an Anglo-Portuguese army under the Duke of Wellington defeated Marshal Auguste Marmont’s French forces.
The Battle of the Nile – was fought in Aboukir bay near Alexandria, Egypt, on the 1st and 2nd of August 1798.
Grisi’s husband, Count de Melcy – discovered a letter addressed to her from the young Viscount Castlereagh, and challenged Castlereagh to a duel, which was fought on 16th June 1838. Before the men raised their pistols, the Viscount handed a letter to de Melcy’s second. Castlereagh’s letter appeared to exonerate Grisi.
141 Gaetano Donizetti – 1797-1848, Italian composer
Franz Joseph Haydn – 1732-1809, Austrian composer
Henry Bishop – 1786-1855, English composer
142 Mr Kipling – see above, note to page 79.
Teresa Elssler was two years older than her sister Fanny – see above, note to page 13. The sisters almost invariably danced together.
The principal (Xjnceti – Mesdemoiselles Fanny and Teresa Elsler -… amongst which are the celebrated Cherubim and Seraphmj of Corregio, Uken – sic, from London Morning Post, 21 May 1834
Marie Taglioni -(1804–84) was a ballet dancer of the Romantic ballet era, a central figure in the history of European dance.
Guerra – can’t trace
Brigand of terracina – ballet composed by John Barnett (1802-90) ??
143 Pauline Duvernay – (1812–94) was a noted French dancer.
144 Tacchinardi Persiani – (1812–1867), an Italian soprano singer.
Emma Albertazzi – (1814–47) was an English stage contralto.
Boz’s Fat Boy – Joe, Mr. Wardle’s page, who is always falling asleep and wakes only at the appearance of food, in Dickens’s Pickwick Papers
Antonio Tamburini – (1800–76) was an Italian operatic baritone.
Frederick Lablache – (1815–87) was an English singer.
“Crudel perche finora” – (“Cruel girl, why did you make me wait so long”), a duet for soprano and baritone, from the Italian opera Le Nozze di Figaro by Mozart
Chapter 9
149 Mr. Bulwer – see above, note to page 4.
Mrs. Norton – see above, note to page 74.
153 Caroline Fox – (1819–71) was a Cornish diarist. She was the daughter of Robert Were Fox of the influential Fox family of Falmouth.
155 Thomas Babington Macaulay – 1800-59, politician and historian
159 Sir George Thomas Smart – (1776–1867) – see Angela Thirkell’s note on page 195
Chapter 10
166 The Hummums of Covent Garden – once stood, in various structural avatars, at the southeast corner of the Little Piazza, in between Great Russell Street and Tavistock Row. In its long history it provided many services from Turkish baths to a Restaurant hotel.
176 Bill Sikes and Artful Dodger – from Dickens’s Oliver Twist
178 There was a balloon ascent from Hyde Park – which was a comparative failure, for it descended in Marylebone Lane, quite done up with its short journey, and another sent up from Vauxhall, which was more successful.
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