A Trip To The Seaside

Mother and the girls have gone to Scarborough, one of the many seaside resorts of the day. As I have posted before, Britain's coast was not a Club Med location, but the Regency concept of beach activity was very different from ours. It was more about the supposed health-giving properties of brisk sea air and a firm saltwater dip than tanning on the beach and sipping tropical drinks. 

Ackermann's print series of Thomas Rowlandson's Poetical Sketches of Scarborough showed a place for the hardy traveler. Despite its rugged coastline and inclement weather, Anne Brontë, the youngest of the Brontë sisters, often visited Scarborough to escape the worse terrain and weather of her home in Haworth. It was in Scarborough that she died in 1849, during a visit which she hoped would benefit her health. It was decided that she should be buried in St. Mary's churchyard rather than have her body returned the 70 miles to her home.

JADG - Conceited Independence

On with the Drinking Game!  No Jane Austen novel is complete without the young woman who just goes off and does something rash, usually ending up with mud-splattered stockings, ruined shoes, or a serious chill that develops into pneumonia. What were you thinking, foolish girl?

An interesting series of Ackermann prints are the Poetical Sketches of Scarborough, etched by the well-known artist Thomas Rowlandson. Scarborough was one of the many popular seaside resorts of the late 18th-early 19th centuries, but Rowlandson's pictures show a place I would avoid completely. If  it's not dumping buckets of rain and blowing up a storm, the sky is gray and heavily overcast. Visitors arrive in the rain, struggle up the beach through strong headwinds, and line up in the drizzle to see tourist attractions. Some misguided girls plan a picnic on a wind-battered beach, only to find themselves caught in a furious thunderstorm. If that wasn't bad enough, Cousin Delphine, always the independent spirit, decides to take off in search of assistance. What good can come of that, Delphine?