HEARING LOST VOICES OF THE EDWARDIANS ...

When writing historical novels I try to read books or news articles that were actually published at the time - to get a feel for the structure of language; and also the usage of the slang. 

But something I found so interesting when creating The Last Days of Leda Grey was a book called Lost Voices of the Edwardians compiled by Max Arthur ~ which is simply made up of reflections from those who had actually lived at the time. 

Assembled from public and private archives - from people involved in various trades, from those who resided in country or town, whether children or adults, rich or poor - this is an extraordinary read which brings the era to vivid life.

From the Childhood chapters ...

From school I put in for a thrift form. I was given a corduroy suit and a pair of boots, and I cam home so proud of that suit. But when my father came home in the evening and saw it, he asked 'Where d'you get that from?" 'From school,' I said. "I signed the thrift form.' 'You can take it back.' Charity he wouldn't have. We had literally nothing to eat, but charity he wouldn't have.

From the Work chapters ...

I left school when I turned fourteen. I left at teatime, had a drink of tea with my dad, walked up to Seaham Colliery, signed on and started work the next morning. I was down the pit at ten minutes to five on the day after I finished school.

An unwelcome task the police had in those days was administering the birch to young offenders. My father who was a policeman, used to say how difficult it was to punish a bloke that he'd never seen before.

From Daily Life ...

You could get half a sheep's head in those days. There as a stall in Brick Lane. My mother used to buy them. They used to be very nice cold. Every poor person used to buy them, and tripe and all that kind of thing.

On Sunday you used to get the muffin man round. Muffins and crumpets. He had a huge tray on his head and it was always covered with green baize. He'd ring a bell, about four o'clock in the afternoon. If you wanted crumpets you'd just go out and buy them. And there was a winkle man who used to come round, and a man who came round with fish. He had a barrow with a couple of boxes of fish on it. He put out plaice, perhaps a dozen small dabs, a half dozen small haddocks - threepence the lot!

Long skirts  - oh, they were long ... when you went to go over a stile you had to hike them straight up. Once I had a lad and we were coming from Crookhall into Iveston and we had to get over this stile and it was a hobble and he just got a hold of my leg to pull it up. I waited till I got home and when I got to the door, and he was saying goodnight and I just spit in his face and said, 'Don't you come back any more.'

On Saturday afternoons we'd go to the Palace Cinema - a penny to go in and it was all silent movies with someone playing the piano - oh yes, they were good. They'd be playing while us kids were creating hell. Then we'd buy a bag of sweets when we came out.

From Politics and Suffragettes ...

There used to be political meetings in Shoreditch near St John's Road. I went to listen to Horatio Bottomley. He used to give a hundred weight of coal to the poor people of the area. My family got coal from him and they used to vote for him for that reason. I saw him. He was a big fat man, always well dressed. He was a very nice chap.

My first imprisonment was in Preston in 1909. I went on hunger strike but unfortunately, my fine was paid by my mother at the end of the week.

I remember the suffragettes. They used to have open air meetings in the side streets. I went in the evenings to listen. There'd be young girls standing up on a box or a table and they always had an answer to make the men look like fools. One evening, a m an shouted out, 'Don't you wish you were a man?' and the girl shouted back, 'Don't you wish you were?'

THREE HUNDRED AND ONE THINGS A BRIGHT GIRL CAN DO...

When researching The Last Days of Leda Grey, I took enormous pleasure in reading a book that was published during the Edwardian era: Three Hundred And One Things A Bright Girl Can Do.

I have to say that I would have loved to own such a book when I was a girl. It’s quaint, and in some ways it lingers in the realms of the nineteenth century. And then, there is the fact that only wealthy young ladies would have had the time or the means by which to truly apply themselves to its activities. But, it’s also exciting in its intention of offering independent thought, not to say to advise on certain tasks that are brave and somewhat reckless, even in our more liberated days. 

As the book itself explains ~ 

There is no need to become “mannish”, for girls have a world of their own, and qualities of their own, and a happy, healthy schoolgirl has surely no need to wish to be anything else, or to seek to imitate anyone else. All she need do is be herself.

Of course it was published at a time when women were gaining voices in their fight for the right to vote, and to live on equal terms with men. This new politics brought new freedoms, and the chapters on sports and outdoor pursuits feel very modern and confident ~ as shown by these lines from the Preface: ~

A girl may be able to swim, and yet she may not be a sufficiently strong swimmer, nor a sufficiently daring swimmer, to go out of her depth. Shall she, therefore, abstain from swimming? Certainly not. She still has the exercise of swimming, the fresh air, the sunshine, the exhilaration, the tonic effect of salt or fresh water, and, indeed, it may be that she receives all the advantages that are enjoyed by the strong swimmer who pushes far out to sea.

Push on, young women. Push on! Swim and splash, or play hockey, or badminton. And even if such outdoor pursuits are not what takes your fancy, there are pages on knitting, and sewing, or sketching ~ and samples of music for you to play upon the house piano. There are lectures on architectural styles, on lace making, and pet keeping. There are recipes for drinks and meals. And for those with more daring imaginations, there are a host of ‘magic’ tricks to create mystification among your friends. There are even some tutorials that explain how to make garden hammocks, to read futures in palms, or tell fortunes. Not forgetting the fabulous parlour games with names like Wizard’s Writing. And then there are the plays to produce ~ with much reference to Louisa May Allcott and the lengths that her Little Women went to when producing their fictional shows at home. 

A play, here called Norna, or The Witch’s Curse, is offered for our Bright Girls to act in - with pages and pages of scripted text, followed up by instructions for make-up and costume, or the way to create a drop curtain, such as those you would find on a real stage. Even the lighting is discussed with details of all the chemicals to purchase for different coloured flames, which must have been quite a fire risk ~ and which brings me on to the main event that I used in the pages of my book. The spectacle known as Cremated Alive.

This pyrotechnic extravaganza is described through the lips of Leda Grey, when my teenaged heroine and Theo, her brother, put on a show one afternoon; neither one of them realising then that the act will have significance in events that occur in their future lives ... 

On the evening before our ‘Cremated Alive! A Dramatic and Fiery Spectacular’, I spent hours on my costume. It was one of the vestal virgin robes from the fancy dress racks in the shop, to which I’d added pins and chains found in our mother’s jewellery box.

During these preparations my brother was in the drawing room, arranging the window’s large box bay into a sort of a private stage, just as the book suggested. With the window’s shutters being closed so as not to be seen from the street outside, he’d erected a wooden table that was customised with mirrors, along with the sack in which I’d hide when I ducked behind the furniture, with a bell that I would jangle, and the most convincing charred black skull that he’d made from papier mâché . . . just waiting there to be revealed when I vanished in a puff of smoke.

When we came to perform the thing itself, Rex ~ with the ringing of the bell and the sudden flaring of the flames ~ could only be subdued again when we put him in the garden, along with any scraps of meat left over from our leg of lamb. He’d barked, and Mrs C (who’d also stayed with us for lunch that day) had screamed, becoming very red, with a creaking of her corset bones when leaping from her seat to grab a vase of flowers on a stand, and about to fling its contents out to douse the conflagration, before Ivor had the common sense to make her sit back down again.

But how delighted I had been to think she’d really been convinced, even if that wild reaction might have been enhanced by Ivor’s wine, whereas Theo and I had been reserved, only sipping a little over lunch to be sure of our wits while we performed. But to hear our audience applaud! And then, when Ivor said that if we did a turn at the theatre Royal we’d be sure of a standing ovation ~ well, I’m sure his tongue was in his cheek, but still, I felt so happy. I felt not the least cremated. I felt as if I’d walked through fire and found a new me on the other side. I felt a humming in my blood, as exultant as I’d ever been when I’d dared to dream of a future life as an actress in the moving films.

© Essie Fox. The Last Days of Leda Grey. Published by Orion, November 3 2016.

A NIGHT OUT AT THE CINEMA, A CENTURY AGO ...

The British Film Industry Archives has digitised many old silent films, a great number of which can be viewed for free on the BFI iplayer site. They also sell films on DVD, and some are released for theatre screens ~ such as A Night at the Cinema, which I was lucky enough to see when first starting to write a novel that is set in the world of Edwardian films. 

Such nights would often be made up of compilations of footage from several stand-alone short films, with a selection of different genres. Comedies, dramas, and travelogues, and also newsreels of war zones.

Stills from A Night at the Cinema

I viewed the films in Richmond upon Thames, at a small independent cinema. But, had I been around to go along when they were first released I might have seen them anywhere ~ in a brand new film theatre, or at the end of a seaside pier. There might be a screen set up in a shop, or in a church's social hall. And although the films were silent, the venue certainly wouldn't be, with music being a vital part of the moving picture industry. A solo piano or organ, or an entire orchestra might create the films' accompaniments ~ with different styles of melody to enhance the action or the mood. 

I recreated such an evening in my novel, The Last Days of Leda Grey. The following is an extract; a scene when the young Leda Grey, who has great aspirations to act on screen, goes along to the local seaside pier to see a showing of some films made in the local area. Those films are known as 'actuals', which means they don't have any actors as such, but exhibit natural settings with everyday people walking about ~ anyone who happened to be around when the director shot his film. It's in one of these moving picture shows that Leda has a starring role, and because of that she can hardly contain her joy when she goes to see the film.

"Oh, what a thrilling visit! Sitting in the darkness, while the glow from the projector’s lamp shone through the theatre on the pier. And Rex was there, on Theo’s lap, because whatever Papa said the dog was all grown up by then, and sometimes even well behaved, especially when bribed with sweets. Theo and I were giggling at the way he dribbled, slathered, chewed, and how his tongue kept slurping out while sucking toffees from his teeth. But such high spirits were soon lost when Theo touched my arm and warned, ‘Leda, you won’t be too upset if they don’t show our film tonight? I see the stage’s menu card says nothing of the promenade.’

          I felt such panic rise inside when I also read that menu card, where every feature mentioned was to be an actual of the town, with titles like A Cliff Top Walk, or A Visit to the Aquarium. But Theo was right. There was no sign of any Brightland Promenade.

           Taking my brother’s hand in mine, I squeezed it hard, and harder still as every moving film was played, and even though each one was short, two or three minutes at the most, for me they seemed to last an age. The lantern’s rattle was too loud. The piano’s notes were jangling. The sneezes, and the hacking coughs. The peanut shells that two old ladies crunched and cracked in seats behind. All that noise! My fraying nerves. I couldn’t begin to enjoy the show ~ until the last film flickered up. The slightest judder of the frame, and then four curling corner scrolls around the fancy title script: A VIEW OF BRIGHTLAND PROMENADE!

          Too soon we saw the words, THE END, and while my brother clapped and whooped I couldn’t move a single inch. I was feeling quite delirious, shivering with excitement, thinking my heart might burst with pride when Papa smiled and gave a sigh, and then his murmur in my ear. ‘Well, I may be biased ... but the very best was saved till last. My daughter was magnificent!’

            ‘Oh, Papa? Was I really?’ It had all been over in a flash. I only wished the frames could roll right back and then run through again, for people in the seats around to look at me and realise that I had been the girl in white whose face filled up the final frames.

        But would they know me anyway? They’d see a girl who’d spent all afternoon in brushing out her hair, a hundred times to make it shine, and nothing like the frizzy mess when she’d been on the promenade. They wouldn’t see the waif and stray dressed in her shabby muslin dress for, very much to my dismay, Mrs C had gone and laundered it. It was dripping on the garden line, and I’d been forced to wear my green. The one she liked to see me in, always saying it suited my colouring. But what an irony it was that, whereas my white was much too large, the green had shrunk when in the wash. The hems too short, the bodice tight … so tight that I could barely breathe when the final curtain fell again, when we sat there waiting patiently for the director to appear, to bow and give a little speech, as was the usual way of things. But no. There was no sign at all of the man who, just the day before, had stood behind his camera in the back of the open horse-drawn cab.

          The theatre’s lights blazed up to leave me standing in a giddy daze while we shuffled through the narrow aisle that led towards the exit doors ... though before we left the foyer to walk back down the pier again, Papa approached the manager (that gentleman well known to him through shared professional ventures, with my father photographing acts for the hall’s publicity and such), and said, after some other chat, ‘If you happen to see Monsieur Beauvois ... the chap who made these actuals ... won’t you tell him I would be so pleased if he’d visit my studio in the Lanes … or if he’d like to come along and dine in Brunswick Crescent. I would also be obliged if you could ask if there might be a chance for me to purchase a copy of the final film. The one called Brightland Promenade.’"


Extract from an unapproved proof copy of The Last Days of Leda Grey.
Copyright Essie Fox.

THE EDWARDIAN SEASIDE ~ SHREWSBURY MUSEUM

'Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside' is the name of a new exhibition currently taking place at Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery.

The museum is particularly interested in tracking down the names of the people who were captured in these photographs, and also the photographers.

Here, I have linked to a few of the pictures, with more available to see at the Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery Flickr site. And, if you can help in any way with identification of those involved, please email: shrewsburymuseum@shropshire.gov.uk

LIFE IN EDWARDIAN ENGLAND ...

While researching my latest novel, The Last Days of Leda Grey, I read and very much enjoyed Robert Cecil's Life in Edwardian England.

Cecil writes of Queen Victoria's reign as being a time of stability. Even if the 'widow' was often dour, she ruled over an era of great transformation with new inventions and discoveries. A time of great social movement too, with the building of the railroads and the rise in industrialisation. And when she finally came to die Great Britain was in a state of shock, with Henry James and Marie Correlli both quoted as saying the very same words: 'We all feel motherless today.'

King Edward's reign did not start well. On the original Coronation day, 26 June 1902, the king was not in the best of health, later being diagnosed as suffering from appendicitis. The event was postponed until August, by which time everyone in the country was in the mood to celebrate, with the wealthy hosting dinners, and with commoners in the streets and pubs singing songs like 'Dolly Gray', or 'The Honeysuckle and the Bee.'

Edward VII in coronation robes 

Edward's reign was anything but dour. Generous and politically tolerant (if privately known to be prone to foul language and frequent explosions of a bad temper), the king performed well as a diplomat who represented his country abroad. He was not much interested in the worlds of literature or art, but he loved many other pleasures in life. There was hunting and horse racing. There were weekends at country house parties, where his many lovers could be met - with scandals then reported on in the Monday morning newspapers. 

For some this was all too shocking, but the common people loved their king - perhaps because he sometimes strove to live his life as 'one of them'. In the final February of his life he was recognised on Worthing Pier - having dozed off while sitting there, wrapped in a fur coat to keep out the chill. Perhaps it was due to such outdoor pursuits that the king then contracted Bronchitis and died at the age of sixty-eight.

When we look back on Edward's reign it conjures a glamorous picture in which the 'white collar' middle class (who often considered themselves to be above the artisans and craftsmen) lived in airy new-built houses in leafy garden suburbs; where the streets and pavements were well exposed by electric, rather than gas lit lamps. If peeping through windows with lace and plush curtains, their dining tables would be laid with the dishes that wives and servants concocted - with the preparation of recipes sometimes even taking days. There were the fancy restaurants where gourmand dishes were prepared, like The Trocadero, or The Ritz. And then, there was Romano's, where a gentleman might not take his wife...

At Romano's ... Italiano's
It's a Paradise in the Strand
At Romano's - as Papa knows -
Where the wines and the women are grand!

For the poorer folk there was beer, not wine. There were also packs of cigarettes - with women often becoming addicted, though few of them smoked in public. But still, so many people lived in dreary states of penury, with very few luxuries at all. 

                                         Edwardian harvest, from the Heritage Explorer site.

At least, in the countryside, there would be certain times of the year when food was in abundance, with vegetables being freshly grown, and animals reared on nearby farms. But city life was very hard, not to mention the long and arduous hours that many spent in factories. And then there were the mines. The production of coal might well have been the source of vital energy, and the backbone of the economy, but the miners' wages were in decline between 1900 and 1911. 

All across the industrial board wages were stagnating while the cost of living continued to rise. Those who owned their own houses were forced to take in lodgers; who could not afford more than a room, and often had to share that too. It was not at all unusual for every member of a family who happened to be old enough to hold down a job of one type or another; therefore providing a financial buffer against the others falling ill.

There was no social security. Not until 1906 was it a legal necessity for the Workmen's Compensation Act to result in injured employees being supported by their firms. It is also no coincidence that in 1906 there were 692 pawnshops within a radius of ten miles around the London Royal Exchange. 

In 1902, Jack London described the East End as being -

'...the sight of abject poverty, while five minutes walk from almost any point will bring one to a slum; but the region my hansom was now penetrating was one unending slum. The streets were filled with a new and different race of people, short of stature, and of wretched or beer-sodden appearance. We rolled along through miles of ... squalor, and from each cross street and alley flashed long vistas of brick and misery.'

Jack London spoke of viewing the city from the back of a hansom cab, but the Edwardian era also saw the combustion engine, with horse-drawn vehicles travelling alongside brand new motor cars. It wasn't just cars - the earliest of which still had the look of cabs, with chauffeurs sitting high on top. The invention of the pneumatic tire meant that bicycles and tricycles were also very widely used - and by women as well as the gentlemen. This in turn led to changes in fashion, and the introduction of knickbockers: the frilly knee length pairs of drawers that were worn underneath long frocks and skirts.

The use of cars also went on to influence fashions of the times. The large hats that women often wore were replaced by motor bonnets, to protect their hair from gusts of wind. The first vehicles were not enclosed. Often there was no windscreen. So veils or goggles protected the eyes from any grit that was thrown up. Long dust coats in the summer, and leather capes in winter months.

Another form of transport - though more definitely of the leisure type - were the popular hot air balloons, not to mention the airships that then had the additions of propellers and engines. It wasn't very long before aeroplanes were in the skies - with the Wright brothers creating a machine that then 'took off' in every way. In 1909, Louis Bleriot flew a monoplane to make the first Channel crossing - after which the military began to take an interest, with substantial investment funds then being secured in a parliament debate.

And planes would be used in warfare, not that long after Edward's death, when the long 'Edwardian summer' would come to a sudden tragic end and descend into the chaos that we now recall as the First World War.

THE DAWN OF COLOUR ~ WITH ETHELDREDA LAING

Etheldreda Laing 1872-1960

Etheldreda Laing (née Winkfield) thought to have been the subject of the autochrome self-portrait above, was an accomplished artist who, following her marriage to the barrister Charles Laing in 1895, was also provided with the means to indulge in her love of photography.

In their marital home near Oxford – the imposing Bury Knowle House – Etheldreda had her own darkroom and, by 1908, was sufficiently versed in the art form to experiment with autochrome – an early version of colourised film first developed by the Lumiere brothers.

It was not an easy process to master, never mind considering the expense of the photographic plates, when four of them might well cost as much as a man’s weekly wage at the time. The photographer also needed to master using delicate filters which were dyed in red, green and violet-blue, and through which the light would then be shone, via the eye of the camera and onto the treated plate.

Much like Julia Margaret Cameron before – with it not being deemed appropriate for a decently married woman to travel around taking pictures of strangers - Etheldreda was to concentrate on her own home, gardens, and family as the subjects for her work. The results show beautiful photographs in which her daughters, Janet and Iris, were very often to be the stars; and they must have been very patient too, because autochrome exposures took twenty times longer to create than the usual black and white photographs. 

Autochromes soon fell out of favour, but Etheldreda’s are still on show at the National Media Museum in Bradford in a collection which is entitled, The Dawn of Colour.

BLIMEY O'RILEY: A JUGGINS' EDWARDIAN SLANG

While writing my latest novel I've been researching some Edwardian slang terms - to try and get a sense of the language used in everyday situations. Here are some of my favourites ...

Ague - Fever
A gay dog – A devil with the girls.
Balmy - Insane
Balmy on the Crumpet - Another term for being insane
Blimey O’Riley – A term of surprise

Don’t get in a wax! – Don’t get upset!

Blotto Blottesque - Drunk

Blue devils - To feel sad or depressed

Brew - Tea

Brick - Good sort, or good sport

Brolly - Umberella
Broomsquire - broom maker

Buck - Handsome man, or dandy

Buffer - Old man

Bunk - Go away

Bun strangler - Non drinker
Char - Tea
Cheeking - Taunting
Cheese it - Stop and look out

Chit - Frail woman

Clobber - Clothes
College - Prison. "I've been to college."

Crack up - Talk up

Crikey – A term of surprise

Croaker - Dying person

Come a cropper – Fall down, physically or in social terms
Cushy - Easy

Daisy roots - Boots

Dead-and-alive - Quite place dull, sleepy
Decko - Take a look

Deevie - Divine
Doggo - To hide
Doomsayer - Complainer
Doss - Bed or sleep, see also a doss house
Down - To be critical
Expie - Expensive

Fast - Extravagant or wild

Fittums - A perfect fit

Fizz - Champagne

Flash - Showy and vulgar

Footle - Nonsense

Fuddled - drunk
Frou-frou - Swishy gown

Gas - Nonsense talk, or boasting
Gloaming - Twilight, or dusk

Graft - Work

Goolie - Testicle

Got the chuck - Fired

Got the hump - Annoyed
Grippe - Influenza

Hook it - Escape

Hop the way - Play truant from school

Juggins - Simpleton

Jumping Jesus - A fanatic

Keep your hair on – Don’t lose your temper

Kip - Sleep

Linctus – Medicine, syrup
Loot - Plunder

Moithered - Worried
Mumchance - dumstruck
Munge - To chew or chop
Nasty Jar - Unpleasant situation

Nebuchadnezzar phase - Drunken episode
Nuclear Spot - Central location
Off his chump - Mad

Off his onion - Mad

On the doss – Being a tramp, or vagabond
On the Peg - Under arrest
Padding the hoof - Walking
Peg - Soup kitchen
Pipe off - Lose interest, especially in a loved one

Pother - Bother, worry
Pukka - Genuine, the real thing
Punk - Inferior
Pusher - Girlfriend
Rag - Rowdy event
Ragger - Noisy or boisterous person
Razzle-Dazzle - Out on a spree, or womanising
Repining - Yearning

Reach me down - clothing, hand me down

Roly-poly - Jam pudding
Satinette - Gin

Scorching - Speeding in a car
Screwed - Drunk

Semi classical - Semi nude
Shandy-gaff - Ale and ginger beer
Shambles - Slaughter house or butchers
Shandy Gaff - Ale and ginger beer
Slavey - Maid of all work
Slinging my hook - Running away
Skof - Food
Sluice - Wash or bathe
Snuggery - Cosy room
Spasammy - Off hand, or cavalier
Stashing it up - Causing a commotion

Taken the knock - To be jilted
Tosh - Rubbish, as in nonsense
Two bad ...Three bad! - Simply a pun on Too bad
What Priced Head Have You? - How bad is your hangover?
White Satin - Gin
Wizard - Excellent
Wrangler - debater

PANORAMIC VIEW OF MORECAMBE SEA FRONT 1901

As the art of film-making entered the Edwardian era what was viewed on screen soon became far more sophisticated than we might imagine it to have been.

Morecambe Sea Front is an 'actual' - a popular sort of early everyday documentary that would have been made in a busy location, where the locals or visitors about would then be caught on moving film. 

During the filming they would have been made aware (perhaps by people shouting the news, or by a poster being carried at the front and behind the camera man) that the film would be shown at a future date - often the same night or the following day - when they could then pay to go along to a theatre or other suitable venue and see themselves appear on screen. In this case the film was shown at the Morecambe Winter Gardens.

These actuals were often then distributed to be shown in other parts of the country, or even abroad, to give an idea of life elsewhere. And now, some wonderful examples have been restored and digitised by the British Film Institute so that we can do our own version of time travelling - seeing the people and places of the past so vividly restored to life.

While researching my latest novel which is set in the Edwardian era I have found these films to be an invaluable historical resource. In the case of Morecambe Sea Front, I could watch this film over and over again, seeing the faces caught on film as vividly as if they were here today. The nonchalant cabmen staring back. The dapper gentleman swinging his umbrella around while he walks. The women - some more Victorian in look, still in the black of mourning for the Queen who had recently died - others in their crisp white shirts and straight black skirts who are facing the future, not the past. The children excitedly running along to keep up with the camera (placed on the top of a horse drawn tram), who are twirling their caps and handkerchiefs. 

And yet, how sad it is to think that so many of these cheering boys would all too soon be growing up to enter the hell of The First World War. That is a knowledge they didn't have - but we do. And it gets me every time.

THE MERMAID BY GEORGES MÉLIÈS ~ CREATED 1904

Those of you who know me as a novelist will understand my obsession with mermaids. And, in a way ~ just a little way ~ that obsession will be continuing in the story that I'm writing now, which is based around some characters involved in the world of Edwardian film.

As part of my research for this book I've been watching many old silent films, and I find myself continually amazed at some of the special effects achieved. The narratives aren't quite as dramatic or tightly formed as we're used to in the present day. More often than not these films can be an almost confusing mixture of story and theatrical illusion - as if watching a magician on stage. But, actually that's very apt, because many early directors of film (such as the French Georges Méliès) were, or had been, magicians too - and sometimes also photographers, therefore combining their expertise in the art of film and 'trickery' to create the most stunning visions on screen that could never be realised on stage ~ as you'll see in the film of The Mermaid below...

The Eclectic Edwardian will be writing more on Georges Méliès soon...

LINA CAVALIERI ~ THE OPERA'S GREATEST BEAUTY

Lena Cavalieri is a name that many may not know, and yet in her time she was renowned as an opera singer of such exquisite looks that some even called her “Venus on earth”, or the most beautiful woman in the world

The original design created by Fornasetti, based on the exquisite face of Lina Cavalieri

From an early career as a café singer, to the Metropolitan Opera house, and from there to the role of a movie star, Lina’s beauty has now endured in the artwork of the Italian designer, Fornasetti, who discovered her photograph one day when looking through an old magazine. He then became so inspired that he used that single image as the base for a series of designs called 360 Variations, Tema e Variazioni.

A selection of Fornasetti plates

But what of the woman behind the face, which now adorns sets of porcelain plates, not to mention many other forms of merchandise which can be found in the lovely design of the Fornasetti website?

Natalina Cavalieri was born in Rome on Christmas day in 1874 ~ so, a Victorian by birth, and a woman whose figure reflected that fact in her tightly corseted hour-glass form. But she was also a woman whose fame was later to be found in the freer Edwardian era.

She had various jobs from the age of 15, when both of her parents died and Lina became a ward of the state, cared for by Catholic nuns. But she hated the rigid convent life and as soon as she could she ran away, working as a flower girl, or in a factory packing newspapers, ending up in a French cafe singing to the customers. 

From then on, her rise was meteoric, appearing in the music halls, even at Paris’ Folies Bergere. And though her voice was said to be somewhat weak and lacking in range, it was pretty enough. And, as to her face! She entranced everyone in the audience.

When appearing in St Petersburg she met and then married the Russian prince, Alexandre Bariatinsky, with whom she was to have a son. She then spent some years having her voice professionally trained, with ambitions to stand on the opera stage rather than the commoner music halls ~ even though she had no real skill when it came to the higher musical arts.

She made her debut in Naples, appearing with no less than the famous Caruso, but the event was not a success, and at this low point in her career matters were made even worse when her husband abandoned their marriage. Lina could have fallen apart, but she continued to work hard and when appearing in La Boheme, playing the part of Mimi, she received much better notices. So long as she played strong Diva roles when she could dress up in jewels and fine clothes to accentuate her beauty, she held the audience in the palm of her hand. Jules Masssenet, the composer, who cast her in his operas, once told the singer the blatant truth: “Your beauty gives you the right to make mistakes sometimes.”

Lena Cavalieri by the Italian artist, Giovanni Boldoni

Another chance was offered for Lina to appear with Caruso ~ this time in 1906, and at New York’s Metropolitan Opera where she was paid $1,000 a night. An astonishing sum of money then, and far more than their regular diva earned.

By the year of 1910, when the Edwardian era came to its end, Lina married for a second time to the muralist, Winthrop Chanler, though that romance also came to end when they were still on their honeymoon. Chanler had signed a pre-nuptial contract to hand over his fortune to his wife, and he came from a very wealthy family – the Astors and Dudley-Winthrops.

A court case was to follow, after which Chanler was disinherited and Lina received a settlement of $80,000, with which she then went on to turn her back on her private and social disgrace and opened a small perfumery shop on Fifth Avenue in New York. There she claimed to sell cosmetics made with her own fair hands and based on secret recipes from Catherine de Medici. Eventually, she had secured an entire chain of salons. She advertised Palmolive soap, and she also wrote for newspapers, with tips on health and beauty. In fact, a book she wrote at the time entitled My Secrets of Beauty is still available today. An interesting record of ingredients and tips for historians or novelists.

A third marriage to Lucien Muratore, a French tenor, another opera singer, ended in 1927. But before this, the couple diverged into the world of silent film. IMDB has several of these creations listed on its site today, some of them Italian and some made in America. And if Lina's acting ability was occasionally in doubt ~ what was not was the fact that her beauty and clothes transformed her into a fashion icon.

But Lina hated making films; all the hot lights and the whirring projectors. She retired to a villa in Florence where she wrote her autobiography (My Truth, Le Mie Verita) while living with her fourth husband, a wine dealer called Giovanni Campari. What she did not write ~ what she could not have known ~ was the way in which she met her death, having been sensationally killed in a WW2 bombing raid. If only Lina and her husband and gone straight to the shelter, rather than running back into their house to try and save her precious jewels.

After her death, her life was recreated for the stage and also film, with Garbo in 1930, playing the part of “Madame Rita Cavallini in “Romance”. And then in 1955, Gina Lollobrigida played the great beauty in La donna piu bella del mondo.

If you would like to know more about the life of this glorious star, Lina Cavalieri: The Life of Opera’s Greatest Beauty  by Paul Fryer and Olga Usova was published in 2004.