thelittledog | Dec. 5th, 2016

The Making of Victorian Sexuality.
You might have noticed I do a lot of reading in Victorian & earlier primary sources. And one thing I keep running into is this difference between our perceptions of that era and what was actually happening. Like, at least in Tasmania, family sizes for most of that period are actually quite small. Less than a handful of kids, and often, as with the Shearn family I was talking about on FB today, one child. Ah, you say, that's because of the high infant mortality. To which I say, that's a fair comment but I first actually realised this when I was checking burials. If family sizes were small due to so many babies dying, they must have been burying them in the background because they don't appear in the death registers or burials. After a while of this, you have to consider that, maybe family sizes were small because the birth rate was also low? And if so, how/why? Also, much of what we are told about Victorian times concerns the middle & upper classes, and if you've read things I've written, whether blog posts or fiction, you might have noticed that's not the part of society I tend to deal with. So, this book apparently takes a look at these preconceptions and what was actually going on. I hope it might answer some questions/confirm some observations. And who doesn't like having their observations confirmed?

The Social History of Tea.
This is a hardback with lots of coloured pictures, about tea. Also, I need a book about the history of tea drinking so I don't have to look up such things on Regency web sites. This rarely ends well. (High tea was not so called because it was taken at the "higher" (full-size table). Seriously. If you ever get told this, run away.)