Under The Jacaranda Tree

This painting by Queensland artist Godfrey Rivers is one of my favourites. It has been called 'quintessentially Brisbane' but it's also 'quintessentially Edwardian'. The serene drinking of tea under the shade of the huge jacaranda, the long white dress and the parasol, and the maid serving the tea are all typical of an Edwardian summer.

Rivers captured the Queensland light and the bluish-purple shade of the flowers perfectly.

The Sensational Scotts: Captain Robert Scott and Kathleen Scott

Scott of the Antarctic by David Crane



This is a grim and very sad story of great courage and sacrifice told movingly and sympathetically by David Crane. Recent historians have given Scott's reputation a beating and Crane restores it very well in this excellent book. He argues that all of the qualities that made Scott so beloved by Edwardians - honour, loyalty, patriotism, sacrifice - are the very characteristics which have made him reviled today.

After reading this book I wonder that anyone dared to criticise Captain Scott. As Sir Ranulf Fiennes wrote: "No previous Scott biographer has manhauled a heavy sledgeload through the great crevasse fields of the Beardmore Glacier, explored icefields never seen by a man or walked a thousand miles on poisoned feet. To write about hell, it helps if you have been there."

Scott coped with enormous difficulties - the deaths of some of his men, the loss of dogs and ponies, crevasses, manhauling heavy loads, terrible winds. The list goes on and on. In the end it was really only the unusually cold weather that defeated his team, according to Crane.

Scott's leadership has been criticised and he did have flaws. He could easily get irritable and he didn't like any lowering of standards, but his men (except for Shackleton) said that they'd follow him to the ends of the earth. As indeed they did.

The sentence that summed up the character of this complicated naval officer, who was unhappily beaten to the South Pole by Amundsen, for me was: "In his journal Bowers noted that Scott gave himself a longer trace on his harness when they were pulling through the worst of the crevassed areas, so that if anyone went down it would be him."

Scott's Last Words

I defy anyone to read these without being moved to tears.

"Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for."

A Great Task of HappinessA Great Task of Happiness: Kathleen Scott by Louisa Young


I can't find this and I hate losing things, especially books, so it's really upsetting me! I'll write a little bit about it from memory, but I like to have the book beside me when I review it. I'll write more when I find it.

This was the sort of book that I really like. Kathleen really had a more interesting life than her admirable husband! She lived life at a breakneck speed and Young, her grand-daughter writes in a breathless style which suits it.

A Bohemian young sculptor who 'gallivanted around Europe' and loved to sleep outside, Kathleen didn't meet Scott until she was 28 and he was over 40. Before this she studied art in Paris where she met Rodin and attracted flocks of men (as she seemed to all of her life), went to Macedonia to help war-victims and backpacked in Greece and Italy. She also met the famous dancer, Isadora Duncan, and stayed with her when she had her baby. Isadora was in love with a 'cad' and was still single. This was rather shocking in those days but Kathleen didn't care.

She became famous herself after she married Scott, gaining commissions from people such as Lloyd George and George Bernard Shaw. She associated with the aristocracy and artists.

Kathleen became rather an intimidating figure as she got older, apparently, although liked by many. Her daughter-in-law, the novelist, Elizabeth Jane Howard, married Kathleen's son, Peter, and found Kathleen difficut to cope with. Only 17 when they married, she felt that she couldn't live up to the success of this eminent family.

Kathleen's reputation has been blackened like her husband's. She's been accused of having an affair with the explorer, Nanssen, while Scott was suffering in the wilds of Antarctica; deserting Duncan when she took to drink; and various other things. Young restores her name in this book, correcting these misconceptions. This is very much worth reading if you are interested in the Edwardian age, the English aristocracy, or just a good biography.

How I Became Interested In Reading About Kathleen





I first went to beautiful Christchurch, NZ, four years ago and saw Kathleen Scott's sculpture of Captain Scott near the cathedral. When I came back I looked her up on the internet and found out more about her. I meant to read this book then but I didn't do it until I came back from NZ last year! She deserves to be famous once again so I hope that this blog will make more people aware of her.

NB: I also published this on my Book Addiction blog

Anna Pavlova in Australia

This lovely link from Poeartica is about the great ballerina's arrival in Australia in the twenties, but she comes into the category of famous Edwardian people so I am including it here: All Hail The Dancing Queen

Movie of Edwardian London

London 1904 On Film was made to show Australians what life in London was like in 1904! I haven't seen it yet because watching these movies takes up so much bandwidth but I'm looking forward to it!

Course Hero: A Great Idea For Students

Course Hero is a social networking site which provides a way for college students and tutors to interact. It is a relatively new idea that gives students access to many different textbooks and enables them to form study groups.

There are over 200,000 textbook solutions at Course Hero. These range from books on calculus to texts on management. Two examples are Virginia Tech Textbook Answer and Accounting Textbook Answers. There are also final lecture guides, examples of answers to exam questions, and notes on homework.

Course Hero also provides a way for students to form study groups. They can ask each other questions, help each other with resources, and provide fellow students with support while studying for exams and assignments.

Students can find fellow students, professors and obtain resources easily at Course Hero Signing up is free and easily done through Coursehero’s Facebook page. Basic membership is free. This clever idea will definitely help college students to get ‘A’ grades!

Poor Marie Antoinette: Grace Wilson Vanderbilt

Grace Wilson Vanderbilt once said that: "I feel deeply for poor dear Marie Antoinette, for if The Revolution came to America, I should be the first to go." She might have felt sorry for the doomed French queen, but this inveterate social climber lived exactly the way that she wanted.

Grace was the daughter of Richard T. Wilson, a nouveau riche self-made man who made his fortune by speculating during the Civil War. Rhett Butler, in Gone With The Wind, may have been based on him.

He wasn't highly regarded by those with 'old money' in New York, so scandal broke out when in 1896 Grace became engaged to Cornelius Vanderbilt, the great-grandson of the Commodore.
She'd been secretly engaged to his brother, William Henry, but he died of typhoid fever. Cornelius fell in love with beautiful Grace at first sight, when he was 22.

His parents were strongly opposed to the match because they disapproved of Grace's background, her being two years older, and her broken engagement to Jack Astor. They disinherited him and his father suffered a stroke and died shortly after the marriage.

Grace's parties were famous. She even brought the entire cast of a musical, 'Red Rose Inn', from New York, to a specially built theatre on the grounds of Beaulieu, her villa at Newport. She entertained royalty and she became the leader of New York society. Dressed in Worth and Paquin, she had 33 servants.

At one stage she signed cheques worth $80,000.00 and asked her secretary: "Do I really have this much money?"

The Brigadier-General, who had become a soldier, engineer and businessman, died in 1942. Grace and Cornelius had two children, also Grace and Cornelius.

Eventually Grace moved from her lavish Fifth Avenue mansion to a smaller - 28 room - house along the road, nicknamed 'The Gardener's Cottage'. Here she lived until her eighties when she died of pneumonia. According to an article in Time magazine: "She would say to whoever was near by: "Come, let's go for a drive, darling." Then her companion, sitting down by Mrs.Vanderbilt's bed, would take her on an imaginary tour of Newport. "There's a sparkle on the water today," she would say. "There's Mr.So and So bowing to you..."

There is a picture of Grace here: Picture of Grace

Edwardian Movies and Television Shows

Here is a list of Edwardian movies and television shows:

Moulin Rouge: A wonderfully acted and sensitive production about the great Toulouse-Lautrec.

Mary Poppins: A charming, but rather too long musical. Dick Van Dyke's Cockney accent is extremely strange!

A Room With A View: This beautiful love story set in gorgeous Italy was one of Merchant-Ivory's best. Why did we need a remake? (Especially one that wasn't much good!)

Titanic This movie is set slightly out of the Edwardian era,(1912), however the fashions and decor are very Edwardian so I'm including it. I enjoyed this although it wasn't regarded as a very good movie and I felt that Kate Winslet looked much older than Leonardo Di Caprio. (He's caught up now!) The anti-English slant of the film, historical errors, and silly ending got on my nerves. I know someone who won't even see it partly because it's anti-English!

Americans may get very upset by this statement and I'm not sure whether it's true. However, I read the other day that more American men survived because the English men were more gentlemanly and were more inclined to let women and children onto the lifeboats first!

The Wings of the Dove This very modern movie based on Henry James's difficult novel tells the story of a journalist who has to choose between two women - one is ambitious and grasping and the other is almost perfect, but very ill. It includes spectacular scenery of Venice. This haunting movie is well-worth seeing.

The Age of Innocence: Everything is perfect in this film - acting, direction, setting and costumes. Based on Edith Wharton's classic novel, it depicts the hypocrisy of Old New York and how convention ruins a great love. I found a moving post about this movie here: Age of Innocence at 32 and 47

Television Shows

Lillie is a well-acted television series with the beautiful Francesca Annis putting her heart into playing the famous 'Jersey Lily'.  It provides a good summary of Lillie's life although some of it isn't historically accurate.
To Be Continued.