In Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen’s classic tale of the tangled relationships between lovers from different social classes in 19th century England was updated by the addition of an army of zombies. As if this (and sea monsters) weren’t enough, now they’re making a film version of the tale, with Natalie Portman both producing and starring as Elizabeth Bennett. The film, currently in production, is slated for release in 2011.
Sugar: A Bittersweet History (April $29.95) by Elizabeth Abbot. This social history includes sugar’s roles in the international slave trade and the fast-food revolution. I haven’t read it yet, but it sounds fascinating.
From the publisher:
Sugar: A Bittersweet History is a compelling and surprising look at the sweet commodity, from how it Africanized the cane fields of the Caribbean to how it fueled the Industrial Revolution and jump-started the fast-food revolution. The book explores the hidden stories behind this sweet product, revealing how powerful American interests deposed Queen Lili’uokalani of Hawaii, how Hitler tried to ensure a steady supply of beet sugar when enemies threatened to cut off Germany’s supply of overseas cane sugar, and how South Africa established a domestic ethanol industry in the wake of anti-apartheid sugar embargoes. The book follows the history of sugar to the present day, showing how sugar made eating on the run socially acceptable and played an integral role in today’s fast food culture and obesity epidemic. Impressively researched and commandingly written, Sugar will forever change perceptions of this sweet treat.
More Praise for Sugar from Booklist:
“Sugar is the opiate of the people, lulling forgetfulness and forgiveness of its history of slavery, exploitation, rotting teeth, and depletion of the land. Abbott traces the history of sugar cane from Polynesia to India to the New World, particularly the Caribbean and the American South. Early chapters focus on the history of sugar as a spice, medicine, and aphrodisiac and its transformation from a luxury item for the rich, including gluttonous Queen Catherine, to sweet solace for common people, delivering calories and a boost during the Industrial Revolution. Abbott also details the dark side of the sweet sugar cane, brutal slavery, the subject of a boycott in the abolitionist movement led by William Wilberforce. She ends with the diaspora of sugar production and labor exploitation in the modern age, from the struggle to dominate Hawaii to the geopolitics of Coca Cola and other purveyors of sugary treats. Readers will never again be able to casually sweeten tea or eat sweets without considering the long and fascinating history of sugar.”
“”Fascinating… epic in ambition… there is much to savor in Sugar.” – Wall Street Journal
Victoria here, off to Madison, Wisconsin, in a few days for the meeting of the North American organization of the Angela Thirkell Society. At right, a drawing of Ms. Thirkell (1890 – 1961) by John Singer Sargent, 1918.
The Conference (August 13-15, 2010) will center on the theme
“Upstairs/Downstairs.” Included will be a collection of cars of Thirkell’s period (1930’s-50’s), speakers on Thirkell’s novels, and a gala costume banquet. For more information, click here.
Many of Thirkell’s novels are set in the fictional English county of Barsetshire and some continue the stories of characters introduced in the novels of Anthony Trollope. Another author to whom she is often compared is Jane Austen, though Thirkell expanded the “two or three families in a country village” to a larger region and many families of various levels of society, including the servants.
Angela Margaret Mackail was born on January 30, 1890 in Kensington Square, London. Quoting from the website, “Her grandfather was Sir Edward Burne-Jones the pre-Raphaelite painter and partner in the design firm of Morris and Company for whom he designed many stained glass windows… Her grandmother was Georgiana Macdonald, whose … family which included among others, Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, and Rudyard Kipling. Angela’s brother, Denis Mackail, was also a prolific and successful novelist.”
Angela Thirkell married twice and had sons with both husbands. She moved to Australia with second husband George Thirkell (1890-c. 1940), but returned to England without him in 1929. 
If you aren’t familiar with the 30+ novels of Angela Thirkell, you have a treat in store. Many have been reprinted recently and ordering information is available on the website. Or try your local library. Mine has a wonderful set of well-worn, well-loved books that circulate frequently. The website also has a dictionary of characters and locations in Thirkell’s novels and a list of brief summaries. For even more information, try the website of the British Thirkell Society. Above, a portrait of Thirkell in later life.
Angela Thirkell wrote gentle comedies of manners. Her characters are deftly drawn and manage to invlve themselves in many humorous situations that call for witty repartee — or perhaps for purposeful misunderstandings. 
The 30’s-set books often reflect on the changes in post-WWI Britain. the 40’s books continue the quiet life of Barsetshire during the war along with the trials and tribulations of living in the difficult economy plus many local romances. After WWII, the novels are often concerned with the trials and tribulations of living under the new Labour-ruled government, which is not a favorite of the local gentry. One of the new features of the neighborhood is a government agency called by most The Department of Red Tape and Sealing Wax. 
Here are two typical examples of Angela Thirkell’s style of humor, both taken from Love Among the Ruins, published in 1948, and set in Barsetshire of of the same period.
“…she went off to one of those sham organizations that are called by their initials, only no one knows what the initials stand for.”
“It was the P.E.U.G.I.,” said Mrs. Birkett. “Pan-European Union for General Interference…”
Speaking of Scotland…”Though this description of what was evidently heaven was of a very sketchy nature, such was Mr. Belton’s enthusiasm and so pleasing his confidence in his hearers that they all felt deeply nostalgic for Scotland, which most of them had never visited.”
To conclude, here a few excerpts from an essay in the New York Times of January 4, 2008, entitled “Life, Love and the Pleasures of Literature in Barsetshire” by Verlyn Klinkenborg.
“When I first came upon Thirkell, nearly 30 years ago, she seemed like a diverting minor writer. Minor now seems too slight a word to me for
the purveyor of such major pleasures. … Thirkell has often been called nostalgic because she is describing a kind of life — English county life — that was vanishing even as her books were appearing. Yet there is nothing nostalgic or sentimental in her tone… You read her, laughing, and want to do your best to protect her characters from any reality but their own.”
I concur.
It seems as though Earl Spencer has been cleaning the tat out of his attics, and oh, what tat it is. Here are just a few of the items sold last month at Christie’s Auction Room, King Street, London.
Mrs. Dora Jordan (1761-1816), mistress of William IV. Acquired at a sale of her effects by Frances Isabella, Lady Clinton (d. 1875) who placed it in the Dining Room at 28 St. James’s Place. By descent to her niece Lady Sarah Spencer (1838-1919) and by descent to Albert Edward John, 7th Earl Spencer (1892-1975), by whom removed to Althorp, Northamptonshire, in 1923.
Silver-mounted tapering Doccia porcelain étui of round section, the porcelain body decorated with antique scenes moulded in relief, the cover decorated with sea shells and rocaille in relief, within hinged brown fitted leather case; together with, another porcelain étui of round section mounted in gilt-metal, the porcelain body decorated with painted flowers; together with, another gilt-metal mounted porcelain étui of oval section, the porcelain body and lid decorated with foliage and masks, centred with circular cartouches containing bows and arrows, the cover cartouche painted with ‘Souvenir’ and, on the body, with ‘d’amitié’, gilt borders and swags to both cover and base, together with, another gilt-metal mounted enamel étui of rounded reeded body decorated with diamond pattern with a flower depicted at the centre of each (4)
The later arms on the doors are those Spencer accoll with Spencer impaling Baring for Charles, 6th Earl Spencer, K.G., (1857-1922) and his wife Margaret (d.1906), daughter of Edward, 1st Baron Revelstoke, whom he married in 1887. These arms were possibly applied for the coronation of King George V on 22 June 1911, at which Earl Spencer presided as Lord Chamberlain.
The initial is almost certainly that of Edward John Spencer, Viscount Althorp and later 7th Earl Spencer.
Woburn Abbey is the home of the Dukes of Bedford. When I visited in May, 2009, I thoroughly enjoyed the vast grounds, lovely gardens, deer park and most of all, seeing the house itself. At one point in our tour, the escort stopped just as we entered a room. “Excuse us, Your Grace,” she said to the Duchess of Bedford. “Oh, come right in,” said Her Grace and continued her photo session with one of her two children. We gaped a while, then slipped away for the tour guide to fill us in on what we should have looked at in that room. But we had been much too busy watching the photographer, the tot and Her Grace, to notice the furnishings. A picture of the present duchess and her family is at the end of this blog.
Which brings me to the many stories of the fascinating women who were Duchesses of Bedford. This is Henrietta, dowager Duchess of Bedford, mother-in-law of the duchess I saw at Woburn. Born in 1940, she was a debutante of the year, a fashion model and remains a dedicated horse lover. She and her husband, Robin, 14th Duke, ran a prosperous and successful bloodstock operation at Woburn. A wonderful blog called The Esoteric Curiosa has a collection of pictures of Henrietta throughout her life here.
Henrietta reminds me quite a bit of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. The dowager duchess continues to live on the Woburn estate. Reaching back a bit farther, at left, Georgina Gordon (1781-1853) was the daughter of the Duke of Gordon and his wife, Jane, a great rival of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, for social and political entertaining. Georgina was the third daughter of Jane Gordon to marry a duke. Georgina’s story is told on one of my favorite blogs, Scandalous Women, by Elizabeth Kerri Mahon here.
For a book length story of Georgina’s life, I recommend Rachel Trethewey’s 2002 Mistress of the Arts: The Passionate Life of Georgina, Duchess of Bedford. Georgina was the second wife of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford (1766-1839); his first wife was Georgiana Byng, Duchess of Bedford. Don’t be surprised if writers get them mixed up. That pesky A is a problem! Late in her life Georgina reputedly had a long affair with the artist Sir Edwin Landseer, who was one of Queen Victoria’s favorite artists.
A more refined story is that of Lady Anna Maria Stanhope (1783-1857), wife of Francis, the 7th Duke of Bedford (1788-1861). It is to Duchess Anna that we owe the tradition of afternoon tea. Since evening meals had been pushed later and later, she wanted a light snack in the afternoon, just tea and sandwiches or little cakes. She often invited her friends for this repast and the custom spread to the middle classes.
Mary (1865-1937), known as the Flying Duchess, had an adventurous life. She married Herbrand Russell, then aide-de-camp to the Viceroy of India, at Barrackpore in 1888. When her husband’s brother died without issue in 1893, the couple and their son returned to England as the 11th Duke and Duchess with son Hastings, then Marquess of Tavistock as the heir to the dukedom is styled. Mary and her husband were avid ornithologists and travelers. During WWI she established a hospital at Woburn where she worked with wounded soldiers. She learned to fly airplanes in the 1920’s and after many long trips, some showing considerable daring, at age 71 she and her plane were lost over the North Sea in March 1937. Three years later, her husband passed away and her son Hastings (1888-1953) became the 12th Duke.
Presently, Andrew Ian Russell is 15th Duke of Bedford. He and Louise, the present duchess, have (at last report) two children, Lady Alexandra Lucy Clare, born in 2001, and Henry Robin Charles, Marquess of Tavistock, born in 2005.
According to Wikipedia, Duke Andrew has a fortune of about 490 million pounds. Like most families owning a huge country estate, he must see that the properties continue to make an income adequate to support repairs and projects, not an easy task. Some, but not all of the original Bedford Estate in Bloomsbury remains in the Bedford’s hands.
Tavistock Square was the site of some of the terrorist bombs in London in 2005.
But not to end on such a depressing thought, we’ll have a last look at Woburn Abbey, a magnificent treasure house and a joy to visit.
