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This was a nice surprise and took me back to Victober pleasures. Good point about livelier women in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Love the imposed sudden ending 😂

Interesting posting. My grandchild and I just finished studying Mesopotamia and the Assyrians as part of our homeschooling . You have piqued my interest. And it was wonderful to hear the comments of the new generation! I’m certain that you will have another wonderful reader in your family. Congratulations and much happiness to you all!

A lively and interesting review. I have never read Little Dorrit, but you’ve intrigued me enough to give it a try. I have a definite fondness for Great Expectations. It’s like a cup of warm milk for me to revisit that world.

I love Maria Edgeworth. Her works are more of the socio-political insight that I want in fiction. I have to replace my copy of Belinda to re-read. In the meantime, I read the "Absentee" for the first time. In my culture (Native American), names are crucial. I bring this into my own writing. With that said, I find your insight into her use of names to be invaluable because I don't have a deep understanding of the background for many of the names I've come across. Perhaps you (or anyone) can shed some light on one this, from the "Absentee." What does Colambre mean? He's the Irish hero of the story, son of lord Clonbrony.

Hi, Tilly. Its nice to discover your channel. I'm excited to be here. I will be checking through your other videos. New sub here

I seem to remember reading that several of Jane Austen's sisters-in-law died during or after childbirth. Like you said, there was a great danger attached to things going wrong during a woman's first confinement, but for women who had child after child the risks seemed to go up again with later pregnancies. This was a very interesting topic. I came upon it months after Jane Austen July, but really enjoyed it!

Your video is very nice, I really like it. But I don't feel good because the views and subscriptions are very low in such beautiful videos. Can I see what could be the cause of low views, subscriptions? 😃

I read Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and A Tale of Two Cities this year and it's been so interesting diving into so much Dickens at once. This one also sounds fascinating and I think I might need to add it to the list!

How interesting that it was published as a freestanding serial! Great video, thanks

I've read Little Dorrit several times and I think Flora improves upon acquaintance. If you listen between the lines (like with Miss Bates) you can hear the real (insecure) woman come through, no thanks to her awful father. I think Dickens is very aware of Little Dorrit's capabilities, but it is the ignorance of everyone else that he emphasizes. And it mirrors Arthur's cluelessness about Amy. Until of course her Uncle explodes at the family and Young John explodes at Arthur. I personally have trouble with Tattycoram's portrayal, particularly at the end.

I really enjoyed hearing you talk about this. Generous is a great way to describe Dickens' prose. He can be cruel about older women sometimes. I must get to Little Dorrit but I think Dombey and Son is my next Dickens.

Sounds good - Jennie has this one on her list and likes the author

I've been meaning to pick up something by Elif Shafak for so long!

Congratulations Tilly! Loved hearing those baby cooing sounds. And best to Ros on her new grandparenthood!

In a fair amount of historical fiction as well as actual diary entries from the time, the term "being in a delicate condition" or the word condition seems to be used a lot to talk about regnancy. I also read that there was a lot of expectation that men were somehow more intelligent than women by default, especially once they were married. Actually it was thought to be dangerous if a woman was seen as too intelligent, so some would pretend they knew nothing. One account of a woman who used to to be a teacher before she married and had her first child, says that the woman even asked the nurse looking after the child how often the clothes needed changing or how often to bath the child etc. It seems to have gone in something of a cycle, because as you said, in previous centuries only women were allowed at the birth then male doctors and midwives maybe, but since the newer medical systems and practices came in we ended up with again only women working in maternity wards and units. I read something from the 1950s or 1960s that was a list of things for the expecting mother to take to a maternity unit. At the bottom it even said that only the husband was allowed to visit, so I assume there was some kind of policy in that particular place of no other visìtors allowed at all.

Love the cute little noises 🥰 It was interesting to hear your guys thoughts on this.

I enjoyed your rant about the Rebel Gardener 😁 When I downsized my library before a big move last year, the only garden-related book I kept is Rosemary Gladstar’s Medicinal Herbs, which has information about growing the plants as well as using them.

I really want to get into gardening when I've moved out of London, I loved my granddad's garden, but I can't even keep basil alive, I could write How to Kill Plants for Free. Maybe I should buy Rebel Gardening and grow an orchard on my balcony.

Oh yes, definitely, gardening is an art! In fact, Scottish poet Ian Hamilton Finlay treated his (large) garden as poetry, with various areas hedged off into little "rooms" or poetry pieces/stanzas. He called his house "Little Sparta" and you can find videos/books on it. He carved words into a path of stepping stones, painted words on white wooden beehives... and through looking into this, I gathered (can't remember source) that in the 18th century in Europe, the way your garden was laid out was a political statement understood in society. Plus gardening is the start of many traditional arts: there is the beauty of flower arrangements and how much of our interiors in textiles and wallpaper are based on flower patterns. Perfume making began and is still grounded on, the scent of flowers. The garden gave herbs, vegetables and fruit for the art of cooking and the beginning of medicine. Thank you for sharing your gardening books - and cautions against one! - it strikes me that your gardening books will probably produce more longlasting results than many of the books I read about art history!

I like the argument for gardening as art. Vita Sackville West would have agreed wholeheartedly.

You really expressed everything I loved about this book.I noticed your TH-cam channel and I'm really impressed with the content you're creating - it's engaging and insightful!

A few months ago I read about this book finally being released in English. The article might have been an interview with Anne Goldstein. I added it to my ever growing book wish list so, I am really glad to hear you enjoyed it. You are the first book tuber I have heard review it. I hope to read it early in 2025. I do hope you get an opportunity to read “My Brilliant Friend”. It’s the best of the Neapolitan Quartet.

I just read this last week. The growing tensions, Valeria's personal and family conflicts, it was all so fascinating. Great review!

I read this last year, and you summed up everything I felt about the book. I thought the writing was beautiful and I'd like to read more of her work. I know there is at least one more that has been translated to English. There may be more, but I'm certain of one other.

You really expressed everything I loved about this book. I felt like I lived with her for the time the book covered.

this made me realise how completely i missed pregnant women in austen's novels !! this was so interesting ty :)

I watched the S&S mini series in July and enjoyed it but I love the film. I feel like Austen adaptations are so divisive, no one can agree on their favourites, apart from everyone seems to hate the Mansfield Park film which I haven't seen. The Susan Allen Ford book sounds really interesting. I did buy the Letters edited by Deirdre Le Faye this year and have only dipped in thus far, it would be a long read in one go as you say.

I am looking forward to borrowing What Jane Austen's Characters Read and Why.

Yep, JA = Comfort! Just yesterday on the radio I heard the Beethoven Andante (from the 1995 "The Look" scene with Georgiana at the piano while Lizzy turns pages) and the music alone made me sigh with comfort! The new book on JA & reading sounds fascinating. I only enjoyed 1 book from that series with J Trollope's S&S-- it was by Alexander McCall Smith & based on Emma. He didn't try to be Austen; if you like his style, you'll enjoy his take on Emma.

That analysis about what Jane Austen's characters read is fascinating! I can't remember if John Mullan talks about it in his work about Austen too but in any case, this book sounds like a great addition to my TBR 😊 I tried A Woman of Colour a couple of years ago and I must confess I found it kind of boring towards the middle part so I DNFed it. Perhaps I should try it again, at a different time as I often feel the preasure to complete the prompts before the end of the month during Jane Austen July.

Thank you Tilly loved your thoughts on the books you read enjoy listening to their .❤

I am still embarrassed that I have never read a single word of Jane Austen, nor have I watched a single minute of any Jane Austen adaptation. OK, not that embarrassed ...

So agree, that the Emma adaptation you watched is the best! And my favourite S&S is also the BBC series with Hatty Morahan etc. So good!

Sounds like a fascinating book on books and reading in Austen. My favourite narrator for Austen has to be Juliet Stevenson - she is wonderful!

This was amazing! Fantastic video. I read an interesting diary of a pregnant woman from the 1830s a while back, where she wrote about her feeling unwell, but never wrote down in her diary that she was pregnant. When she wrote about doing knitting for her baby, she left the word baby as a blank. I don’t know how much of that was superstition and how much delicacy, but I found that fascinating.

This sounds super fun!

This is such an amazing video Tilly! This theme actually caught my attention a bit this year when reading about Mrs. Palmer in S&S, and I started wondering about it in Austen's other books. I somehow never paid much attention to Mrs. Weston's pregnancy. I can't wait to reread Emma and pay more attention to her. A fun and rather tangential fact, some of my hair that I lost postpartum is growing back in those weird regency curls that frame the face. I considered showing them off for JAJ, but I was too lazy to change into a regency style dress and just pinned them back instead.

Wonderful, informative video! Thank you! Re other pregnancies we hear about the late stages of pregnancy and confinement of Mrs Wallis in Persuasion. Mr and Mrs Wallis are great friends of Mr Elliot the heir. Mrs Wallis and Mrs Smith, the school friend of Anne, share a nurse, Mrs Rooke, who is an important source of gossip and allows Anne to find through Mrs Smith that her engagement to Mr Elliott is considered as a certainty in the society. It is also bizarre by modern standards that Mrs Rooke is not exclusively a natal nurse but can attend a newborn and adults with various illnesses at the same time. Again,thank you for your research, its was really insightful. Hope you enjoy the summer in your situation:)

If she were alive today, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jane Austen was consciously childfree. She’s happy to have little nieces and nephews and cousins and wishes the pregnant women in her circle well, but if she really wanted to have and rear children and that was super important to her, she had opportunities and turned them down. This was an interesting and unexpected choice of topic. I don’t think I have seen any analysis of this topic before, let alone in the depth you’ve gone to here. Well done!

Thank you Tilly I enjoy this very interesting to listen to .❤

So very interesting. Thank you!

Another excellent video! ❤

Brilliant. I had really not paid attention to this in the novels so it is wonderful to have you draw out all these "situations" for me. Can't imagine why you are interested in this topic this year 😅

Thanks so much for this review! I would love to read it soon!

I really enjoyed this one! I especially like Kitty as her familar I thought that was clever.

An entire novel from the perspective of Lydia would be very silly even without magic added to it 😆Sounds fun.

Sounds like the perfect summer book! Thank you!

Well this is definitely a different approach! It sounds fun, especially the crossover characters.

It does sound fun. I like thd idea of Wickham as a demon.

Lot's of love from India ❤😂you are amazing