Heather Moll's Blog 
Excessively Diverted 

As delightful as it might sound to us to ride in an open carriage, driving and riding in Georgian England wasn’t as carefree as you might...

In An Affectionate Heart, Elizabeth first meets Mr. Darcy at the pedestrian path next to a tollgate, and later in the book a significant turning point occurs at a tollgate on a turnpike road. The trusts that established these turnpikes created a network of roads that still form the framework Britain’s roadways today. A turnpike road was a toll road operated under a trust established through a parliamentary Turnpike Act. In the early 1700s, the roads leading into London were p

Jane Austen's letters to her sister Cassandra are filled with irreverent humor. In December 1798, Cassandra was visiting family in...

What do The Sylph (1778) by the Duchess of Devonshire, Cecilia (1782) by Fanny Burney, and Belinda (1801) by Maria Edgeworth have in...

Drinking tea, making tea, or using "tea-things" are often mentioned in Austen's works. Elizabeth Bennet hopes that after the tea things...

Precedence might seem strange to us in the twenty-first century, especially for those of us living in places without hereditary titles. But the British peerage isn’t the only place where order and rank are observed. The US State Department has an Office of the Chief of Protocol that determines ceremonial standing at events. This is how we determine that former presidents and their widows/widowers are sat by the seniority of when they assumed office. The Catholic Church has ra

If you hear "paste jewelry", do you think ugly knockoff or, worse, Elmer's glue? Paste jewelry was popular among Georgian society and was never considered cheap costume pieces. They were designed and desired for their own sake---not as a gemstone substitute---and not only for affordability or for those who feared highway men while they traveled. A woman in Georgian England wouldn't have been embarrassed to wear paste because she wasn't trying to fool anyone. Real diamonds wit

Did you know that a macaroni recipe appears in the Austen family's recipe book? I attempt Martha Lloyd's mac and cheese recipe, adapted for a modern kitchen

It’s rare to get “real” mail, something handwritten that arrives in the mailbox. Texts social media have replaced it, but I think there’s an inherent value in receiving a handwritten card or a letter from someone who cares about you. Miss Bates and Mrs. Bates in Emma feel the same way about any letter from Jane Fairfax: [...]but, first of all, I really must, in justice to Jane, apologise for her writing so short a letter -- only two pages, you see, hardly two, and in general

I can reattach a button near enough to the right place so it gets into a buttonhole. I only got as far as cross-stitch bookmarks as a...

While Jane Austen’s brother Frank was eager to skate, it seems that the women in his

My son is ten and his baby teeth were slow to come in… and they’re slow to fall out. He’s only had a few fall out on their own, even...

I thought this blog post would be about cute earrings. I’d share more detail and pictures than I can in a #GeorgianJewelry tweet or FB...

Some think that Jane Austen was a culturally and politically myopic person because her novels are seemingly oblivious to those larger...

In the Georgian era, female accomplishments were indispensable assets on the marriage market. Like Miss Bingley describes, the ability to...

Wild Bros. Mona tea cup circa 1915 I’m a tea drinker. Some might unfairly say tea snob, but I do like my tea, which is kept in double-lidded containers with labels that say the temperature and brew time. My favorites at the moment are a Longjing (dragon well) premium green tea from China and a black tea from Yunnan, China called Golden Halo. The tea available during Jane Austen’s lifetime came primarily from China. Tea production in India didn’t begin until the propagation of

I love dishes. I would use the good china and crystal every night. My favorite is a small Edwardian tea set that belonged to my maternal

Have you read a JAFF where a character lays out 5 shillings to buy a yard of muslin, or pays off £1,000 in gambling debts, or tips a servant

What does Hamilton have to do with a Jane Austen variation? How many of you watched Hamilton on Disney+ ?

I’m often asked how much research I do for my books. The answer falls somewhere between a lot and too much! I have strong opinions about...