Elizabeth Bennet, Mr Darcy, and Things That Go Bump in the Night

By Julie Cooper, author of Only Mr Darcy

In my latest novel, Only Mr Darcy, Elizabeth Bennet is certain that she will marry a man of a particular name due to her conviction that her grandmother possesses supernatural predictive powers. Would such confidence make her unusual for her time? As the tale unfolds, Mr Darcy admits to a belief in an unusual spirit which occasionally inhabits Pemberley. Were such opinions rare during the Regency era? The answers might be as individual as our favourite characters, but according to historian Thomas Waters, rationalism during the period was only “for the few (while) ‘magic’ was for the many.”[1] Not only did mesmerism, spiritualism, occultism, and psychical research flourish, but belief in witchcraft, cunning-folk and fortune tellers remained fairly widespread.

James Boswell, ninth Laird of Auchinleck, for instance, told Jean-Jacques Rousseau that he was so terrified of ghosts that he had refused to sleep alone until he was aged eighteen. In adulthood, too, Boswell’s journals reveal, he continued to be plagued by a fear of them.

One need look no farther than the local newspapers to find many a ghostly sighting. For instance, The Morning Post, in January of 1804, reported a spectre glimpsed at one o’clock in the morning, at the Recruit House Gate in the Bird Cage Walk of St James Park. The figure ‘first had the appearance of a cloud’ from which afterward one could distinguish the shape of a woman wearing ‘a close gown with red stripes’; she was also, apparently, headless, but her arms were visible. Luckily, she only ‘hung around’ for about two seconds. The observer vowed that there was no alcohol involved.

An 1808 issue of La Belle Assemblée published a lengthy story, in which over multiple pages detailed the report of an apparition claiming to be Nostradamus. The venerable spirit appeared to a smith, who was warned to give his message only to the king. Which, apparently, he did. There are literally thousands of mentions of spectres, ghosts, witches, and even fortune-telling, which was generally illegal during the Regency.

It makes sense when one considers the culture of the times, richly influenced by Biblical texts and deific accounts regularly recorded in the public’s voice. Consider this tribute, published in the Morning Post in 1808, upon hearing an operatic performance by Madame Catalini.

When Catalini’s magic voice

Ascends on music’s lofty wing,

The enraptured senses all rejoice—

We think we hear seraph sing.

Enchanting gift, divinely given,

Earth’s charmed inhabitants to shew,

What wondrous pow’rs indulgent heaven,

Upon its favourites bestow.

When even the simplest show reviews regularly invoke angelic descriptors, it must have been easy to continue the search for wings and halos—and perhaps darker deities—in everyday life.

Also, while fortune telling might have been illegal, it was no crime to write DIY books on the subject. Consider this advertisement from the Norfolk Chronicle, published in June 1810. The product, A New Fortune Telling Book by Dr Parkins, it touts its expertise upon “Decrees of Fate—Guide to Hidden Secrets—Future Events and Contingencies—Astrology, Physiognomy, Geomaney, Palmestry, Signs by Planets, Marks, and Scars—Moles, Birds, Beasts &c—Secret Writing—Art of Divination—Oracles by Dreams”…and much more, all for only 2s 6d.

Although laws against witchcraft had been repealed, newspapers reported of farmers—deemed “respectable,” “wealthy,” or otherwise—fighting witchcraft and witches in Kent in 1809, Cumbria in 1810, South Lanarkshire in 1812, Suffolk and Devon in 1825, Perth in 1826, Monmouthshire in 1827, and Devon again in 1828.[2]

Ghosts, witches, and divination were aspects of a lively Regency culture that supported the mysterious and paranormal. Superstition was another, that is still alive and well today. When was the last time you knocked on wood for luck? In his book The Lore of the Playground, British folklorist Steve Roud traces the practice to a 19th century children’s game called ‘Tiggy Touchwood’, a type of tag in which players were immune from being caught whenever they touched a piece of wood such as a door or a tree.[3] "Given that the game was concerned with ‘protection,’ and was well known to adults as well as children, it is almost certainly the origin of our modern superstitious practice of saying, ‘Touch wood,’” he argues. “The claim that the latter goes back to when we believed in tree spirits is complete nonsense.”

Another widely held superstition, that one should never walk under a ladder, was common. An 1891 copy of Current Literature explains: “Some people fancy that this originated from a cautious dread of what a workman upon the ladder might drop upon them, and yet those same people will carefully avoid passing under a ladder which is quite untenanted, and know well that they do so, not to avoid the fall of a tile or a paint pot, but to avoid the fall of ill luck upon their heads.”[4] 

The meaning of the word ‘superstition’ itself describes its prevalence. It is noun of action from the past-participle stem of superstare , meaning “to stand on or over; to survive”. In a country where the average life expectancy was around 35 to 40 years, in a culture which recognised powers beyond those of a mortal, life was, truly, all about survival. Perhaps no one was actually convinced that the devil was forever lurking behind one’s left shoulder, or, that he could truly be neutralised by tossing salt at him, but why take a chance?

So no, I do not think the mildly superstitious Elizabeth and Darcy in Only Mr Darcy were particularly unique during a time when broken mirrors and passing on the stairs proclaimed bad luck, crossed knives (or two women pouring from the same teapot) signified a quarrel, and a white tablecloth left on a table overnight meant the household would need a shroud in the near future.[5] A chimney sweep is said to have saved the life of King George II, and they were thus deemed lucky, and kissing one on one’s wedding day was a way to cement those vows with good fortune[6]. Central heating has a lot to answer for.

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Sources and References

(Images are public domain)

Isaac Cruickshank, The Ghost of Admiral John Byng visits Lieutenant General John Whitelocke, 1808

William Hogarth, Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism

The Ghost of Queen Elizabeth, 1803, Bodleian Libraries

[1] Thomas Waters, Journal of British Studies, Magic and the British Middle Classes 1750-1900, Vol. 54, No. 3 (JULY 2015), pp. 632-653

[2] Ibid, Thomas Waters

[3] Evan Andrews, History.com, Why Do People Knock on Wood for Luck?, https://www.history.com/articles/why-do-people-knock-on-wood-for-luck

[4] Current Literature. Childish Superstitions, Their Origins, The Spectator, United States: Current Literature Publishing Company, 1891.

[5] Ben Johnson, British Superstitions, https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/British-Superstitions/

[6] Fishwrap, Newspapers.com, Kiss a Chimney Sweep for Luck: 6 Fascinating British Superstitions, https://blog.newspapers.com/kiss-a-chimney-sweep-for-luck-6-fascinating-british-superstitions/