Wardrobe Malfunction

I like to write on historical subjects. Probably this is because I like to read on historical subjects. The two activities tend to blur together, such that any reading I do these days has a better-than-average chance of suggesting a story background or idea to me.

Lately I’ve been reading about Edwardian Britain. The original inspiration for this is the first chapter of my favourite book ever, Barbara Tuchman’s The Proud Tower. Now, though, I’m reading mostly for its own sake; if a writerly idea comes out of it, great. Otherwise, reading is its own justification.

Fashion has undone me more than once with researching (about which more shortly), but seldom with more disturbing panache than with a book I read recently: I was going back, the other day, through Juliet Nicolson's The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm (rather an antithesis to the Tuchman book, by the way) to find notes of further interest, and before I went into the bibliography I came across this sentence, on the page immediately after the first photo insert: Small silver rings clamped into [sic] the nipples deepened, enhanced and raised the cleavage by providing a sort of ledge on which the evening gown rested precariously. (p. 83)

Say what? I have to regret (really regret) that Ms Nicolson isn’t a more academically inclined author, because this is the sort of sentence that absolutely demands a citation. And there isn’t one.

As can be imagined, this is not an easy thing to research online…