Would You Like Some Milk with That Serial?

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, magazines were a large and thriving industry. But the word “magazine” referred to something quite different than the shiny, advertisement-filled publications found on racks today. Around the turn of the century, popular monthly magazines such as Everybody’s, McClure’s, and Munsey’s ran from around 100 to 150 pages, sometimes including thirty or more stories, articles, and poems, and cost ten or fifteen cents per issue. Though fiction has largely disappeared from today’s magazines, in those days it was a staple—besides publications that combined fiction and nonfiction, there were many all-fiction magazines, some devoted to specific genres—love stories, adventure stories, Westerns, mysteries, and more.

Sample Sunday: The Prince and Betty

      

A scene from Chapter Seven, where Betty confronts John after learning that he is a prince and that he is in on her uncle's schemes to promote his new casino:

In days of old, in the age of legend, omens warned heroes of impending doom. But today the gods have grown weary, and we rush unsuspecting on our fate. No owl hooted, no thunder rolled from the blue sky as John went up the path to meet the white dress that gleamed between the trees.

His heart was singing within him. She had come. She had not forgotten, or changed her mind, or willfully abandoned him. His mood lightened swiftly. Humility vanished. He was not such an outcast, after all. He was someone. He was the man Betty Silver had come to meet.

But with the sight of her face came reaction.

Her face was pale and cold and hard. She did not speak or smile. As she drew near she looked at him, and there was that in her look which set a chill wind blowing through the world and cast a veil across the sun.

And in this bleak world they stood silent and motionless while eons rolled by.

Extra! Extra! Red Sox Win, Oreo Invented, Tragedy on the Sea and at the South Pole

In The Prince and Betty, there’s plenty of headline making news--long-lost royal heir, newspaper exposés of slums, gangsters--but 1912 was filled with explosive headlines to rival Betty’s. Some highlights...

January: Robert Falcon Scott, British explorer, reaches the South Pole--second. Five weeks earlier, Norwegian Roald Amundsen and his expedition made the historic expedition. News of this victory, however, wouldn’t come until March, when Amundsen reached Tasmania and telegraphed his announcement.

February: A blizzard that began in the Midwest reaches New York City on the 22nd with typhoon-force gales. Just after midnight, meteorological devices record a 110 mile-per-hour gust of wind, and for most of the day, the city is buffeted with 70 mile-per-hour winds. People are ‘hurled’ to the street, and trees, airplanes, and tugboats are ripped into the air. While New York City’s skyscrapers survived relatively unscathed, the electric billboards and signs that decorated Times Square were torn down and smashed. On the 23rd when the storm subsided, the streets were covered with glass, metal, and other debris.

Vintage Happy Hour with Jenny Q: Mint Juleps at the Astor Roof Garden

I really was trying to stay away from the obvious choice for today's Vintage Happy Hour. Hoping to come up with something different, and wanting to learn more about the Astor Hotel Roof Garden Restaurant since reading about it in The Prince and Betty, I was researching and hoping to find a signature cocktail to blog about, when lo and behold I discovered patrons at the Astor Roof enjoyed light fare and refreshing drinks, and one of the most popular was . . . the mint julep. Coincidence, eh? So here I am, paying tribute to this timely cocktail.

The Astor Roof was a smash hit with New York's upper crust in the pre-Prohibition era of the Progressive Age, and it was a favorite haunt of John Maude and Rupert Smith in The Prince and Betty. As as a British native transplanted in New York to write for the new American version of Vanity Fair magazine, author P.G. Wodehouse was likely familiar with it too.

Titillating Tattlers & Muckraking Madness: Social Reform in America’s Press

I worked in the advertising department of a local newspaper for five years, and in that brief time, I saw the decline of readership and popularity of newspapers. Granted, smaller papers are faring better than the nationals as people still want to read local news stories, but the internet is driving many papers out of business. Why wait for news when you can have it with a few key strokes? But imagine a time when that wasn’t the case, when newspapers were the new big thing and the main way people connected with the rest of the world. Of course, with the news came scandal, as well. I sometimes wonder at what is considered news these days when I am watching television--fashion, celebrity life, gossip and rumor mongering are all front and center more often than not, but this is nothing new--the tabloids have been around since the late 1800s.

Brawlers, Bashers & Battlegrounds: Early 20th Century Gangsters

While many associate New York City gangs with either Martin Scorsese’s 2002 film The Gangs of New York or the high-profile celebrity criminals of the Prohibition, during the late 1800s and early 1900s, Manhattan’s Lower East Side was thick with gangsters, as evidenced in Legacy Romance's newest release, The Prince and Betty by P.G. Wodehouse. The battleground was the immigrant slums, but those fighting for control weren’t outsiders, but rather immigrants themselves (or children of immigrants). Mobsters from these communities, which were predominantly Irish, Italian and German and Eastern European Jews, fought against one another, and teetered between fighting and supporting New York City’s corrupt police force and political machine.

The center of politics in the Lower East Side was Tammany Hall, which was both a place and an organization. Originally a patriotic "club" when founded in the 1700s, by the 1900s it was synonymous with political machination, corruption, and intrigue. For the two biggest gangs in the Lower East Side, support came from the Tammany Hall politicos. Immigrants were provided money and assistance with naturalization in exchange for their votes, and in the early 20th century, that meant an enormous voting population was easily bought. From the 1850s through the 1930s, Tammany Hall would essentially control New York City politics.

Enhanced eBook: The Prince and Betty by P.G. Wodehouse

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Royal Romance—Prince Weds American Girl—Love at First Sight—Picturesque Wedding!

These are the headlines American businessman Benjamin Scobell envisions when he pieces together his latest scheme: a publicity stunt designed to attract customers to his newly built casino on the Mediterranean island of Mervo. If only he had a few royals running around making headlines he knows his little rock could compete with the likes of Monte Carlo. Mervo hasn’t had a prince in years, but that doesn’t dissuade Benjamin from tracking down the long-lost heir to the throne, and when he finds him, he’s going to introduce him to the perfect girl for him, his stepdaughter Betty.