Tuesday, April 5, 2011

White wedding dresses before Victoria

My story in the recently released Royal Weddings anthology is set on the eve of Queen Victoria's wedding in 1840.  Many people believe that Queen Victoria was the first to wear a white wedding dress.  This is simply not the case.  Brides were wearing white long before this, and 19th century periodicals offer ample evidence.  Here are some examplesHere's more.

And here's another, from Ackermann's Repository of Fashions, August 1829:

    

Monday, April 4, 2011

Why it's so hard to get those e-Books outside the U.S.

For all my readers outside the U.S. who are wondering why it's still so hard—or impossible—to get books in digital form, this New York Times article offers some insight. 


Illustration: "Dig," by Sadie Wendell Mitchell, c1909, courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.