Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy ve Wilson. Tracy Ann Radcliffe has
Speaker 1: been on my list for a long time, I know,
Speaker 1: particularly for an October subject. So hooray, we're into the
Speaker 1: best season. Because she is considered the sort of the
Speaker 1: queen of the Gothic novel, Thomas de Quincy called her
Speaker 1: the Great Enchantress. She's been cited as an inspiration and
Speaker 1: influence for the likes of Mary Shelley and even Ed
Speaker 1: Grellan Poe. She was seriously famous in her lifetime, but
Speaker 1: she preferred a quiet life out of the spotlight, and
Speaker 1: she doesn't get as much attention as some other authors
Speaker 1: that kind of fall in that space of spooky or
Speaker 1: eerie fiction. But as I dug into her story, it
Speaker 1: also became apparent that it was a little bit tricky
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of places you look that
Speaker 1: will we don't know anything about her. That's not true,
Speaker 1: but there have only been a few modern biographies of
Speaker 1: her that really dig into the details of her life,
Speaker 1: and it's actually a pretty interesting life, particularly because her
Speaker 1: reclusive nature led a lot of people to speculate wildly
Speaker 1: about the details of her life, and sometimes all of
Speaker 1: that really upset her. So today not only are we
Speaker 1: covering her, but I feel like she's one of those
Speaker 1: people that's probably due for a two parter. This whole week,
Speaker 1: it's Anne Radcliffe Week. In today's episode, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about her early life and her marriage, and her
Speaker 1: years actively publishing her work because it's a pretty short timeframe.
Speaker 1: Next time, we're going to talk about her retirement and
Speaker 1: her death and the ways that historians and biographers are
Speaker 1: still piecing together details about her. So. Anne Ward was
Speaker 1: born July ninth, seventeen sixty five or in the Holborn
Speaker 1: district of London, England. Later in her life she would
Speaker 1: cite a book that was published the same year she
Speaker 1: was born as one of her main influences. That was
Speaker 1: Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto. Her family was relatively comfortable financially.
Speaker 1: Her father was a haberdasher named William Ward. She was
Speaker 1: named after her mother, Anne Oates. Oates was connected to
Speaker 1: King George the Second through her uncle William Sheesldon, who
Speaker 1: was a king's physician. Ann's mother was also connected to
Speaker 1: a number of other high society people through the family,
Speaker 1: although the Wards lived a lot more modestly than most
Speaker 1: of those other connections. When Anne was still young, sometime
Speaker 1: before the end of seventeen seventy two, the family moved
Speaker 1: from London to Bath. There, William Ward managed a china
Speaker 1: shop that featured Wedgwood, and the Wedgwood Company had an
Speaker 1: ownership interest in the shop. We don't really know a
Speaker 1: whole lot about Ann's childhood or early a day adulthood.
Speaker 1: We do know that she was well read. She was
Speaker 1: said to have been so smart and charming that members
Speaker 1: of the family who were higher up the social letter
Speaker 1: than her parents often invited her to spend time with them.
Speaker 1: So she probably met quite a few interesting people at
Speaker 1: a young age, although we'll talk about the fact that
Speaker 1: she was perhaps charming to people she could open up with,
Speaker 1: but she was overall very, very shy. This charm and
Speaker 1: delight was particularly the case when she stayed at her uncle,
Speaker 1: mister Bentley's house, and this actually ties back to the
Speaker 1: Wedgwood involvement in her father's career, because her uncle Bentley
Speaker 1: worked with Wedgwood. Biographer Richter Norton makes the case that
Speaker 1: Anne may have actually never returned to her parents' home
Speaker 1: and may have actually stayed with her uncle long term.
Speaker 1: We know that her uncle had an assortment of interesting
Speaker 1: friends who may have made an impression on young Anne
Speaker 1: and influenced her later work, including separatist theologian Joseph Priestley,
Speaker 1: who was featured in our recent episode on carbonation. As
Speaker 1: for Anne herself, she's been described as short in stature
Speaker 1: and very, very pretty. Her personality was marked by shyness
Speaker 1: from the beginning, and that would continue to be the
Speaker 1: case for her whole life. She's said to have not
Speaker 1: even been comfortable being called an author or talking about
Speaker 1: her work publicly. One thing that may have heavily influenced
Speaker 1: that work is the degree of formality that she was
Speaker 1: exposed to as a guest in the homes of relatives
Speaker 1: and family friends who are a lot older. She's almost
Speaker 1: always described as really struggling in social situations. She was
Speaker 1: a bookish child. She read a lot, and it seems
Speaker 1: like a lot of her knowledge of the world came
Speaker 1: from her reading rather than formal instruction. In seventeen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: Anne married William Radcliffe in Bath. The couple lived in
Speaker 1: London after the wedding. William had initially intended to be
Speaker 1: a lawyer, and he had studied at Oxford, but he
Speaker 1: became a journalist when he became editor of The Gazetteer
Speaker 1: and then part owner of the paper, The English Chronicle,
Speaker 1: at which point he also assumed editorial duties for that.
Speaker 1: As his work kept him away from home, Anne began
Speaker 1: to use her time alone to write, and is said
Speaker 1: to have read her work of the day to William
Speaker 1: each evening. From the start, she wrote things that elicited
Speaker 1: the reader's fear. In a biographical memoir written after her passing,
Speaker 1: it was said that quote so far was she from
Speaker 1: being subjected to her own terrors, that she often laughingly
Speaker 1: presented to mister Radcliffe chapters which he could not read
Speaker 1: without shuddering. Anne and William did not have children, and
Speaker 1: they seem to have been very much in love. Two
Speaker 1: years after Anne and William got married, she published her
Speaker 1: first novel, which she did anonymously. That book was The
Speaker 1: Castles of Athlen and Dunbane. It was really not a
Speaker 1: critical success, but it does have a lot of the
Speaker 1: characteristics that would become hallmarks of her work. It opens
Speaker 1: with two warring Scottish claims associated with the castles that
Speaker 1: are named in the title, and there's a woman who
Speaker 1: has been widowed by the ongoing conflict and takes her
Speaker 1: revenge and then retreats to a quiet life to raise
Speaker 1: her two children. The book then picks up years later
Speaker 1: when the kids are young adults, and it follows their
Speaker 1: exploits which intertwine with the stories of the two clans.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of story points that would seem
Speaker 1: pretty tropy now, like the child believed to be dead
Speaker 1: but actually alive who's reunited with their family as an adult,
Speaker 1: and star crossed lovers from enemy families, the discovery of
Speaker 1: long term captives within castles, complicated lines of title and
Speaker 1: twists of inheritance, and a happy ending. There are also
Speaker 1: a lot of flashes of lightning and decaying structures, things
Speaker 1: that really evoke a mood of spookiness in their descriptions
Speaker 1: and set the scene for this Gothic romance. It also
Speaker 1: features one of the things that came to be read
Speaker 1: clear signature style of suspense and terror, so some suggesting
Speaker 1: that something bad is about to happen, only to have
Speaker 1: it be a benign or beneficial thing. For example, in
Speaker 1: this first book, The Angenue, Mary is pursued in the woods,
Speaker 1: and there's a passage that reads, quote the clattering of
Speaker 1: hoofs advanced in the breeze. Her heart misgave her, and
Speaker 1: she quickened her pace. Her fears were soon justified. She
Speaker 1: looked back and beheld three horsemen, armed and disguised, advancing
Speaker 1: with speed of pursuit. Almost fainting, she flew on the
Speaker 1: wings of terror. All her efforts were in vain. The
Speaker 1: villains came up, one seized her horse, the others fell
Speaker 1: upon her. Two attendants, so Mary faints at this point.
Speaker 1: There's also a lot of fainting in these books. She
Speaker 1: faints at this point, and she was vaguely aware that
Speaker 1: she was being carried through the woods. But then when
Speaker 1: she regains consciousness, she realized that the people who had
Speaker 1: seized her were in fact friends. Another key part of
Speaker 1: her writing from the very beginning was detailed descriptions of
Speaker 1: lance and settings that created a really ominous or spooky mood.
Speaker 1: An observation of the landscape is often part of the
Speaker 1: character's psychological development. In a paper written for the Schottenhouse
Speaker 1: Library in twenty twelve. Writer Ruth Facer noted, quote Landscape
Speaker 1: is always more than a backdrop to her novels. It
Speaker 1: is a device through which we come to know her
Speaker 1: characters and through which Radcliffe outlines her theories of the
Speaker 1: sublime and the picturesque. Anne considered this first novel and
Speaker 1: all of her books to be romances. Her second book,
Speaker 1: also published anonymously, came out just a year after her first.
Speaker 1: This one was titled a Sicilian Romance, and it once
Speaker 1: again features a woman from whom choices or property have
Speaker 1: been taken away. In this case, the heroine is a
Speaker 1: woman named Julia, whose marriage has been arranged by her father,
Speaker 1: the Marquis of Mazzini. He is not a sympathetic character
Speaker 1: at all, and the reader follows Julia's search for her
Speaker 1: lost mother and her love of a man who is
Speaker 1: not her fiance as the plot unfolds, and it echoes
Speaker 1: a lot of the same ideas as her first novel,
Speaker 1: and those ideas that further developed her writing. It also
Speaker 1: was not especially well received. For example, a big issue
Speaker 1: was that Anne had never visited Scotland, which figured in
Speaker 1: her first book, or Italy, which figured in her second,
Speaker 1: So her descriptions and details about these places, which were
Speaker 1: often just wrong, drew a lot of criticism. Coming up,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about Radcliffe's third novel, but first we will
Speaker 1: pause for a sponsor break. Anne's third novel was The
Speaker 1: Romance of the Forest. The plot of this book, which
Speaker 1: is set in France, involves a young woman, Adeline, with
Speaker 1: a mysterious past, who ends up in the care of
Speaker 1: a couple on the run from their debt. If these
Speaker 1: are starting to sound like they all have really complicated,
Speaker 1: multi layered plots, that is correct. One of the main
Speaker 1: through lines of the book is an examination of morality
Speaker 1: and hedonism and what it means to be a refined person.
Speaker 1: The villain of the book, for example, the Marquis de
Speaker 1: Monte pontificates with the following ideology quote, nature uncontaminated by
Speaker 1: false refinement, everywhere acts alike in the great occurrences of life.
Speaker 1: It is the first proof of a superior mind to
Speaker 1: liberate itself from prejudices of country or of education. There
Speaker 1: are people of minds so weak as to shrink from
Speaker 1: the acts they have been accustomed to hold wrong. However advantageous,
Speaker 1: they never suffer themselves to be guided by circumstances, but
Speaker 1: fix for life upon a certain standard from which they
Speaker 1: will on no account depart. Self preservation is the great
Speaker 1: law of nature. When a reptile hurts us, or an
Speaker 1: animal of prey threatens us, we think no further, but
Speaker 1: endeavor to annihilate it. When my life, or what may
Speaker 1: be essential to my life, requires the sacrifice of another,
Speaker 1: or even if some passion wholly unconquerable requires it, I
Speaker 1: should be a madman to hesitate. Radcliffe had never been
Speaker 1: to France either, so for her descriptions of these settings,
Speaker 1: she used paintings by Salvador Rosa and Claude Lorraine as reference.
Speaker 1: This really seems to have helped stave off some of
Speaker 1: the critique of her earlier work that hadn't been maybe
Speaker 1: as accurate. The Romance of the Forest was a huge hit. Initially,
Speaker 1: it had been published anonymously, like Radcliffe's first two books,
Speaker 1: but when it came time for the second printing, Anne's
Speaker 1: name was included as the author. Radcliffe's first three novels
Speaker 1: have in common a young character who might be kind
Speaker 1: of a self insert for Anne herself. They also have
Speaker 1: a sense of being very proper and shy, but also,
Speaker 1: they all get happy finales to their stories. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: not doing a ton of literary analysis in these two episodes.
Speaker 1: I can certainly throw you to people in the reference
Speaker 1: list to a ton of it, but it's worth noting
Speaker 1: that she is she does seem to be like making
Speaker 1: herself part of the stories. She followed up those first
Speaker 1: three with Mysteries of Udolpho, which was released in seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety four, and it's very similar in theme and plot
Speaker 1: to her previous work. Once again, it features a young
Speaker 1: woman protagonist, this time Emily Saint Aubert, who is orphaned
Speaker 1: and deals with mistreatment for the people around her. This
Speaker 1: particular book involves what is a seemingly haunted castle. That's
Speaker 1: the Udolpho of the title. So the word seemingly when
Speaker 1: we talk about that Hana castle, is very important here
Speaker 1: because this book is really where she comes to full
Speaker 1: force with another characteristic of her writing. Her work in
Speaker 1: the supernatural and terror is grounded in reality, meaning that
Speaker 1: things will seem as though they are haunted or perhaps
Speaker 1: not even of this realm, but they always end up
Speaker 1: with a rational explanation. Anne is often credited with creating
Speaker 1: the style technique that's called supernatural explained for example, in
Speaker 1: the Mysteries of Udolpho, the character of Emily is walking
Speaker 1: through this very frightening castle which has a great many
Speaker 1: pieces of art, and she experiences something that terrifies her.
Speaker 1: After she gives in to the temptation to look at
Speaker 1: exactly the thing she is so afraid of. That's a
Speaker 1: very large frame that's covered with a black veil. Radcliffe
Speaker 1: writes of this moment before the veil is lifted, quote,
Speaker 1: as she passed through the chambers that led to this,
Speaker 1: she found herself somewhat agitated. Its connection with the late
Speaker 1: lady of the castle and the conversation of Annette, together
Speaker 1: with the circumstance of the veil, throwing a mystery over
Speaker 1: the subject that excited a faint degree of terror. But
Speaker 1: a terror of this nature, as it occupies and expands
Speaker 1: the mind and elevates it to a high expectation, is
Speaker 1: purely sublime. Leads us by a kind of fascination to
Speaker 1: seek even the object from which we appear to shrink.
Speaker 1: So when Emily lifts this veil, she sees so much
Speaker 1: more than she anticipated. It is not an artwork at all.
Speaker 1: The frame is actually an opening to another room. But
Speaker 1: guess what, we the reader do not know what she sees.
Speaker 1: Emily falls to the floor she faints. This scene takes
Speaker 1: place a little over a third of the way through
Speaker 1: the book, and it is not until the end of
Speaker 1: the book, as all of the plot lines are resolving,
Speaker 1: that we learn what she beheld. This is how it's written.
Speaker 1: Of quote. It may be remembered that in a chamber
Speaker 1: of Udolpho hung a black veil, whose singular situation had
Speaker 1: excited Emily's curiosity, and which afterwards disclosed an object that
Speaker 1: had overwhelmed her with horror, for onlifting it, there appeared,
Speaker 1: instead of the picture she expected, within a recess of
Speaker 1: the wall, a human figure of ghastly paleness, stretched at
Speaker 1: it ti length, and dressed in the habiliments of the grave.
Speaker 1: What added to the horror of the spectacle was that
Speaker 1: the face appeared partly decayed and disfigured by worms, which
Speaker 1: were visible on the features and hands. On such an object,
Speaker 1: it will be readily believed that no person could endure
Speaker 1: to look twice. Emily, it may be recollected, had after
Speaker 1: the first glance, let the veil drop, and her terror
Speaker 1: had prevented her from ever after provoking a renewal of
Speaker 1: such suffering as she had then experienced. Had she dared
Speaker 1: to look again, her delusion and her fears would have
Speaker 1: vanished together, and she would have perceived that the figure
Speaker 1: before her was not human but formed of wax. So
Speaker 1: this character of Emily had spent the whole book believing
Speaker 1: that Signor Montoni, who lived in the castle, had murdered
Speaker 1: his wife and then concealed her body in this recessed area.
Speaker 1: The reason that the odd wax figurine is actually what's
Speaker 1: there has its own odd story woven into the text quote.
Speaker 1: The history of it is somewhat extraordinary, though not without example.
Speaker 1: In the records of that fierce severity which Monkish superstition
Speaker 1: has sometimes inflicted on mankind, a member of the House
Speaker 1: of Udolpho, having committed some offense against the prerogative of
Speaker 1: the Church, had been condemned to the penance of contemplating
Speaker 1: during certain hours of the day a waxen image made
Speaker 1: to resemble a human body in the state to which
Speaker 1: it is reduced after death. This penance, serving as a
Speaker 1: memento of the condition which he must himself arrive, had
Speaker 1: been designed to reprove the pride of the Marquis of Udolpho,
Speaker 1: which had formerly so much exasperated that of the Romish Church.
Speaker 1: And he had not only superstitiously observed this penance himself,
Speaker 1: which he had believed was to obtain a pardon for
Speaker 1: all his sins, but had made it a condition and
Speaker 1: his will that his descendants should preserve the image on
Speaker 1: pain of forfeiting to the Church a certain part of
Speaker 1: his domain, so they also might profit by the humiliating
Speaker 1: moral it conveyed. The figure therefore had been suffered to
Speaker 1: retain its station in the wall of the chamber, but
Speaker 1: his descendants excused themselves from observing the penance to which
Speaker 1: he had been enjoined. So, I mean, this is maybe
Speaker 1: a weird thing to do, but it's not supernatural. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we keep a wax figure in the adjoining wall to
Speaker 1: remind us that death is coming. Yeah, but we keep
Speaker 1: it covered up because we didn't actually get that penance
Speaker 1: to have to go look at it. Yeah, the church,
Speaker 1: the Church made us do it. This also brings up
Speaker 1: that a lot of ants writing is considered to be
Speaker 1: critical of the Roman Catholic Church. This is kind of
Speaker 1: one of them. Just FYI. This book was very popular.
Speaker 1: Radcliffe ultimately sold the copyright for it for five hundred pounds.
Speaker 1: That was an immense sum for a writer at the time.
Speaker 1: For comparison, other novelists that I read about were frequently
Speaker 1: getting ten pounds for the rights to their books. So
Speaker 1: this number was so outrageous for many people to consider
Speaker 1: that bets were being placed by people that were connected
Speaker 1: to publishing. As to whether it had been reported correctly
Speaker 1: or not, Sir Walter Scott later wrote of the publication
Speaker 1: of this book, quote, it often happens that a writer's
Speaker 1: previous reputation proves the greatest enemy, which, in a second
Speaker 1: attempt upon public favor he has to encounter. Exaggerated expectations
Speaker 1: are excited and circulated, and criticism, which had been seduced
Speaker 1: into former approbation by the pleasure of surprise, now stands
Speaker 1: awakened and alert to pounce upon every failing missus. Radcliffe's popularity, however,
Speaker 1: stood the test and was heightened rather than diminished by
Speaker 1: the mysteries of Udolpho. It had become apparent that while
Speaker 1: most Gothic fiction and romance was considered to have a
Speaker 1: specific audience, that being women, that Anne's work had gained
Speaker 1: a wider appeal. In his biography of Radcliffe, historian Richter
Speaker 1: Norton notes that often fiction was purchased by ladies of
Speaker 1: a certain station, and then those books would be passed
Speaker 1: down to women on their staff to read, and thus
Speaker 1: Anne gained this devoted following. But in a biography written
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty six, there is mention of the headmaster
Speaker 1: of the Winchester School, doctor Joseph Wharton, telling Anne's publisher,
Speaker 1: that he had stumbled across the book and had read
Speaker 1: it in an evening because he simply couldn't put it down.
Speaker 1: So part of the reason her copyright was so valuable
Speaker 1: and worth so much money was that her work was
Speaker 1: crossing through a lot of the usual audience boundaries that
Speaker 1: fiction and particuarly romantic fiction was partitioned by. There is
Speaker 1: also a unique lack of change in Anne's lifestyle as
Speaker 1: she gained fame. She easily could have started to move
Speaker 1: within high society circles as a celebrity, but she really didn't.
Speaker 1: In a likely overdramatized assessment of the situation, one biographer wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: the very thought of appearing in person as the author
Speaker 1: of her romances, shocked the delicacy of her mind to
Speaker 1: the publication of her work. She was constrained by the
Speaker 1: force of her own genius, but nothing could tempt her
Speaker 1: to publish herself or to sink for a moment the
Speaker 1: gentlewoman in the novelist. She felt also a distaste to
Speaker 1: the increasing familiarity of modern manners to which she had
Speaker 1: been unaccustomed in her youth, and though remarkable, free and
Speaker 1: cheerful with her relatives and intimate friends, she preferred the
Speaker 1: more formal politeness of the old school among strangers. So
Speaker 1: that's taken from a biography that was written shortly after
Speaker 1: her death, probably informed by consultation with her husband. But
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that for a thing not written by
Speaker 1: Anne herself, it makes all lot of declarative statements about
Speaker 1: her feelings. Yeah, we'll talk more about that biography. We're
Speaker 1: about to get to Anne's one and only time traveling abroad,
Speaker 1: and before we get into that, we will hear from
Speaker 1: the sponsors that keep the show going. In seventeen ninety four,
Speaker 1: at the age of thirty, and left England for the
Speaker 1: first time in her life. Even though she had written
Speaker 1: all of her stories in foreign locales. She had never
Speaker 1: traveled abroad herself, but that year she went to Holland
Speaker 1: in Germany. In seventeen ninety five, a book about her
Speaker 1: adventures was published, titled A Journey Made in the Summer
Speaker 1: of seventeen ninety four through Holland and the Western frontier
Speaker 1: of Germany, with a return down the Rhine, to which
Speaker 1: are added observations during a tour to the lakes of Lancashire,
Speaker 1: Westmoreland and Cumberland in two volumes. The opening of the
Speaker 1: book is not about the traveling at all, but about
Speaker 1: her husband, William quote the author begs leave to observe
Speaker 1: an explanation of the use made of the plural term
Speaker 1: in the following pages, that her journey having been performed
Speaker 1: in the company of her nearest relative and friend, the
Speaker 1: account of it has been written so much from their
Speaker 1: mutual observation that there would be a deception in permitting
Speaker 1: the books to appear without some acknowledgment which may distinguish
Speaker 1: it from works entirely her own. The title page would
Speaker 1: therefore have contained the joint names of her husband and
Speaker 1: herself if this mode of appearing before the public. Besides
Speaker 1: being thought by that relative a greater acknowledgment than was due.
Speaker 1: His share of the work had not seemed liable to
Speaker 1: the imputation of a design to attract attention by extraordinary novelty.
Speaker 1: It is, however, necessary to her own satisfaction, that some
Speaker 1: notice should be taken of this. Assis stints, sort of sweet.
Speaker 1: My publisher doesn't want me to put my husband's name
Speaker 1: on the book, but he totally helped you guys. It's
Speaker 1: really really sweet. In seventeen ninety seven, Radcliffe released the
Speaker 1: last work of fiction to be published in her lifetime.
Speaker 1: That was a book called The Italian. There is a
Speaker 1: posthumous book that we will talk about a little bit later.
Speaker 1: The tall, thin monk in the book, named Scadoni, is
Speaker 1: a representation of the Inquisition. He is the villain of
Speaker 1: the piece. The hero is a man named Vivaldi who
Speaker 1: intends to marry a woman his family does not approve of. Scadoni,
Speaker 1: and Vivaldi's mother planned to kidnap Vivaldi and lock him
Speaker 1: away to keep him from his love Elena. Like her
Speaker 1: previous book, anseld the copyright for The Italian, this time
Speaker 1: for eight hundred pounds. Sir Walter Scott wrote of this effort, quote,
Speaker 1: here too, the author had, with much judgment, taken such
Speaker 1: a difference, that, while employing her own particular talent and
Speaker 1: painting in the style of which she may be considered
Speaker 1: the inventor, she cannot be charged with repeating or copying herself.
Speaker 1: She selected the new and powerful machinery afforded her by
Speaker 1: the Popish religion, which established in its paramount superiority, and
Speaker 1: thereby had at her disposal merks, spies, dungeons, the mute
Speaker 1: obedience of the bigot, the dark and dominating spirit of
Speaker 1: the crafty priest, all the thunders of the Vatican, and
Speaker 1: all the terrors of the Inquisition. He also leveled criticism
Speaker 1: at the work, writing quote, on reconsidering the narrative, we
Speaker 1: indeed discover that many of the incidents are imperfectly explained,
Speaker 1: and that we can distinguish points upon which the authoress
Speaker 1: had doubtless intended to lay the foundation of something which
Speaker 1: she afterwards forgot or omitted. Though she largely stopped writing
Speaker 1: fiction after the release of The Italian Radcliffe continued to
Speaker 1: write throughout her life, turning largely to poetry. She had
Speaker 1: been so successful as a writer that it seemed surprising
Speaker 1: to her audience that she just stopped publishing. But Anne
Speaker 1: did that thing that so many of us talk about
Speaker 1: and never actually get to do. She made enough money
Speaker 1: to live comfortably, and then she also inherited a little
Speaker 1: bit of money, and then she used her time to
Speaker 1: travel around Britain with her husband and their dog Chance.
Speaker 1: She loved music, She attended the opera regularly. She just
Speaker 1: lived what sounds like a pretty great life of retirement.
Speaker 1: But there are many angles and theories about why she
Speaker 1: stopped publishing, both during her time and in more modern
Speaker 1: looks at her life. We will talk about those and
Speaker 1: a distressing event that came to her attention after she
Speaker 1: had retired. Next time done, Dun Dunn. I have a
Speaker 1: very fun email that also comes with a personal story afterwards.
Speaker 1: Because the email is great and it reminded me of
Speaker 1: something and then I couldn't stop laughing. This is from
Speaker 1: our listener, Kate and the absolutely Gorgeous Coco. Kate writes, Hi,
Speaker 1: Holly and Tracy, I'm catching up on episodes and just
Speaker 1: listen to the one on Sunscreen. My family spends lots
Speaker 1: of time outdoors and we all love upf clothing as
Speaker 1: added protection when we inevitably forget to reapply our sunscreen.
Speaker 1: Animals included. My horse, Coco is a Pinto with very
Speaker 1: sensitive pink skin under all her white hair. I thought
Speaker 1: you might get a giggle from these photos of her
Speaker 1: decked out in her upf sheet and mass to protect
Speaker 1: from sunburn and flies with her mule buddies Molly and Clover.
Speaker 1: The muzzle over Coco's nose is to limit the amount
Speaker 1: of grass she can eat, as she also has a
Speaker 1: tendency to get a bit chunky. Altogether, it looks like
Speaker 1: she's ready for a spacewalk or something. On another subject,
Speaker 1: I meant to write about ages ago milkweed. I love
Speaker 1: gardening and supporting pollinators, but urged caution. With spreading milk
Speaker 1: weed seeds around, it's often fatal to horses. As little
Speaker 1: as zero points zero zero five percent body weight consumption
Speaker 1: considered a toxic dose. Horses eat about two percent of
Speaker 1: their bodyweight a day. For reference, we battle many toxic
Speaker 1: plants in our pastures, milkweed and other podcast subject whilst
Speaker 1: snakeroot among them. Thanks for all the entertaining and informative
Speaker 1: episodes they make Farm chores much more enjoyable. Katie and Coco. Okay,
Speaker 1: Coco's the cutest thing on the planet. I saw this email,
Speaker 1: I was so excited. I love it. I did not
Speaker 1: know that about milkweed at all, so I'm super glad.
Speaker 1: She included that you may recall when we talked about butterflies,
Speaker 1: we had suggested that milkweed will help with their habitats.
Speaker 1: So if you do plant milkweed, be careful and try
Speaker 1: to keep it places where a horse would not be.
Speaker 1: Ours is in a like a big garden tub in
Speaker 1: the on the deck, so I don't think a horse
Speaker 1: would get up there. If it did, there are other
Speaker 1: problems going on. But this is why this made me
Speaker 1: laugh so hard. And it's a personal story that has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this show, but it's so funny
Speaker 1: that I felt like I should share it. So we
Speaker 1: used to have a we have talked about on the
Speaker 1: show many times, mister Burns, who was a Devin Rex,
Speaker 1: which means he has short, curly hair and he has
Speaker 1: he had coat break on his tummy, so his tummy
Speaker 1: was pretty much just his bald skin. And I also
Speaker 1: used to write trying to think of the most careful
Speaker 1: way I can ward all of this so no one
Speaker 1: gets mad at me. I used to write sewing blogs
Speaker 1: for a big company like Little how To's, and one
Speaker 1: of the ones that I wrote was a little T
Speaker 1: shirt you could make for a cat, because I had
Speaker 1: made a T shirt for mister Burns which was very
Speaker 1: cute and he loved it. And I got so much
Speaker 1: hate mail from that blog because people told me I
Speaker 1: was abusing my cat and it cracked me up because
Speaker 1: I eventually had to post on like that company's social media,
Speaker 1: mister Burns gets sunburns on his tell me he actually
Speaker 1: needs to wear some club right, But everyone thought I
Speaker 1: was a horrible animal abuser. So listen. The internet is
Speaker 1: full of people who want to tell you what to
Speaker 1: do and be mad at you. But what I want
Speaker 1: to tell you what to do is keep loving Cocos
Speaker 1: a cute yeah, ever, very cute. And I'm so thankful
Speaker 1: that you know she has a great life and is
Speaker 1: being incredibly well caredful obviously, so Cocoa, you sweet baby.
Speaker 1: And you know some animals get sunburns. They I don't
Speaker 1: think people think about that very often, Like we think
Speaker 1: animals are natural creatures that live in nature. They have
Speaker 1: all their stuff sorted out by evolution. No, not necessarily.
Speaker 1: There are animals that can get sunburns and all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff. I had the cat that I grew up with,
Speaker 1: who was an outdoor cat, which is not something I
Speaker 1: would do now, got a sunburn on her nose and
Speaker 1: U It was actually pretty scary because we didn't really
Speaker 1: know what was happening at first. It was like she
Speaker 1: kept re irritating it. So yeah, yeah, mister burns indoor only.
Speaker 1: But he would lie on his back. He really loved
Speaker 1: to be hot, and he would lie on his back
Speaker 1: with his legs splayed out, with his tummy exposed and
Speaker 1: the sun the sun in front of what was in
Speaker 1: our old apartment, a sliding glass door that did not
Speaker 1: really have like a UV coating on it, And he
Speaker 1: got sunburn once, and I was like, okay, we got
Speaker 1: to address this problem. There are lots of breeds of
Speaker 1: cats that have low coat or our hairless often have
Speaker 1: to deal with sun protection. So stephoy ie. If you
Speaker 1: see an animal in clothes, it doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: their person is abusing them. It's also just fine. In general.
Speaker 1: I wish we as a society would like pull back
Speaker 1: on this practice that I feel like has has really
Speaker 1: spread through social media of always making the least like,
Speaker 1: the least generous, most critical interpretation of every conceivable thing. Yes,
Speaker 1: I would like it if we as a society did
Speaker 1: not do that anymore and instead maybe extended people that
Speaker 1: would not even the benefit of the doubt, like you
Speaker 1: just don't even need to go scream at that stranger
Speaker 1: on the internet about that shirt that they made. How
Speaker 1: will they not know? And that I know better than
Speaker 1: everyone if I don't yell at them online. Anyway, this
Speaker 1: turned into a PSA you may not have been expecting
Speaker 1: at the end of Anne Radcliffe, but here we are.
Speaker 1: If you would like to write to us, maybe tell
Speaker 1: me I abused mister Burns by putting a T shirt
Speaker 1: on him. Listen, that thing was black, it had pink stars.
Speaker 1: He felt very pretty. You could do that as at
Speaker 1: History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find
Speaker 1: us on social media as missed in History, and if
Speaker 1: you have not subscribed to this show yet, we encourage
Speaker 1: you to do that. You can do that on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Stuff you missed in History class is a production of iHeartRadio.
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