Victorians, Vaults, and Violet Water

We’ve ended up in a lot of discussions about classic authors of the supernatural recently. Which is nice. And we do love them, dear listener. Here at greydogtales we especially like to dig out (no, NOT dig up) some of the lesser known ghost and weird story writers. However, we often can’t find our own articles on these folk, due to the appalling lack of proper indexing and tagging on the site.

So here’s a reminder of what we’ve said about some of these fascinating authors. We hope that you might be tempted by some, if you don’t already know them, and enjoy the styles, peculiarities and occasional bizarrities of the past…

(Oh, yeah – we owe everyone some lurcher and longdog stuff, but during August we spend more time walking and running them than writing about those little donkeys. They will return soon.)

Key writers covered in the articles linked below, in alphabetical order:

Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Sir Andrew Caldecott
F Marion Crawford
Amelia B Edwards
Mary E Wilkins Freeman
Katharine Fullerton Gerould
E and H Heron
Jerome K Jerome
Bessie Kyffin-Taylor
Sheridan Le Fanu
E Nesbit
Mrs. Oliphant
Ella M Scrymsour
E G Swain
Everil Worrell

That covers a few Victorians and other oldies from our vaults. As for the third bit…

The Shy Violet

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”

Mark Twain

sweet violet — Viola Odorata by Fritz Geller-Grimm – Own work

If you want violet water, which was splashed over many a classic complexion, we suggest that you:

Fill a large jar with sweet violet flowers
Boil a pint of water, let it come off the boil and tip it in the jar
Cover the jar
Wait a couple of hours and filter the flowers out to leave the infusion
Add a large cup of gin, cider vinegar or similar preserving spirits
Bottle it

Voila, violet water! Good for the skin, apparently, and possibly for children in the early stages of the falling sickness – but we wouldn’t put money on that.

Sweet violets are also edible – but African violets and others variants may not be. Be careful out there!