Don’t shake your noddle! How to keep her interested, 1680

So, you have finally found yourself a girlfriend. Congratulations! After the faintly traumatic experience of courtship - the dodgy chat up lines, the dangers of womanly wiles, the endless sighing - you might be forgiven for thinking that you are allowed a little bit of a rest. Oh, dear reader - It Is Not So....

The Mighty Power of a Sigh, 1676

Let us take a moment to consider an important but lost art of love – the sigh. Nowadays, very few languishing lovers will attempt to seduce a lady by looking her square in the eyes and forcefully expelling the air from his lungs. In the late seventeenth century, however, this was considered a crucial tool in...

Beware the wife who wears the breeches, 1682

Selecting a wife is a tricky business. The main concern of a merry young bachelor was often that, if he chose badly, he could end up chained to a woman intent on wearing the breeches. And let's face it, there could be little more embarrassing for our seventeenth-century gent than being ruled over by a woman (especially...

A Romp Loving Miss Under the Mistletoe (1796)

Ah, Christmas. For centuries it has been the season of love, giving, and sentimental sickliness of all persuasions. But, let's face it, it has also provided the perfect opportunity for countless lusty young couples to indulge in a bit of festive fornication under the mistletoe. The print below gives a peep at four couples engaged in...

How to bag a handsome man – some c18th advice

As the season of love and festivity is upon us, I thought I might offer a little c18th advice on how to bag the man of your dreams – even if you can't impress him with your inexhaustible fortune. "Good News for Maidens: Or, now or never for handsome Husbands, and the surest methods they...

Advice during the student season: Lock up your daughters!

Detail from 'Bucks of the First Head' by Thomas Rowlandson (c.1785) The streets of Oxford are once again filling with swaggering youths. Around the country other university towns – left to their own devices during the summer – are already faced with the returning swarms of bright young things. Each year, the papers offer their wisdom...

How to tell her you love her, c18th style

In the era of instant messaging and online chat, the modern suitor is only ever a 'winky face' and a click away from declaring his amorous intentions. All things considered, I'd say courtship has taken a distinctly unromantic turn. Two hundred years ago, love tokens offered a far more enduring and emotive means of expressing devotion...

Husband Wanted, Military Man Preferred

Possibly my favourite possession in the world is my little collection of eighteenth-century newspaper scraps, apparently compiled by a Georgian gent with a particular interest in matrimonial adverts (fascinating) and buying horses (not so fascinating). Frustratingly I have no idea who he was, although his few helpful scribblings suggest that he was busying himself with...

Mr Darcy in the United States!

Just a little note to announce that my new book Mr Darcy's Guide to Courtship is released in the US today! Based on the advice of genuine eighteenth-century seduction manuals (with a bit of Jane Austen's most fancied hero thrown in), it is already getting some lovely reviews from Publishers Weekly, Book Page and the...