Fashion Plates Galore!

I just realised I've been a bit bad at sharing some of the truly awesome resources out there and thought I'd remedy that, by letting you in on a pretty little secret - Collection Maciet.

Source: Collection Maciet, Mode. [XIXe siècle]. 1886

It is hosted by Les Arts Décoratifs, which is a private not-for-profit association and recognized as being in the public interest under French law. It originated in 1882, in the wake of the Universal Exhibitions, when a group of collectors banded together with the idea of promoting the applied arts and developing links between industry and culture, design and production. Thus, it is a thoroughly Victorian product which in itself is rather nice, n'est-ce pas?

That's all very well, you're saying now, but what is it good for? Why, old chap, says I. Fashion, of course! Lots and lots of fashion!

Source: Collection Maciet, Mode. [XIXe siècle]. 1842 à 1843, image 10

You see, the Collection Maciet contains a great number of fashion plates, going back to the 18th century and up to 1940. Well, they have later stuff too, but it's not available online, and, anyway, that's not what we're her for, is it? No, we want the 19th century stuff, right? No worries. There's plenty of that to be had.

The trick, however, is that the search function is in French. If you speak the lovely language of Molière and Racine, that's fine of course, but if you don't it's not entirely simple how to find what you are looking for. Because of that, I thought I'd provide a short guide.

Go here, and pick Consulation du Catalogue (or click that link obviously, but I wanted you to be able to hack it for yourselves without having to start here, appreciated that your visit is). Then pick "Recherche simple". If it isn't obvious, it means "simple search". You then get this menu:

Do what I have done here - fill in "mode" under Termes de recherche and select "Album Maciet". Then click Rechercher and you'll get a list of fashion related material, in chronological order. Scroll down to the years you are interested in. Say you want the fashions for 1868, for example. Just scroll down until you find the listing Mode : [XIXe siècle] : 1868 .- ... .- [éditeurs divers] .- 1868 .- Collection Maciet. Click the number next to the listing and you get this window:

Click "Voir les vignettes Maciet" and you get all the images as thumbnails. Select the ones that look interesting and enjoy - you can zoom rather far and also adjust contrasts and lighting, so you won't miss a single detail.

Source: Collection Maciet, Mode. [XIXe siècle]. 1868, image 2

Hope it proves useful to you. If nothing else, there's plenty of eye candy for the Victorian-ly inclined!

George Gissing; Or, Fact Is Indeed Sometimes Stranger Than (Credible) Fiction

George Gissing (source: Wikipedia)

 George Gissing was born in the year of the Indian Uprising and although he survived Queen Victoria by two years, dying in 1903, he is almost the epitome of a Victorian writer, not only in that his books are unmistakably  Victorian in flavour, but also because his personal life contained all the elements of prime Victorian melodrama.

The son of a Yorkshire pharmacist, young George showed promise and scholarly aptitude. However, his budding career in the academic field came to a rather sudden halt at a young age, after he became more or less obsessed with a young prostitute named Nell (she was an orphan, naturally - how could it be a Victorian melodrama otherwise?). Having ruined himself trying to keep her off the streets, he began stealing from his fellow students, but was soon exposed (the shame! the shame!) and sentenced to a month of hard labour.

He tried to get a fresh start in America, but he soon returned to England, propelled by the twin forces of financial failure and longing for his Nell, whom he married. It wasn't a successful marriage (I don't think you can label a marriage in which one party engages in prostitution and that ends with separation and the wife dying from alcoholism and/or syphilis as "successful" even if you try) but at least the 1880s saw the beginnings of his writing career – he was first published in 1880 and kept up a decent productivity with seven more novels published in that decade and 12 in the next.

He remarried in 1891, and to hear his friend H.G Wells tell it, the screening process was rather erratic – he simply picked up a servant girl in Regents Park one Sunday afternoon and married her. His reasons were, according to Wells, splendidly Victorian:

"he felt that to make love to any woman he could regard as a social equal would be too elaborate, restrained and tedious for his urgencies, he could not answer questions he supposed he would be asked about his health and means, and so, for the second time, he flung himself at a social inferior whom he expected to be easy and grateful."

This is obviously not a sound basis for married bliss, and so, rather predictably, the marriage was yet another failure. Mrs Gissing's violent and erratic behaviour led firstly to their children being sent away for their safety, and finally, to her being committed to a lunatic asylum in 1902 (yes, that's one wife who was a prostitute and another who went mad, albeit not hidden in the attic, which gives Mr Gissing 8/10 on the Victorian melodrama scale).

To make it even better, Gissing was, according to Wells, "an extremely good-looking, well-built man, slightly on the lean side, blond, with a good profile and a splendid leonine head" (yes, it's hard to tell behind that moustache, I agree, but we'll have to trust Mr Wells on this one). No wonder then that his insane wife should not keep him from scoring yet again – this time with a Frenchwoman, with whom he lived in "psuedo-marriage" until his death. Even that was suitably novel-esque – he died from pneumonia originating from a cold caught on a winter walk (he had emphysema and was thus in poor shape to begin with). It seems his final relationship was only just better than his former ones, and Wells gives poor Gissing a rather depressing epigraph:

"So ended all that flimsy inordinate stir of grey matter that was George Gissing. He was a pessimistic writer. He spent his big fine brain depreciating life, because he would not and perhaps could not look life squarely in the eyes,—neither his circumstances nor the conventions about him nor the adverse things about him nor the limitations of his personal character."

Gloomy, isn't it? If you don't trust Mr Wells' word, you can become personally acquainted with Mr Gissing's writing, since most of his novels can be found online these days.

If you don't know where to start, the most well-known of his books is New Grub Street, followed by Odd Women.  His style is generally realistic, close to documentary, but at the same time, he was an idealist, deeply in love with the Classical world, and his political stance was certainly not that of a reformer – he looked at the lower classes as doomed and mostly unable to reform. The Nether World is especially bleak, being written after Nell's death and describing the life of London's poor. Not a feel-good author, certainly, but a good choice for a close and unsentimental look at Victorian Britain.

Workers in the Dawn (1880)
The Unclassed (1884)
Isabel Clarendon (1885)
Demos (1886)
Thyrza (1887)
A Life's Morning (1888)
The Nether World (1889)
The Emancipated (1890)
New Grub Street (1891)
Denzil Quarrier (1892)
Born In Exile (1892)
The Odd Women (1893)
In the Year of Jubilee (1894)
Eve's Ransom (1895)
The Paying Guest (1895)
Sleeping Fires (1895)
The Whirlpool (1897)
The Town Traveller (1898)
The Crown Of Life (1899)
By the Ionian Sea (1901)
Our Friend the Charlatan (1901)
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (1903)
Will Warburton (1905)   

Enjoy!

Tragic Romance: The Story of Elvira Madigan

Elvira Madigan (Wikipedia

In 1888, the Madigan Circus visited the small Swedish town of Kristianstad. There, the young tightrope walker Elvira Madigan, the step-daughter of the circus' owner, met and fell in love with the considerably older Lieutenant Count Sixten Sparre.  Since he was already married and had two children, it was inappropriate to say the least, and during the exchange of passionate letters that followed the meeting, Elvira's mother and step-father did their best to dissuade her.

Love, however, isn't just blind, but infinitely stupid as well, and so, in 1889, when Sixten asked her to, she ran away and joined him. They travelled together to Elvira's home-country Denmark (her real name was Hedvig Olsen) where they lived together until they ran out of funds.

Lieutenant Count Sixten Sparre (Wikipedia)

By then, their situation was desperate; Sixten's family refused to help him and he was wanted for deserting his regiment. Faced with financial ruin, disgrace and without any recourse from friends or family, the future was beyond bleak.

On 20 July, 1889, the couple packed a picnic bag and declared they were going on an outing to Norreskøv. There, they had a final meal, after which Sixten shot Elvira, and then killed himself with his service revolver.

The story naturally caused a scandal when it became public knowledge. A penny-sheet ballad was written about the affair, and I think to this day most Swedes know at least the first verse of it – it was one of those horribly moving songs that made me cry as a child (I loved those). The story has also been filmed on several occasions. The most famous version is the heart-breakingly beautiful film by Bo Widerberg from 1967. It rather famously used  Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 as a theme song – the piece is sometimes referred to as "Elvira Madigan" today though I'm sure many people have no idea why.

Tommy Berggren as Sixten Sparre and Pia Degermark as Elvira Madigan in the 1967 film

If you haven't seen it, I heartily recommend it – it's available on Amazon among other places.

(this is a modified version of a post that first appeared on my old blog)

Wilkie Collins Journal Online

Public domain image (source)

For those interested in Victorian literature in general and the great Wilkie Collins specifically, The Wilkie Collins Journal, formerly The Wilkie Collins Society Journal, has recently been relaunched as an on-line, open access, peer-reviewed resource. It contains both articles on Collins-related topics and reviews, and can be found here: http://acc.wilkiecollinssociety.org/

I'm going to add the link to the Resources page as well.

In the Valley of the Shadow of Death: Life in the Time of Cholera

Depiction of cholera from Le Petit Journal, 1 Dec, 1912 (image from Wikipedia)

In circling dances so lightly swinging  

You follow wildly amusement's thread,
With myrtle blooming and music ringing ...  

But solemn I on the threshold tread:  

— The dance is checked

And the clang is wailing,  

The wreath is wrecked  

And the bride is paling:

The end of splendor and joy and might
Is only sorrow and tears and blight.

I am the mighty, who has the power,  

Till yet a mightier shall appear. 

In deepest pit, on the highest tower,  

My chilling spirit is ever near:  

Those plagues of night  

And of desolation,  

Whose breath of blight  

May annul a nation,  

They slay the victims, which I select,  

Whom shield and armor can not protect.

Johan Olof Wallin, 1834 (translation by A.W. Almqvist)

These lines were written during the first cholera epidemic ever in Sweden in 1834, by J.O. Wallin, minister, orator, poet and Archbishop, and the sentiment is echoed in thousands of accounts from across the world. Cholera struck quickly and fatally, and entire communities succumbed as if an avenging angel had walked from door to door.

Most likely originating in India, the first known pandemic began in the Bengal region of India in 1817and spread across Southeast Asia, China, Japan, the Middle East, and southern Russia. In 1827, the first epidemic occurred in Europe and America and lasted until 1835. After that, cholera, nicknamed "Jack Morbius" in English, was a recurring and deadly guest for most of the 19th century.

Initially, no one knew how it was caused or transmitted, and the advice given was therefore inadequate and erroneous. The New York Health Board advocated temperance in food and drink, while among the British troops in India, rumour had it that the men who went on drinking heavily had the best chance of recovery. Usually, ventilation was advocated since it was assumed that the disease was airborne. In Flora Anne Steel's The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook, first published in 1888, it is claimed that cholera is often "enveloped in damp clouds" why living on mountain ridges is not recommended. She also suggests cutting down "rank vegetation" as "it harbours dirt, and emits injurious gases".

In fact, Dr John Snow had established a connection between cholera and contaminated drinking water already in 1854, and suggested that contamination from human sewage had been the cause of the London epidemic in 1854. In 1883, five years before Flora Steel's book was published, Robert Koch identified the bacteria responsible, vibrio cholerae, through a microscope.

Vibrio cholerae can survive for extended periods in cold, clean water but rarely survives in foodstuff. Humans are usually the only living hosts for the cholera bacteria, and it is primarily spread through the contamination of drinking water by human fecies. The critical dose - ie the amount of bacteria required in order for the victim to be ill -  is fairly high, which means that any epidemic will have a fairly large amount of symptom-free carriers, which helps spreading the disease.

Undernourished people are more likely to catch the disease, as are people with low amount of acid in their stomach, since the bacteria is vulnerable to acidic conditions. Flora Steel claims that the acid treatment is the most successful, and she gives several recipes for different acidic cures - the most basic being the one she claims is used by tea coolies which consisting of a tablespoon each of vinegar and Worcester sauce.

The incubation time can vary from a few hours to five days, but in most cases it is 2-3 days. The symptoms start with acute bowel pains and profuse watery diarrhea (up to about 20 litres a day and sometimes described as "rice water"). Vomiting occurs occasionally, but is not common. Due to the dehydration caused by the diarrhea, circulation collapse frequently follows and untreated epidemics have a death rate of about 50%. The primary treatment is rehydration; i.e. replacing the lost fluid and salts. With the proper rehydration treatment, casualties may be brought as low as 1%.

Though such a frequent and efficient killer, cholera is rather under-represented as a killer in fiction (compare it with the frequent application of "the cough of death"in books and films, for example). I suppose the main reason is the complete lack of romanticism and dignity in voiding your body of 20 litres of diarrhea in a few hours. For realism though, it can hardly be beat as it was the cause of a staggering number of deaths over the 19th century, and it can be used as a handy little mors ex machina for anyone writing fiction set in the Victorian period. Also, the vast host of victims across the world deserves some sort of tribute I think, even if their deaths lacked cinematic appeal.

As consciousness of the importance of proper water hygiene grew over the 19th century, the cholera outbreaks grew less and less frequent, but mortality in the recorded cases remained high. Even today, cholera outbreaks cause a number of deaths around the world, most often in poor regions with severe water shortage. It also tends to appear following natural catastrophies, such as the earthquake in Haiti in 2010. A donation to an aid organisation for the purpose of supplying refugee camps and disaster areas with clean water is therefore strongly encouraged!


Special thanks to the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control for great and precise information!

Review: The Ruling Caste by David Gilmour

Full title: The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj (non-fiction) 
Writer: David Gilmour
First published: 2005
Available: digitally on Amazon and possibly in a library near you (I used both options as the pictures and extremely helpful sketch over the organisation of the Indian administration wasn't included in the Kindle version)

Quote: "Their ethos is portrayed in Kipling's story 'The Head of the District' in the persons of Orde, who on his deathbed by the Indus remembers that four villages need a remission of rent because their crops have been poor, and of Tallantire, who defeats a tribal rebellion and brings order to the district after the Indian Civilian has run away."

The Ruling Caste is an ambitious book. Gilmour states in the preface that his aim is to show how the senior Civil servants of Victorian India lived from chota hazri to sundown and to portray not only their careers but their thoughts and beliefs and domestic arrangements. Somehow, he actually manages that rather well, which is a feat in only 300 pages. I have seen several reviews that complain that too many details make it a sluggish read, and certainly, there isn't a page that is not loaded with information, facts and footnotes. However, to me it read fairly easily all the same – I admit that I may not be the typical reader being both obscenely interested in the Victorian world and having a good deal of bureaucratic experience myself which probably made it easier for all those administrative proceedings to leap to life for me  – and the focus is always rather up-close and personal.

Gilmour uses a rather fixed set of characters as the focus of his narrative – we meet and get acquainted with Henry Cotton, Alfred Lyall, Henry Lawrence among others – and mixes personal accounts and letters with official accounts of the India Civil Service in the late 19th century. Therein lies one of my reservations against this book; reading it, as I was, for the express purpose of research, it was a little annoying to have the dates occasionally obfuscated, especially since Gilmour also points out that the organisation and attitudes of the ICS was not static but evolving over the period. Despite that, there are sections where accounts as far apart as 50 years are treated side-by-side and the time-gap is only visible if you actually check the footnotes. Also, you may quirk an eyebrow at finding quotes etc. from the teens and 20s in a book that has "Victorian" in the title, but seeing as I do the same thing here, I'm not really at liberty to criticise a slightly wider interpretation of the Victorian era.

It is a fascinating world Gilmour describes; utterly different from the modern bureaucracy and yet strangely familiar. His Civilians work, dream, win promotions and marry until, finally, most of them slip into oblivion as pensioners reminiscing about "the good old days" in a rather suburban atmosphere in South Kensington. The book is a treasure trove for a novelist, because it tells you so much about the mundane life and attitudes of the British Raj precisely because of it's obsessive unfolding of details, and David Gilmour's love for his subject shines through on every page. While making for an entertaining read, that fondness is also the reason for my second big reservation about this book – there is a strong bias pro-ICS/Britain that sometimes shines through. While mostly providing a rather sober look at the British Civilian, there are places when Gilmour leaps to the defence of the ICS in a rather jarring way (he clearly loathes A Passage To India, for example). It's a pity, because these almost chauvinistic little outbursts mar an otherwise brilliant and detailed study, and makes me question if there is an underlying bias that tilts the entire narrative. That nagging doubt makes me a little wary about trusting it too much, which detracts a little from its usefulness.

Nevertheless, it is still a fascinating read and recommended for anyone interested in the subject.

I gave it 4/5 on Goodreads.

Life in the Khyber: The Warrior, His Mother & Her Husband

Peshawar street scene, 19th century

"Strange events occur in the history of these frontier tribes. Outsiders will hardly credit some of the stories told, but numbers of reliable witnesses can testify to the veracity of the following one. Amongst Afridis and Pathans the disposal of a widow lies in the hands of the nearest relation to her deceased husband. If the son is of age, of course he is first consulted; but an Afridi mother with a grown son is not often of much cash value in the Khyber market. If, on the other hand, the woman is attractive and the son very young, the deceased husband's bother, should he be the guardian, either marries her himself or sells her to someone else. The widow of a Zakha Khel Afridi at Karamna in the Bazir Valley, found herself in this unhappy predicament;she had a young son, and an exceedingly objectionable brother of her husband to claim her in marriage or to dispose of her for cash. She therefore took the matter into her own hands, and fled to the country of the Mullagoris, and married a man of her own choice. /.../

[T] he Mullagori who married the widow from Karamna had no idea that she had left a young son on going to him, or, if he had, the recollection had passed out of his mind. The son, on the other hand, grew up, and nourishing his wrath, looked forward to a meeting with his stepfather, having taken care to make himself acquainted with his appearance. He was in the Khyber Jazailchies at Landi Kotal when one day he saw the man who had married his mother, and he followed him rifle in hand. The Mullagori, seeing that he was followed,a sked the young man where he was going, and in reply the latter pointed to the Shinwari village not very far away. The older man was put off his guard, and as he was passing some rough ground the younger individual knelt down and fired his piece at him, inflicting a slight flesh wound. Drawing out his long Afridi knife the wounded man chased the treacherous lad, who was unable to reload, into the Shinwari village, whose residents ecured both persons and prevented further damage being done. The Mullagori complained that, without any just cause or reason the young man had tried to murder him close to the Shinwari village. Having heard the charge the Zakha Khel shouted "No cause or reason! Did you not wed my mother without my permission?"

The Shinwaris took care to let one depart a good time before the other so as to prevent any further attempts on the life of the stepfather by his angry stepson."

Eighteen Years in the Khyber, by Sir Robert Warburton, 1899

Learning Punjabi, or, An Englishman's Adventure in the Raj

Public domain image from Library of Congress,  Flickr Commons

In 1883, John Murray published a "Handbook of the Panjáb, Western Rajpútáná, Kashimír and Upper Sind". Not only is the potential traveller given useful information such as not to pit his tent in Bagh (let's just say there was a reason it was named for "tiger") and the truth about Kashmiris ("false, ready with a lie and given to deceit"), but he is also equipped with a short vocabulary and list of useful phrases in Punjabi and Sindhi.

First, the Englishman as taught to count and name the days and months. Encouraged by his newly found linguistic ability he immediately seems to want to address more complicated topics, because he is taught the words for "atom", "ancestor" and "whirlpool". Being English, he will naturally want to talk about the weather and so he's taught to exclaim: "fog!" and "hail!" (likely followed by the appropriate hand gestures; something that will surely make him a social success not only in Punjab but in Kashmir and Upper Sind as well). He is also taught to explain that he has indigestion (always a problem when travelling in the tropics) and if it gets worse, he may draw attention to his condition by shouting "cholera!" On the other hand, if his delicate English bowels manage the shock of being confronted with a whole new continent, he can now order a wide selection of foodstuff; from a meagre "broth" to a full "feast".

However, it isn't until the list of phrases we really see what sort of man we're dealing with.

No sooner has he decided to disembark the P&O ship before he starts:

"I want to go ashore. Is this your boat? Will you take me ashore? What will you charge? These boxes are all mine. Put them in the boat. Is the surf high today? Is there much current? How long will it take to land? I want a palanquin. Take me to the hotel. Which is the best hotel? Take up the palki. Put it down. Put it in the shade."

You get the picture. Apparently, this Englishman never shuts up. He's a walking, talking list of demands. Just listen to him having his tea:

"I like it strong. This is not sweet enough. I like it weaker. Put plenty of milk in. Don't bring cow's milk but buffalo's milk. Do you call this milk? There is more water than milk. Don't smoke the milk."

Source: garconetballon.blogspot.se via Betty on Pinterest

His thirst quenched, Mr Englishman complacently goes on:

"I want bearers to Allahabad. What must I pay? Must I give largesse? Tell the bearers their payment depends on their conduct. If they go quickly they shall be well-paid. Have done with your smoking and go on. As you value your place there will be a torchbearer at each set. Make sure he has an abundance of oil for each stage."

That last one confused me and I admit I leapt to all sorts of unsavoury conclusions (nudge, nudge) until I read in David Gilmour's The Ruling Caste that back in the day when you travelled by palanquin, there would be a torchbearer running ahead of you with a torch fuelled by coconut oil. Now, if he ran out of coconut oil, you'd obviously all be stuck somewhere in the deep Indian night without any source of light whatsoever, so I'm guessing Mr Englishman is trying to prevent that, because, you know, the torchbearer himself wouldn't think of this. He's only a professional torchbearer and all, but, gee, he cannot be expected to have the razor-sharp mind of an Englishman on his first visit to India.

Source: oldmhs.com via Yoshay on Pinterest

As a paternally-minded colonial officer, our Englishman also takes a profound interest in the health of his household. Therefore, he learns to ask - possibly the torchbearer, who knows - things that any good employer needs to know about his hirelings:

"Are your bowels regular? When were your bowels moved?"

What, your boss never asked that? He must not be taking his responsibilities seriously!

Anyway, the cheerful Englishman slash Amateur Physician is now ready to make a diagnosis of his poor servant's condition. Guessing wildly, he tosses out: "Gout. Hunger. Indigestion. Inflammation. Asthma. Jaundice. Madness. Measles. Ophtalmia."

Never mind which really, because the Englishman only knows the word for two treatments anyway: "emetic" and "amputation". If the one doesn't work, I suppose he shall have to try the other.

At the end of this trying day, we can imagine our Englishman sitting down to relax over a glass of wine. It starts innocently enough:

"Give me a glass of wine. Is there red wine or white wine?"

But before long he is once more furiously taking charge of the situation:

"Don't fill the glass so full. That is enough. Bring me a tumbler of water. Cool the wine with salpetre. Ice the water and the soda water."

Even retiring, he keeps up his endless chatter: "Is the bed clean? Has any sick person slept on this bed lately? What was his ailment? Is this a healthy place? Are there any bugs, fleas or other insects? Is there any epidemic in the village? Is there smallpox, cholera or fever?"

I don't know what he suggests to do if there is, since he apparently doesn't react to the answers. One shall have to assume that our Englishman isn't so much worried about disease as he is merely talkative.

Finally, silence reigns over Mr Englishman's surroundings. He is snoring; his huge moustaches moving gently with each rumbling sound while he sleeps the deep sleep of the righteous, safe in the knowledge that surely his servants must be in awe of his his wonderful linguistic skills and that his continued journey through the Panjáb, Western Rajpútáná, Kashimír and Upper Sind will indeed be a pleasant one.

Sex, Lies and Death: The Story of the Yngsjö Murder

Yngsjö is a small and rather insignificant municipality in the southernmost county of Sweden. It's the sort of place most people wouldn't have heard of unless it had been the centre of one of the most publicised murders in the history of Sweden.

Anna Månsdotter

Where it all began is debatable, but a good starting point for the story seems to be the marriage of one Anna Månsdotter to a Nils Nilsson, 13 years her senior, around 1860. It seems that it was very much a marriage of convenience rather than infatuation and Anna had counted on a financially stable and secure future. In reality, however, they ended up poor and debt-ridden. The relationship between husband and wife was strained, and Anna sought comfort in their son Per, the only of her three children to survive into adulthood.

Per Nilsson

At some point - it's not entirely clear when, but likely when Per was still a child - Anna started sexually molesting her son who grew increasingly dependent on her. It's not clear if Nils ever suspected anything - inquiries were made into the cause of his death after the incidents of 1889 but nothing conclusive that pointed to foul play could be found. Either way, after his death in 1883, when Per was 21, the relationship could carry on without outside interference. However, nothing can long be kept a secret in a small community, and soon tongues started wagging about the unnaturally close relationship between mother and son (judging by the number of people who could later testify that it had been their habit to sleep in the same bed, they weren't exactly discreet either). This may have been the reason why Anna persuaded Per to get married in 1888.

Hanna Johansdotter

The young bride was one Hanna Johansdotter, 21 years of age and the daughter of a respected pillar of society, lay judge and church usher Johan Olsson. The idea was that Anna would then move in with her own mother, but when push came to shove, she stalled and she soon came into conflict with her daughter-in-law. The relationship between the two women was one of intense rivalry over the rather vague and quite frankly weak-willed Per, and Anna resented having to share her son with his wife, despite the marriage originally being her idea.

Meanwhile, Hanna, who was genuinely fond of Per, felt she was treated as an outsider and complained of Per's treatment of her to her family. She even tried to get her father to intervene and force Anna to move out, and he promised to help buy her out and build her a new house. However, Hanna soon realised that their future happiness depended on their removal from Anna's presence altogether, and she pushed for selling the family farm and moving. According to witnesses, Hanna had told them that she and Per had never lain together. She also expressed fear of her mother-in-law both verbally and in writing. The day before she died, she is said to have cried and told a neighbour that:

"I am so afraid of Anna Månsdotter that it feels like someone stuck a knife in my breast whenever I see her. As soon as she comes home lately, she and Per shut themselves up in the stable, where they keep conferences. This happened today too. I think they are conspiring against me. I simply don't dare to go home! I even want to scream - because I am thinking of something wicked." 

Her last letter to her parents, seven days before her death ends: "I will not remain in Yngsjö. I have told Per so."

Exactly what happened next isn't known as the only people who could have told were either dead, or constantly changing their accounts. Most likely Hanna had begun to suspect the true nature of her husband's relationship with his mother, or she might even have discovered them in flagrante. Anna would later claim that Hanna had confronted her and told her that she knew everything. Either way, someone - most likely Anna - decided she had to die.

On the morning of 28 March, 1889, a neighbour visited and couldn't find Hanna anywhere. Upon returning a few hours later, he found Per who said she'd likely gone out. The neighbour was sceptical and persuaded Per to look for her. They found the trapdoor to the basement open and Per peeked down and said - quite without any real emotion: " Oh, here she lies, dead from the fall. Oh no, woe me!"

The neighbour started screaming and more people soon arrived. When they helped lift Hanna up the stairs, they nothed a deep red groove around her neck, as if after a noose. One of the local women also notced that she wasn't completely dressed - she wore a shift and stays, but no dress bodice. No one thought to notify the police, though. Instead, they turned to the local vicar and told him of their suspicions. He then notified the authorities and the district doctor who performed the autopsy concluded that there could be no doubt that she had been murdered.

Both the victim's father and several other locals began pressuring Per and his mother, trying to get them to confess. After five days, Per finally relented but refused to implicate his mother. It wasn't until after Per's confession that the police was notified and the first real interrogations were held. The general view was that Anna wasn't just involved, but the instigator of the whole affair, and most of the inevstigation was aimed at proving that fact.

While the exact hows were never fully established beyond the fact that Hanna was killed, either by Anna or by Per and Anna in collaboration and that mother and son helped each other to cover up the foul deed, the "why" seems pretty straight-forward. Hanna had come between mother and son and she did not intend to yield. She had some knowledge, or anyway a well-founded suspicion, of a criminal relationship between them, and so she had to die.

Both mother and son were sentenced to prison for the illicit sexual affair and they both received the death penalty for their share in the murder of Hanna Johansdotter. Anna was beheaded (with an axe) in August 1890, but Per, who had appleaed to His Majesty the King for mercy, had his sentence transformed into a prison sentence. Virtually all their neighbours supported his appeal and when he was finally released after 23 years, they welcomed him into the community with open arms. He finally died from a disease of the lungs in 1918, and is said to have expressed relief at his upcoming demise.

Anna Månsdotter, moments before her execution

Even today, and even internationally, the murder in Yngsjö 1889 stands out as a sort of bizarre, 19th century Freudian tragedy. It's hardly surprising that the case has been the subject of several books as well as being filmed several times. Anna Månsdotter was also the last woman in Sweden to be executed, and as such, she is the object of some interest. Sadly, but perhaps typically, I noted that while both she and Per has an entry each on the Swedish Wikipedia, Hanna, their victim, does not.  I think she deserves better than to be a footnote in her murderers' story.

Sources:

Main source is Yngsjömordet by Yngve Lyttkens, Stockholm, 1951

The images are all in the public domain and full information can be found:

1. Anna Månsdotter
2. Per Nilsson
3. Hanna Johansdotter
4. Execution of Anna Månsdotter


Follow my blog with Bloglovin