Outside Historic Odessa’s Wilson-Warner House, snow blankets the grass and the December air is borderline frigid. The house itself dates from the 18th Century, and inside is a trove of objects and art celebrating a Regency-era Christmas and the life of Jane Austen, born 250 years ago this week.
Inside the house, Historic Odessa’s Associate Curator, Brian Miller, meets me in the hallway and lights a pair of electric candles on a side table set for winter hospitality.
“It's as if people were outside caroling and now they've come in, they've been invited to have some tea, they've been invited to have some maybe British punch," he says.
This is the first of more than half a dozen rooms looking at holiday traditions of the late 18th and early 19th century through the eyes of Jane Austen.
From the hallway, we move into one of the most important rooms in any Austen novel - the parlor. It’s decked out for the holidays with a small piano, a festive tea set, period costumes, and - over in the corner - a spot for that keen-eyed observer of society, Jane Austen herself. It's a writing table, with spectacles and quill pens - everything the productive 19th Century novelist and trenchant social critic needs.
“This is very similar to the writing table that she had at her little cottage in Chawton, England," Miller says.
While Austen is my delightfully inescapable companion throughout the exhibit, she might be most present in the next room we visit - the girls’ bedroom. Austen wrote a lot - sometimes with just a hint of snarkiness - about the expectations placed on young women.
“Trying to get that proposal, that's in every story," Miller says. "It's all about meeting a man and hopefully falling in love and you get the right match, right?”
There’s a miniature tea set, embroidery practice, and an absolutely enormous dollhouse. And, they're more than just amusements.
"Subliminally, they're learning how to take care of things, with the large dollhouse and stitching, and then taking care of your younger siblings," Miller explains.
Beyond the big themes of Austen and the holidays, there are also some more subtle throughlines that tie this exhibition together. Silhouette portraits, a popular art style, line the walls in most rooms.
And there are folded notes sealed with bright red wax, a nod to Austen’s indefatigable letter writing. Brian Miller, the ultimate detail guy, even got a wax sealing stamp with Austen’s silhouette.
Crossing the upstairs hallway, we come to the high point of the holiday season in the world of Georgian England - the Twelfth Night ball. This room is laid out for holiday revels, with a small stage for musicians, a buffet with holiday treats, and room for waltzes, quadrilles, and perhaps a Scotch reel if one is feeling particularly spry.
“This is your chance to mingle with gentlemen, mingle with ladies, and as you can see, there are the musicians all set up," Miller says. "They have punch already, and then they have the Twelfth Night cake with some tea all ready.”
There’s a lot to see at this exhibition, but now is maybe a good time to tell you about some things you might expect to see - but won’t.
“You notice no Christmas tree, no wreaths. That all comes in Victorian times, much later.”
One thing that our modern holidays do have in common with what Austen may have celebrated though is the food. And for that, we head into the dining room, and employ a little suspension of disbelief.
“They wouldn't have had the dessert course with the meat course and the fish course, but how can we do that? So we have to show it all at once," Miller explains. "So you can see they're having a glazed pear, a mincemeat tart, and then it's all about the wonderful Georgian molded jellies, the meat pies.”
And, to wrap up the holiday feast…
“The figgy pudding that you can see there over near the cupboard would have been lit with brandy, would have been a blue flame," Miller says. "It would just have been amazing to have this sort of culmination of their whole dinner.”
Remember, earlier when we visited the girls’ room, and the focus on preparing demure young ladies to become genteel housewives? The boys room, our next destination, has a very different vibe.
“You notice they're not touching the books. They're not worrying about the wash stand. It's all about having a great time with your cousins, building card houses, being loud, probably obnoxious, eating cookies," he says.
So, we’ve seen the parlor and the ballroom, the kids rooms, the dining room. But there’s one very important group of inhabitants that often gets overlooked. Not so here.
“Here in the kitchen, it's all about the servants' Christmas," Miller says. "So they're having turkey, they're having Yorkshire puddings, English muffins, all amongst tea.”
Fittingly, perhaps the final word should go to our silent hostess throughout this exhibit, Jane Austen herself, who wrote in Emma, “This is quite the season indeed for friendly meetings. At Christmas every body invites their friends about them.”
Delaware Public Media's arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
