'A Very Pretty Spotted Muslin'

 

In Northanger Abbey, Miss Tilney wore a 'very pretty spotted muslin'.  My latest feature in my ongoing series for Jane Austen's Regency World (May/June issue) is on calico-printing. You will be able to find out more about the lives of child workers in the calico-printing industry in my forthcoming book, Young Workers of the Industrial Age, to be published by Pen & Sword this autumn. 

Images from the author's collection:

Above: Morning Dress, Lady’s Monthly Museum, February 1801. Figure on the right is wearing a ‘printed cotton gown’ with a ‘stone-coloured pelisse, trimmed with fur. A white velvet bonnet, crossed with green velvet bands’. 

Image right: Block printer and tierer or ‘tear girl’. Children as young as six worked for twelve hours or more helping block printers. Charles Knight’s Pictorial Gallery of Arts Vol. I, (c.1862).