Oooooh, shiny.

[tenlittlebullets]

It's probably not a good idea to recommend a book I've only read five pages of, but The Parisian Worlds of Frédéric Chopin looks so far like a superb resource for Les Mis-related research. The five pages I've read so far already contain a brief but excellent summary of routes to travel into Paris and modes of transport within the city. (Like, for instance, the difference between a fiacre and a cabriolet, and where the stagecoach terminals were.) The reason I'm taking this as indicative of what the rest of the book will contain... well, look at the table of contents:

1. Paris à la Galignani: An Anglo-Italian Guide to the French Capital for the English-Speaking Tourist
2. Polish Parisians: A People in Exile
3. From Citizen-King to Prince-President: France as a "Bourgeois-cracy"
4. Society and Salons: A "Who's Tout" of le Tout Paris
5. Pox Britannica: The Great Epidemic of Anglomania
6. Musical Currents along the Seine: From Concert Halls to Dance Halls
7. Opera: A Vocal Art and Social Spectacle
8. Bohemia and the Demimonde: Two Operas in the Making
9. Penning a Profit: Literature Becomes Lucrative
10. Stage by Stage: The Evolution of Theatrical Taste from the Battle of "Hernani" to the Reign of Rachel
11. Delacroix, Daumier, and Daguerre: A "3-D" View of Art
12. "A Votre Santé!": Coping with Poultices, Purges, and the Parisian Medical Profession
13. Visions of a Better World: Searching for Utopia from Menilmontant to the Rue Vanneau
14. The Big Shadow of the Little Corporal: Napoléon Becomes a Legend

The time period's a little later than would be ideal--1831-1849--but the author seems pretty good about noting dates for events and new technologies and such. (Omnibuses made their debut in 1828; the stuff on the railroad is fascinating, but it only dates from 1837ish so it wouldn't be useful except for an AU or post-story fic.)

The Amazon and half.com listings are a bit expensive, but I know I've seen it for less. If I encounter any problems as I read it that would make it not worth the price, I'll be sure to post them or at least edit this post... but it looks really cool.

Comments

[mmebahorel.livejournal.com]

OMG, NEED!!!! Particularly Chapter 2, though I could certainly use all the rest.

I wish I could remember the book Northwestern University had on things like utilities in Paris. It's how I have any information at all about water, that I can make references to the canal, etc. unfortunately, it was in French, so unlikely to turn up for ownership in the US.

[10littlebullets.livejournal.com]

Augh, I want--information on the everyday stuff like that is so stinking hard to come by. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my journal's "paris" tag are the pictures I took of the Musée des Égouts exhibits--one of which had a map of the public wells. The picture I got is even halfway legible. :D

I'm looking forward to Chapter 12. *g*

[mmebahorel.livejournal.com]

I'm getting bookshelves on Sunday, which means I can finally move books out of boxes, and then I can find my notebooks, and then, if I wasn't an idiot, I will be able to find the notebook wherein I wrote down these kinds of things.

It was incredibly awesome. One of those shiny photo page books, and it had modern photographs of the cisterns and sewers and stuff as well as period maps and etchings and all kinds of shiny. I hope I was smart enough to have written this down. At least I got the basics that water was extremely hard to come by in Paris and most people lived far from the public pumps/cisterns and thus had to buy it. Yet another reason Eponine couldn't wash - the Seine was pure shit and clean water cost money. Also, crappy horrid job but entrepreneurial was to tote water into underserved areas to sell. Sadly, that's all I remember because what stuck in my mind was what was useful for Feuilly.

If I can find the info on it, I'll post it. Could be UMD has it. It was in with water and sewer stuff, I think, not with the usual historical France stuff. I have no idea how I found it in the first place. There was some really shiny stuff at Northwestern that I didn't have time to fully use, what with taking actual classes and all :)

[brittlesmile.livejournal.com]

OMG! I want this so bad! Thank you so much for pointing it out, as this will probably be what I get myself for my birthday.

[in-a-greenhouse.livejournal.com]

DO WANT.

[mmejavert.livejournal.com]

This is why it's on my wishlist.