Why am I doing this?

I suppose at some point I can go into all the reasons I have this deep affection for England and things English.  A natural outgrowth of a major in English literature?  A feeling of being "at home" the very first time I visited, right after college?  All those A.A. Milne books I read as a child (the real Pooh stories, not the Disneyfied pap, with the real illustrations, by Ernest Shepard). By the way, have you read Milne's poem "Disobedience"?  Absolutely terrifying -- and it's a poem for children!  Paddington Bear?  The Avengers?

Ah, but it probably goes back much further than that.  Let's blame Mom!  When I was small, my mother would try inventive ways to get me to drink my milk.  She would warm the milk, dissolve a spoon of honey in it, serve it in a cup and call it "English tea."  I was sold.

At any rate, I grew up as a little bookworm and my fondest hopes were to be teacher and to have a house or apartment with an entire wall covered in books.  I majored in English and went on to graduate school, taught, collected books . . . then took some time away from teaching English after my children were born.  My friend Miriam inspired me to act on a project I had been considering, and we and two other friends opened a small retail business in North Carolina.  When I bumped into one of my former high school students on the street and I mentioned having a small shop, he chuckled, "What kind of shop?  An English shop?"  Precisely.  We carried woollen scarves, travel guides, china teapots and mugs, tea cozies, antique prints, kilt pins, tea, preserves, Digestive biscuits, Marmite, Ribena, Ladybird books for children, toys and puzzles, tartan ties, Norfolk Lavender.  We had Thomas the Tank Engine before "Shining Time Station" popularized him on American TV!  Our customers, a number of whom were British transplants, advised us and requested additional items.  We developed a following.  Although we had a clever name -- "Westminster Alley," coined by Miriam -- many people referred to us simply as "the English shop."  We heard of a couple of Englishwomen, married to American military men, who drove up from Fayetteville, NC knowing only this term; they drove into town, rolled down their car windows, asked passers-by where "the English shop" was, and were sent right to us!

Running  a retail establishment was a terrific learning experience -- about the business world, about our community, about merchandising and marketing -- but the experience of the shop also solidified my Anglophilia.  I wasn't that interested in retail per se, and I did not want a jewelry shop or a clothing boutique or even a regular giftware store.  I wanted an English shop.  And we ran our business happily for a number of years, and were able to travel to trade fairs in the UK.

But I distract myself.  I am sure you are yearning to discover why I chose to write a book about American women in England in the 19th century, aren't you?  Patience.  More soon!