Janet Ross

Janet Ross Janet Ann Ross (née Duff Gordon; 1842–1927) was an English historian, biographer, travel writer, translator, cookbook author, journalist, and memoirist. Quotes From the very first Lucie, Lady Duff-Gordon Lucie Austin possessed a correct and vigorous style, and a nice sense of language, which were hereditary rather than implanted, and to these qualities was added a delightful strain of humour, shedding a current or original thought all through her writings. That her unusual gifts should have been so early developed is hardly surprising with one of her sympathetic temperament when we remember the throng of remarkable men and women who frequented the Austins' house. The Mills, the George Grote Grotes, the James Wentworth Buller Bullers, the Carlyles, the Edward Sterling Sterlings, Sydney Smith, Henry Luttrell (wit) Luttrell, Samuel Rogers Rogers, Jeremy Bentham, and Lord Jeffrey, were among the most intimate friends of her parents, and 'Toodie,' as they called her, was a universal favourite with them. Once, staying at a friend's house, and hearing their little girl rebuked for asking questions, she said: ' My mamma never says "I don't know" of "Don't ask questions." ' Memoir by Janet Ross Letters from Egypt: Lady Duff Gordon's Letters from Egypt revised McClure, Phillips & Company 1902 https://books.google.com/books/about/Lady_Duff_Gordon_s_Letters_from_Egypt.html?id=a1YoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA3 1–17 (383 pages; quote from pp. 2–3; 1st edition 1875, edited by Janet Ross, published by Macmillan & Company; 2nd edition 1876; 1902 edition published with a new introduction by George Meredith) Of Susannah Taylor Mrs. Taylor's seven children, Sarah Austin (translator) Sarah Austin was perhaps the handsomest and most gifted; the extraordinary vigour of her mind and body was almost overpowering, but it stood her in good stead during a long and not over-prosperous life, and was tempered by an excellent judgment and a very kind heart. No one ever appealed to her in vain; and in her old age children flocked round her with delight to hear "Puss in Boots Puss in boots" or one of Grimms' Fairy Tales Grimms' fairy tales, so well and graphically told. Introduction iii–ix Three Generations of English Women: Memoirs and Correspondence of Susannah Taylor, Sarah Austin, and Lady Duff Gordon new, revised, enlarged T. F. Unwin 1893 https://books.google.com/books?id=xawEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR3 (571 pages; quote from pp. iii–iv; 1st edition 1888)      Cabbage (Red) ' alla Fiamminga.'Remove the outer leaves of a red cabbage and cut it in pieces. Put it into boiling water for fifteen minutes, then dry, and place it in a sauce-pan with four ounces of butter, a chopped-up onion, a bay leaf, two cloves, and a little salt and pepper. Boil slowly for about half an hour, stirring it often. When cooked, take out the bay leaf, add a little butter and serve quickly. Leaves from Our Tuscan Kitchen: Or, How to Cook Vegetables 2nd J.M. Dent 1900 https://books.google.com/books?id=ZCkEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA32 32 (150 pages; 1st edition 1899) How many of the travelers who visit Pisa now remember that she is one of the most ancient cities of Italy, and was famous when Rome was but a hamlet? They can see the ancient walls, but can they conceive that in the long history of the community settled between the rivers Arno and Serchio the grey lines of buildings are but of yesterday? They may perhaps remember that a palace of Hadrian, one of the greatest or Roman Emperors, stood where the Pisa Cathedral cathedral now stands; that temples to Apollo and to Mars (mythology) Mars covered the sites of the churches of San Pietro in Vinculis (Pisa) S. Pierino and San Michele in Borgo S. Michele in Borgo; that at the foot of the Via S. Maria grave priestesses of Ceres (mythology) Ceres sang hymns in honour their goddess, who ripened the golden corn which covered the plains from the Monte Pisano to the coast; and that in a temple which stood in the Piazza S. Andrea love-sick young men and maidens presented their offerings at the shrine of Venus and made their vows to the goddess they evoked. But can they realize that in those far-off days, before our Christian era began, Pisa was a city so old that its beginnings were even then half-concealed, half-concealed, half-disclosed, in legends of her origin? The Story of Pisa Volume 3 of Mediaeval town series J.M. Dent & Company 1909 https://books.google.com/books?id=HY8KAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1 1–2 (417 pages; illustrated by Nelly Erichsen; text at archive.org) The great event of my life was my birthday, when I was allowed to dine downstairs, and to invite my particular friends. My fifth I well remember, for Thackeray played a trick on the "young revolutionist," as he afterwards called me, because I was born on the French Revolution of 1848 24th of February. My guests were Caroline Norton Mrs. Norton, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne Lord Landsdowne, Tom Taylor, Bayley, Richard Doyle (illustrator) Richard Doyle and Thackeray, who gave me an oyster, declaring that it was like cabinet pudding. But I turned the tables on him, for I liked it, and insisted, as queen of the day, on having two more of his. I still possess a sketch he made for the Book frontispiece frontispiece of Pendennis while I was sitting on his knee. The Fourth Generation: Reminiscences 2nd 1912 https://books.google.com/books?id=_sQ9AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA13 12–13 (400 pages; 1st edition published in 1912 by Constable & Company; text at archiver.org) Quotes about Janet Ross ... Victor Emmanuel II Victor Emmanuel ... made the move, relocating to ... the Palazzo Pitti Pitti Palace. He formally entered the city in February 1865 ...Two years after this Janet arrived from Alexandria, Egypt, where she had been living with her husband Henry Ross, for the previous five years. Her trip to Florence was planned as a short holiday. She booked a berth on a run-down steamer that took a route out from Alexandria across the Mediterranean to the southern Italian port of Brindisi. From there she went by carriage northwards up the peninsula, through beautiful countryside with hills of old knotted olive trees and swathes of perfumed lavender, beneath a brilliant blue sky. Her plan was to arrive in Florence and stay for a fortnight as the guest of an old family friend and relative by marriage, Henry Elliot Sir Henry Elliot, the British Ambassador to Italy.She had read about Florence, its treasures and its history. She was familiar with its great writers, Dante and Boccaccio, the unsurpassed beauty created by its painters, and the understated order achieved by its architects. She had heard stories of the proud patrician families with their age-old feuds and allegiances — names like House of Medici Medici, Pazzi and Strozzi family Strozzi — and she knew something of the story of Savonarola and how he was burnt at the stake in the Piazza della Signoria. This was her opportunity to witness for herself the history that till now she had only read about in books. Sarah Benjamin (MA in Italian Renaissance History from the University of Western Australia) A Castle in Tuscany: The Remarkable Life of Janet Ross Allen & Unwin 2006 9781740458863 https://books.google.com/books?id=jFI2FmOAl_cC&pg=PA13 13 & 15 (223 pages) Janet Ross was one of those Lady Bracknell-like dragons for whom the word “formidable” was practically invented. Born in London in 1842, she spent the last six decades of her life — from 1867 until her death in 1927 — as an increasingly commanding personage in the Anglo-Tuscan colony around Florence, where she was known (and feared) as Aunt Janet. Ben Downing (writer) Ben Downing freely acknowledges near the beginning of “Queen Bee of Tuscany” that Ross “had her limitations. Though intelligent and learned, especially for an autodidact, she was by no means brilliant. She had little imagination or inner life, and she made no towering contribution to humanity.” Thus the biographer throws down his own gauntlet: Why, then, are we reading about her?Downing, a co-editor of Parnassus (1973 magazine) Parnassus, a poetry review, and a walking Who’s Who of the Victorian era, provides an answer in the form of It’s Who She Knew. And Aunt Granite (as the younger generation called her) knew everybody — or at least everybody who passed through Florence, which in Downing’s telling comes to the same thing. An endless procession of now forgotten artists and writers and social somebodies made their way to her door. Major figures do show up. In 1887, Henry James pays her a three-day visit, although “nowhere in her writings,” Downing acknowledges, somewhat sheepishly, “does she so much as mention James.” Craig Seligman, Who She Knew (review of Queen Bee of Tuscany: The Redoubtable Janet Ross by Ben Downing) July 19, 2013 The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/books/review/queen-bee-of-tuscany-by-ben-downing.html Mrs. Ross laid in our wood, wine and servants for us, and they are excellent. She had the house scoured from Cellar to rook the curtains washed and put up, all beds pulled to pieces, beaten, washed, and put together again, and beguiled the Marchese into putting a big porcelain stove in the vast central hall. She is a wonderful woman, and we don't quite see how or when we should have gotten under way without her. Mark Twain, Letter to Mrs. Crane in Elmira, New York from Florence, Italy on September 30, 1892 Complete Letters of Mark Twain Library of Alexandria 9781465558237 https://books.google.com/books?id=tpRBCHhNbnsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=mrs.%20ross&f=false (453 pages; Susan Langdon Crane (1836–1924) was the older, adopted sister of Olivia Langdon Clemens.) External links audio preview: Florentine Palaces & Their Stories, by Janet Ross YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Fr1U_C8vRBQ Category:1842 births Category:1927 deaths Category:Biographers from England Category:Historians from England Category:Journalists from England Category:Memoirists Category:Non-fiction authors from England Category:People from London Category:Translators from England Category:Travel writers Category:Women authors from England Category:Women born in the 19th century