dell : a virgin, but one prone to lasciviousness (17th century)
dimber mab : pretty slattern (17th century)
divine monosyllable : a woman’s secret (18th century)
doxy : a female companion, mistress (17th century)
dragon astride St. George : copulation, with the woman on top (17th century)
eel-pot : a woman’s secret (18th century)
end of the sentimental journey : copulation, a reference to Sterne’s book and its abrupt ending (18th century)
fair play’s a jewel : a cockney catch phrase meaning it’s hard to get a break (U.K., 19th century)
fancy woman : prostitute (U.K., 19th century)
fie-for-shame : a woman’s secret (U.K., 19th century)
the flag is up : said of a woman during menses (U.K., 19th century)
florence : pretty slattern (17th century)
fly donah : adroit lady (U.K., 19th century)
fly-trap : a woman’s secret (U.K., 19th century)
fresh bit : a sexually inexperienced woman (U.K., 19th century)
garden : a woman’s secret (18th century)
gig : a woman’s secret, or a woman generally (17th century)
giglet : a young woman, usually a prostitute (16th century)
gone : pregnant (U.K., 19th century)
gordelpus : God help us (U.K., 19th century)
half seas over : drunk (17th century)
Hannah Emerson : a generic name used in various phrases (U.S., 19th century)
hidden sailor : Delia’s own locution for clitoris, derived from “the little man in the boat”
how-come-ye-so : drunk (18th century); pregnant (U.S., 19th century)
in flower : said of a woman during menses (U.K., 19th century)
in the pudding club : pregnant (U.K., 19th century)
jam-pot : a woman’s secret (U.K., 19th century)
keeping cully : maintaining a mistress (17th century)
knocked me off my pins : caught me unaware (U.S., 19th century)
laced mutton : a woman (17th century)
Lady Sneerwell : a malicious spreader of rumors in Sheridan’s play The School for Scandal (18th century)
lareovers : a general euphemism for unmentionables (17th century)
LeFanu’s Carmilla : a short story by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu in which the title character seems to feed off young women, vampire-like (19th century)
little man in the boat : the clitoris (U.K., 19th century)
Madam Van : a prostitute (17th century)
madge : a woman’s secret (U.K., 19th century)
maidenhead jobber : procuress (16th century)
mort : a wench (16th century)
nim : to steal (17th century)
perisher : a derogatory term for a person (U.K., 19th century)
pipkin : a woman’s secret; to crack a pipkin is to deflower a woman (17th century)
priest-linked : married (17th century)
quim : a woman’s secret (18th century)
Raine’s Law hotels : saloons in New York that were made into ostensible hotels in order to sell liquor on Sunday, notorious for providing rooms to prostitutes (U.S., 19th century)
roaring girl : “roaring boy” was 16th century slang for a roisterer. In 1611, Dekker and Middleton wrote The Roaring Girl, a play about Moll Cutpurse, “the fantasticalist girl” who could cuckold a husband and then his wife.
rover : wanderer, physically or morally (17th century)
rum : good, hearty (17th century)
short-heeled : said of a woman of loose morals, i.e., prone to falling on her back (17th century)
smock alley : a woman’s secret (17th century)
snuggery : a comfortable, private room (U.K., 19th century)
Teagueland : Ireland (17th century)
teazle : a woman’s secret (U.K., 19th century)
tip the velvet : to tongue a woman (17th century)
To the well wearing of your muff, mort : a toast wishing a woman a happy consummation of her marriage (17th century)
tool chest : a woman’s secret (U.K., 19th century)
velvet : the tongue (17th century)
winding of the clock : copulation, a reference to the opening scene of Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (18th century)
Wycherley’s rolwagen : in Wycherley’s play The Country Wife, the character Horner takes the wife of another man into his chamber “to show her his China,” where he apparently ravishes her while her husband awaits just outside. She emerges holding a rolwagen, a phallic-shaped vase. (17th century)
zarndrer : a long single curl brought from the back hair over the left shoulder and allowed to lie on the breast. Introduced by Alexandra, Princess of Wales, in 1863 (U.K., 19th century)
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
The End
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
I do hope you’ve enjoyed Fair Play’s a Jewel. The next book in the Harry Reese Mystery series is the novel Posing in Paradise:
In 1905, the great Henry James arrives in Northampton, Massachusetts, to deliver a lecture to the local literati. He is feted in a grand style—and so is the Englishman impersonating him.
In the meantime, a vacationing Harry Reese has stumbled upon a body marinating in an abandoned canal bed. But rather than report the corpse, Harry decides to use it to distract his wife Emmie from her own literary ambitions. Then the body vanishes. Twice.
These two plots, each sufficiently ludicrous in its own right, coalesce to produce a truly remarkable book, one that dares to answer the age-old question: can a man drown in his blancmange?
~~~ ~~~ ~~~
The Harry Reese Mysteries
#1 - Always a Cold Deck
#2 - Crossings
#3 - Kalorama Shakedown
#4 - A Charm of Powerful Trouble
#5 - Fair Play’s a Jewel
#6 - Posing in Paradise
Casebooks Dissembled: Omnibus I
(includes novels #1-3 + four short stories)
Emmie Reese Mystery Short Stories
The Birth of M.E. Meegs
Hidden Booty
Psi no more…
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For more information on the books—including a glossary, list of characters, maps and chronology—please visit my Web site at: HarryReeseMysteries.com
Robert Bruce Stewart
Fair Play’s a Jewel (Harry Reese Mysteries Book 5) Page 24