'London fashionable Afternoon Dresses', April 1805

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Described in the magazine:
Black crape turban, with jet ornaments; crape dress, with lozenge black velvet trimming down the front; drawn crape tucker, and black velvet shoes.
Two-figure Lenon [leno] muslin turban, with long lappets; the hair straight over the forehead; worked muslin dress, Circassian sleeves; armlets with pebble ornaments; brown velvet shoes.

Events of 1805back to top

Current affairs

Nelson's state funeral is held at St Paul's. An occasion for an outpouring of national grief and patriotism, the grand ceremony built on the cult of Nelson which had emerged in the years before his death.

Art and science

Mary Tighe publishes Pysche or the Legend of Love, a romantic allegory in the fashionable medieval revival style, admired by both Keats and Shelley.
The 'poems of Ossian' are officially declared a fake and a great literary scandal ends as Scottish poet James Macpherson is exposed as the forger of the third century bard's epic works.

International

Battle of Trafalgar. Napoleon's ultimate plan to invade England from Boulogne with 100,000 men is thwarted by superior British naval power. Nelson dies in the closing moments of battle having been wounded by a French sniper, but survives long enough to learn that a decisive victory has been won.

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