curricle

A curricle was a smart, light two-wheeled chaise or "chariot", large enough for the driver and a passenger and— most unusual for a vehicle with a single axle—usually drawn by a carefully-matched pair of horses. It was popular in the early 19th century: its name — from the Latin curriculum, meaning "running", "racecourse" or "chariot"^[1] — is the equivalent of a "runabout" and it was a rig suitable for a smart young man who liked to drive himself, at a canter. The French liked the English-sounding term "carrick" for these vehicles. The lightweight swept body with just the lightest dashboard hung with a pair of lamps was hung from a pair of outsized swan-neck leaf springs at the rear. For a grand show in the Bois de Boulogne or along the seafront at Honfleur, two liveried mounted grooms might follow.^[2]

In Northanger Abbey Henry Tilney drives a curricle; John Thorpe drives a gig, but buffoonishly praises it as "curricle-hung". Margaret Sullivan found that Jane Austen's assignment of vehicles to the two men was far from arbitrary.^[3]

Curricles were notorious for the accidents their drivers suffered.^[4] Thus, in the romance novel Miss Carlyle's Curricle by Karen Harbaugh, the heroine inherits the curricle in which her uncle died in a racing accident.^[5]

External links

• The Curricle. Morven Park - Westmoreland Memorial Foundation - Winmill Carriage Museum.
• Landscape Property|Regency|Georgian|history|lifestyle|house | Gigs, Cabriolets and Curricles. Jane Austen Centre Bath UK England: Magazine.

References