Just re-read Heyer’s _Cotillion_ and twice it uses the idiom “eel-backed”–can’t find that anywhere, does anyone have a notion what is meant?
Thanks for the question, Meadow, and for being a Regency Reader!
Contemporary sources show the term was meant to describe a horse with a black ridge from shoulder to rump.
Encyclopaedia Londinensis (1810)
An encyclopædia of agriculture (1825)
However, in the case of Heyer’s Cotillion, she is describing a real life figure of Sir Henry Halford who was in fact often chided as the “eel-backed baronet”:
Annals of Medical History (1921)
He was considered by his contemporaries as conceited and stubborn to a fault (‘Tact and nothing else’ | RCP Museum (rcplondon.ac.uk)) thus earning him the epithet.
Jennifer Kloester covers this briefly in her Georgette Heyer’s Regency World.
This seemed a particular nickname for the physician, which Heyer uses showcasing her depth and breadth of knowledge of the Regency era. I wouldn’t expect to see it referenced more generally, aside from horses, but it does seem a fantastic insult to describe a slippery person with a black or slipper spine, which I believe is the image Halford’s critics were trying to conjure.
Thanks for the interesting journey into insult and I hope you found this helpful!
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What an excellent, thorough answer–LOVE the pics from old sources!
Thank you and thank you for the awesome question.