I was reading along in Kathryn Hughes’ fascinating NYRB review (December 21, 2023; archived) of Hilary Davidson’s Jane Austen’s Wardrobe (I had no idea she was so tall!) when I got to this:
The making of dresses and outer garments was entrusted to a local dressmaker; Davidson points out that the complex construction of the sleeves on Austen’s brown silk pelisse could be achieved only by an expert pattern cutter. This, though, remained a surprisingly inexpensive outlay. When Austen employed a London dressmaker in April 1811 to make pelisses for her and Cassandra, the tradeswoman charged only eight shillings, equivalent to perhaps $30 today. The mantua-maker—or dressmaker, as she was increasingly known—would have kept a pattern of each client on file that could be altered to take account of changes occurring through age, illness, and pregnancy.
Mantua-maker! I ran to the OED (entry revised in 2000):
Now archaic and historical.
Originally: a person who made mantuas. Later more generally: a dressmaker.1694 Mantuamaker.
P. A. Motteux, translation of F. Rabelais, 5th Book of Works Pantagr. Prognost. 2371712 The most celebrated Tyre-women and Mantua-makers in Paris.
E. Budgell, Spectator No. 277. ¶111776 Masks will be..sold by almost all the Milliners and Mantua Makers in Town.
Massachusetts Gazette & Boston Weekly News-letter 22 February
[…]1997 A Coach and Six to go to her Mantua-Maker’s.
T. Pynchon, Mason & Dixon xiii. 143
So I must have run across it when I was reading Mason & Dixon a decade ago (1, 2, 3) but simply accepted it as one of those mysterious olde-fashioned terms he sprinkled the text with — unless, of course, I did look it up and subsequently forgot it. (Surely not!) At any rate, I turned next to the base word, mantua (entry also from 2000):
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