Uncle Tom’s Cabin vocabulary

I had, however, several correspondents, who kept me au fait as to the proceedings of the dear little town.

Elizabeth Gaskell. Cranford (1851)

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it's very refreshing and charming to find someone like yourself who is not entirely—er—" he blushed, searching for a word, "not entirely au fait, shall we say, with ways at Manderley.

Daphne du Maurier. Rebecca (1938)

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He had not the placid, quiet, unworldly air of Simeon Halliday; on the contrary, a particularly wide-awake and au fait appearance, like a man who rather prides himself on knowing what he is about,

Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

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"But," said I, "you are quite au fait in these investigations. The Parisian police have done this thing often before."

Edgar Allan Poe. The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 2

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It is not in the bloodless formulas of the writers of to-day, who say: au fait (for ‘in reality’), singulièrement (for ‘in particular’), étonné (for ‘struck with amazement’), and the like, that we recapture the old speech and the true pronunciation of words,

Marcel Proust. In Search of Lost Time [volume 5]