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Monthly Archives: October 2007

The Haunted Homes of England,
How eerily they stand,
While through them flit their ghosts–to wit,
The Monk with the Red Hand,
The Eyeless Girl–an awful spook–
To stop the boldest breath,
The boy that inked his copybook,
And so got ‘wopped’ to death!

from “The Haunted Homes of England” by Andrew Lang
(Read the rest here.)

Borley Rectory (shown here) has been called the Most Haunted House in England. Though the house was built after our time and has since burned down, the ghosts must have been around for much longer and reports of their activity continue.

The legend goes that a monk from Borley Monastery had fallen in love with a nun and both were killed when caught trying to elope. Here’s a photo purportedly of a monk walking near a grave on the grounds. Click here to read more about the hauntings at Borley.

The National Trust has just released a list of the 10 most haunted historic houses in England. I’ve been to only one of them–Dunster Castle–but did not see its famous Green Man, alas.

I do love the whole idea of weird phenomena. While touring the area around Loch Ness I kept my eyes peeled–in vain–for the monster. When at stately homes reputed to house ghosts (tour guides often make a point of mentioning them) I kept a lookout but never saw anything. Sigh…

My only possible brush with the paranormal occurred at my first visit to a friend’s Civil War era house in Pennsylvania and it could all just be overactive writerly imagination, since my friend had already boasted of how haunted the house was. I felt shivery the whole time I visited, although I’m hardly ever cold and it was a warm summer day. When touring one of the upstairs bedrooms I got a strong impression of having a young child hanging on my leg. My friend told me one of the most active ghosts in the house was a small boy who often liked to attach himself to motherly visitors. Yes, I was spooked. But that was my first and last ghost encounter and I’m not convinced it wasn’t my imagination.

I still love the idea of ghosts and will probably put one in a story someday. I know there have been a number of Regencies with ghosts in them but have to confess the only one I’ve read was Eileen Putman’s THE PERFECT BRIDE, which I enjoyed very much.

So do you believe in spooks? Have you ever had a haunting experience of any sort? Have you visited any of these famous haunted homes and what did you see? Do you have a favorite romance with a ghost in it?

In any case, Happy Halloween! Don’t eat any more candy than I will! 🙂

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

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Folks who’ve been reading this blog for a while know that I love to talk about covers…


What’s good, what’s bad, what we like, what we don’t like…

What we think enhances the experience of the book, or hurts it…

And whether it’s even possible for a bad cover to diminish one’s reading experience…

Here are a whole bunch of different Pride and Prejudice covers.

(I found them on a neat website, http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk, which has a lot of fascinating stuff on it.)

Which covers do you like? Which is your favorite? Why?

Which do you hate? Which do you think is the very worst? (And why?)

Do you think any of these covers are good enough or bad enough to change a person’s reading experience one iota?

All comments welcome!

And remember — next Tuesday (always the first Tuesday of the month!) is our JANE AUSTEN MOVIE CLUB. Stop by to discuss the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle version of Pride and Prejudice!

Cara
Cara King, author of My Lady Gamester, who can’t always think up something clever to say in her sig line

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 21 Replies

Here’s what you get when I can’t think of a coherent blog topic….

1. In revenge for Megan’s Free Rice link, I offer you the Shakespeare Insult generator, courtesy of my friend Julie. This wonderful website offers you a cornucopia of the perfect insult, like, “Thou pribbling idle-headed wagtail” or apropos of this blog,”(you) speak an infinite deal of nothing.”

I was, by the way, briefly up to level 46 of 48 on Free Rice and I have donated over 2,000 grains of rice. So Far.

2. The BBC website has a lot of interesting stuff on it, not the least of which are listings of tantalizing shows like, The Age of Excess: When Britain Went Too Far, which is about the excesses of the 18th century. If you click on Empire and Sea Power on the side menu, you get all sorts of wonderful stuff, like an animation of the Battle of Trafalgar or The Waterloo Game. Seriously, there are a bunch of intriguing articles on this site. My only complaint is that they do not call The Regency, The Regency, but lump it into the Georgian period as “Empire and Sea Power.”

3. Contrast this website with the BBC America one, which prominently features what’s new on Hex. If you dig a little deeper, however, you can find a British American Dictionary equally as cumbersome, but with the redeeming feature of showing British insulting words.

And that, I believe, brings me full circle!

Is today giving you any reason to use a Shakespearean insult or a British insulting word?
None for me so far.

I’m off to get my hair colored-with-highlights at Vidal Sasson, so I’ll see you later.

Diane-who-hopes-she-doesn’t-use-a-Shakespearean-insult-after-her-hair-is-done

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