I fully intended to do a blog on Regency Heroines today, but, alas, I am deep in family visits and never had a chance to do the topic justice. But I want you all to put your thinking caps on and come up with types of Regency Heroines you like to see in books.
In the meantime, here are some images for inspiration:
See you all next week!
Based on last weeks blog, here’s my new list of Regency heroes (in no particular order):
(from my list)
Soldiers
Dukes
Rakes
Corinthians
Impoverished Lords
(from my brilliant blog readers and Elena)
Thieves/Highwaymen
Professor (bookish hero)
Unexpected Heir
Beau (stylish, clever, witty)
Rogue (makes his own rules)
Carla Kelly’s Beta heroes (as katie called them, in a class all their own)
Wellington (courtesy of the Wellington-obsessed Kristine Hughes of Number One London)
Beastly Hero (wounded man, angry at the world)
Any additions?
When I craft a hero, I don’t always know what type he will be. For my upcoming A Lady of Notoriety (read an excerpt here), I had already come up with the hero, Hugh Westleigh, for book one in the Masquerade Club series, A Reputation for Notoriety. In that book Hugh was a hot-head younger brother tending toward seeing the world in black and white. I was not thinking of him as a hero of book three, because, at that time, I thought I was writing a two book series.
Then I had the idea of a book for the heroine, the “lady” of the title–Lady Faville, the sort-of villainess of A Marriage of Notoriety.
I’m writing another series, this time about three sisters whose situation is very similar to the Dashwood sisters in Sense and Sensibility, but their scandalous solutions are quite different than the Dashwoods. This time the story ideas start with the heroines and I simply must come up with heroes who match them. This hero of book one seems to be an unexpected heir/rogue/beastly hero.
Next week I’m going to tackle Regency Heroine archetypes. Put your thinking caps on!
Susanna’s blog post on Friday got me thinking about heroes. I, too, look for images of my heroes and I think the idea of looking at videos of actors is brilliant.
In 2006 I wrote a blog about Regency Heroes, where I pretty much gushed about my favorite type of Regency hero, the soldier, but there are other types which recur in Regency Historicals (including some I’ve written!)
Soldiers.These are my favorite Regency heroes, who, of course, fought in the Napoleonic War, especially at Waterloo. They have strength and bravery. They also have damage from the war, some way the war affected them emotionally, like we talk about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in soldiers today. Why should our soldiers be much different than Napoleonic War soldiers?
Dukes. Dukes in Regency romance, to me, are the “Harlequin Presents” heroes of their time. Harlequin Presents heroes are powerful, wealthy, commanding and seductive. They are used to having their own way–the quintessential Alpha hero. I haven’t written about a duke…yet.
Rakes. We must not forget rakes, those bad boys who have disreputable reputations, but who also have a keen sense of integrity that is all their own. These heroes are fun to write about, which I certainly did in my RITA winner, A Reputable Rake.
Corinthians. A Corinthian is a sporting man. In Regency romance he is the one who is a member of the Four-in-Hand club, meaning he drives his own carriages. He also might ride to hounds, spar with Gentleman Jack in the man’s boxing academy, or fence at Angelo’s fencing club in the same building.
Impoverished Lords. I didn’t know any other way to describe this hero. He has a title or is heir to one or is the younger son, and he lacks money to support his estate or to simply support himself or, in the case of The Mysterious Miss M, support the woman he loves. For the sake of people this hero cares about, he must contemplate stooping to desperate measures.
Of course, we often mix up our heroes, having impoverished lords who were soldiers, or dukes who are Corinthians. That’s part of the fun of it.
Can you think of any other Regency hero types? Which is your favorite?
Carolyn is prostrate with sorrow that the wonderful blog post she fully intended to write for today entirely slipped her mind!!
She promises to do better next week and we’ll all hold her to it, right????
What matter of importance have you forgotten lately? (The number of things I’m in danger of forgetting became so long I had to create a To-Do list)
I’ll bet many of you are doing your income tax returns right now. It is that lovely time of year. Income taxes. A topic that elicits strong emotion and, when filling out the returns, anxiety.
Did you know they had income taxes in the Regency?
Income taxes were first implemented in Great Britain in 1798 by William Pitt the Younger in order to pay for the impending war with Napoleon. It was a graduated income tax starting at 2 old pence in the pound for incomes over 60 pounds per year and rising to 2 shillings in the pound on incomes over 200 pounds.
This income tax was abolished in 1802 after the Peace of Amiens, but a new one was voted in in 1803, again because of the Napoleonic War. It wasn’t called an income tax, though. It was called a ‘contribution of the profits arising from property, professions, trades and offices,’ but, basically, it was an income tax.
Like our taxes, it even had different ‘Schedules.’ Schedule A was a tax on income from UK land. Schedule B, from commercial occupation of land. Schedule c was a tax on income from public securities. Schedule D was tax on trading income, income from professions and vocations, interest, overseas income and casual income (whatever that is!). Lastly, Schedule E was a tax on employment income.
The maximum tax rate seems minuscule to ours in the present day. It was only 5%, but, like all income taxes, it was very unpopular. After its repeal in 1816 Parliament ordered the destruction of all documents connected with it. This was all for show, though. The King’s Remembrancer made duplicates.
Never fear, though. During that time there were many other taxes for the citizenry to complain about. Taxes on windows and glass, on servants, on carriages, on owning a dog (the more dogs, the more tax). And, of course, the tax on hair powder, which did its part in making that practice go out of fashion.
Winner of the Wellington (abridged) biography by Elizabeth Longford, in honor of The Duke of Wellington Tour, is……Louisa Cornell!! Louisa, I’ll be in touch by email.
So, who is having fun with taxes today?????
(By the way, I was quoted in a lovely blog post about Harlequin Historical on the USA Today Happy Ever After Blog!)