Author Archives: Janet Mullany

Becoming a Beach Read

Updated on May 3, 2007 by Janet Mullany

I found out some exciting news last week–my Avon book, The Rules of Gentility, is being released a month early, in August.
(Another excuse to post my gorgeous cover!) So I’ll be a beach read! (OK, that’s my quota of exclamation points used up.)

But there’s a reason, and lest you think I’m going to talk entirely about myself, here’s why: Becoming Jane opens in the US August 3, and the publishers want to take advantage of the Jane-mania that will accompany the movie.

Becoming Jane has just opened in England and in case you haven’t heard about it, it’s a very fictional account of Jane’s formative years and her short-lived engagement to Tom Lefroy. Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy star in a cast that includes Julie Walters, Maggie Smith, and Ian Richardson. The reviews I’ve read indicate that it’s a gorgeous movie–shot on location in Ireland–but with a rather weak story line.

Find out more at Becoming Jane’s official website and there’s also some interesting info at the filmfactory.co.uk (with less fancy downloads and some reviews).

Of course we’ll all rush to see this movie, but tell me what you think of the casting (here’s James McAvoy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe!). And do you think the storyline is too inevitable to justify two hours worth of film, however gorgeous? Who would you have chosen to play Jane Austen?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Becoming Jane, The Rules of Gentility | 13 Replies

Regency Weekend Report

Updated on April 26, 2007 by Janet Mullany

Last week I blogged about how I was about to spend a weekend as a housemaid/lady at Riversdale House Museum’s Ladies Regency weekend. I’m happy to report I had a great time and I now know what theorem painting* is, how to quarter a chicken, and how to play Haymarket (a dice game) and Sept (a card game pronounced set–it’s French for seven), although Faro had me stumped.

Here are some of us in our finery on the steps of the house (note the original sandstone pillars and solid mahogany front doors)–I’m in the middle of the back row wearing blue-gray. The lady to my right with the red gloves drove down from Pennsylvania wearing stays! To my left are writers Kristina Cook (whom I laced into her stays) and Sally McKenzie, and Katherine Spivey who is the Museum’s official Rosalie Calvert (and sometimes impersonates Dolley Madison whom Rosalie loathed).

And we’re finally having good weather at last–I’d been afraid of how I’d keep warm in my silk and was planning to wear a strange assortment of long underwear beneath it, but it was a beautiful sunny weekend. Spring is finally here, and summer is just around the corner, and this coming weekend I’ll be going to the WRW Retreat in Harpers Ferry. Then in July there’s National.

What are you doing this spring and summer? Share your plans with us!

* Nothing to do with math. Creating artwork, usually of fruit and flowers, on velvet with stencils.

I have found work

Updated on April 19, 2007 by Janet Mullany

Dear Friends,

I am happy to announce that I have a Position as Housemaid at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Calvert, Riversdale House, this weekend. They are expecting a large number of female guests, including Authoresses Kristina Cook, Sally McKenzie, and Kate Dolan. My Duties include setting out of Things for Ladylike Pursuits–Bonnetmaking, Theorem Painting, and such–and serving Breakfast on Saturday morning. The ladies will take a turn at cooking on an open hearth, which should prove amusing, and on Saturday evening we allow Gentlemen into our Female Retreat for dancing, cards etc.

Although I doubt we shall use them, I enclose a picture of the Riversdale china (peach and white), two Teapots (for green and black tea), two Botanical Plates and a Silver Spoon, all owned and used by Mr. and Mrs. Calvert.

Fortunately since the house is fitted with the best of Modern Plumbing I shall not have to empty the guests’ Chamber Pots.

No, I don’t know what theorem painting is although I probably should, but I will know fairly soon! This is the Ladies Weekend at Riversdale House Museum, just outside Washington, DC, where I’m a volunteer docent. I hope to have pictures and a report of the fun on my post next weekend. Yes, I will be wearing a gown, which makes me look more fat and bosomy than usual but in a historically correct way. To learn more about the house, built in the early nineteenth century for Belgian immigrant Rosalie Stiers who married into the Calvert family, visit the site of the Riversdale House Museum. And I highly recommend the collection of Rosalie’s Letters, Mistress of Riversdale, on which the restoration of the house is based, and that gives a very vivid portrait of life in federal-era America.

Do you own a Regency gown and have you ever participated in any living history activities? What would you like to do on a Regency Ladies’ weekend and where would you like it to take place? And would you rather be upstairs or downstairs?

(Photo of Butler’s Pantry above courtesy of the Museum and MNCPPC-Department of Parks and Recreation, Prince George’s County, Maryland.)

Posted in Risky Regencies | Tagged Uncategorized | 10 Replies

The pleasures of reading again

Updated on April 12, 2007 by Janet Mullany

Do we all have too many books?

And why is it so hard to give up books that you know you probably won’t read again but you like to know are there, rather like a print security blanket? And then there’s the other category of books that are there because you know you’ll re-read them, again and again. But the odd thing is that whenever I reach for one of those, I always run through an inventory of things I don’t like about the book first rather than an inventory of things I do like about it.

And these can include books about which I’d claim in a heartbeat are my favorites.

For instance, Persuasion. What’s not to like? Yet, here, off the top of my head, are the reasons I don’t want to read it.

It always seems to be raining. (I know it’s not, but that’s the impression I have.)
The silly Musgrave girls.
The tedious poetry-loving Captain. Smack him.
Most of the men are idiots.
I’ve read it far too many times before so there won’t be any surprises.
A cast of dozens, most of whose names I can’t remember.
Far too many walks on which awful things happen.
Anne rolls over and takes it far too much instead of lashing Wentworth with a handful of brambles and/or stinging nettles while he makes snide comments directed at her on the walk with the silly girls.
Why don’t I just watch the video (the best Austen adaption, imo).
I don’t know where the video is, but I do know where the book is, so…

and so on. Yet it’s a book I love, and I know I’ll love again when I re-read it, even though I go into it thinking only of its annoyances. Maybe that’s a characteristic of a book you’ll want to read over and over, because it has imperfections that you can’t, ever, really figure out. I’d say most of my favorite books fall into this category.

How about you? What are your favorite read-agains?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged books, re-reading, Reading and Writing | 11 Replies

Do you believe in fairies?

Updated on April 5, 2007 by Janet Mullany

Here’s my friend the Plot Fairy who has been flitting around the place but not nearly enough.

I’ve also been visited by the Cold Sweat Revision Fairy, who wakes you in the middle of the night to make you wonder if you fixed that eighteen month pregnancy or the three-hour carriage trip from London to York.

Or the Printer Cartridge Fairy who steals printer cartridges–happily I outwitted her this time as I sent my ms. in digitally. And then there’s the Fascinating Detail Will o’ the Wisp who leads you to strange yet irrelevant places like this when you try to do some simple research for a new book:

And then of course I have the fascinating visits from the Dust Bunny, the Lightbulb Imp, and the myriad other strange creatures that haunt me, stop me from writing, and generally make a nuisance of themselves. What sort of things that go bump in the night do you have?