Author Archives: Janet Mullany

A Night at the Opera

Updated on February 13, 2013 by Janet Mullany

I do big chunks of writing on Saturday afternoons. That’s when the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts live, and I find it interesting that opera, or the human voice, helps me write. Most of the music I listen to when I write is vocal, for reasons I can’t quite fathom–sure, opera has all that passion and over-the-top emotion, and it’s all about love, jealousy, revenge, murder, and dying twice in a sack.

I find, too, that real, hardcore opera fans are rather like trad regency fans in their enthusiasm and encyclopaedic knowledge. Just listen to the half-time, sorry, intermission quiz at the Met, where a panel of experts answer opera trivia questions.

So what was a visit to the opera like in the regency period? First, you got value for money. An evening at the opera was l-o-n-g, though not in the sense of Ring Cycle long. It wasn’t entirely about the music, although people cared passionately about particular singers and might pause in their card-playing, drinking, or socializing to listen to a popular aria. Then as now, operas featured fabulous costumes and great sets and stage effects.

The major London theater for opera was The King’s Theatre, Haymarket, renamed Her Majesty’s Theatre (its current name) in 1837 when Victoria came to the throne. Like most historic London theaters, it burned down regularly during its history, and the Regency-era version, the second on the site, opened in 1791. It was the venue for the London premiers of many of Mozart’s operas.

A popular star was Giuseppe Naldi, seen here as Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro, which made its London debut in 1812 (although the opera had had an amateur performance in 1810 and its tunes were already well known–the Coldstream Guards had adopted Non piu andrai, one of the opera’s greatest hits, as its slow march in 1787). Naldi, not apparently a terrific singer but popular for his acting and warm personality, was something of a Mozart comic specialist, appearing as Leporello in Don Giovanni (which debuted at the King’s Theatre in 1816) and Papageno in The Magic Flute.

Sadly the King’s Theatre burned down again in 1867, but the Royal Opera Arcade, built behind the theater by John Nash and George Reston in 1816-1818 still survives.

But back to my original topic. What do you like to listen to when you write, or read? Do you have books you associate with particular music? Favorite London theaters, operas, great performances…?

Posted in Music, Regency, Research, Writing | Tagged Giuseppe Naldi, opera, Regency opera | 4 Replies

Round and about the weather

Updated on February 13, 2013 by Janet Mullany

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Originally this was going to be a post about weather during the Regency weather, something I was determined to blog about before the official arrival of spring, although here (near Washington DC) it’s warm and sunny and daffodils are blooming. I did however do some digressions, some of which turned out to be more interesting.

England in Jane Austen’s time was in the grip of a minor Ice Age that had begun in medieval times and lasted up until the mid-nineteenth century–hence the snowy cold winters of A Christmas Carol and the Pickwick Papers. It was cold enough for the river Thames to freeze over completely, which it did for several months in some particularly cold years. In the sixteenth century Henry VIII traveled from London to Greenwich along the Thames by sleigh. What better opportunity for the enterprising merchants of London to set up shop on the river, thus creating Frost Fairs, the most famous of which (featured in Orlando by Virginia Woolf) was held in 1608.

The Frost Fair of 1814 was the last of its kind, and featured an elephant being led across the ice near Blackfriars Bridge (according to one source I found), donkey rides, and the roasting of a whole sheep on the ice. People had to pay to see the sheep roasted and then pay for a portion of “Lapland Sheep.” Nine printing presses churned out souvenir items. This fair only lasted four days until a thaw set in.

The weather, of course, is always a safe conversation topic–particularly if the man of your dreams has appeared unexpectedly:

But it was then too late, and with a countenance meaning to be open, she sat down again and talked of the weather.

That’s Elinor, from Sense and Sensibility, whose keen sense of the appropriate phrase gives her a certain affinity with Jim’s aunt in A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas:

And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim’s Aunt, Miss Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, “Would you like anything to read?”

I have to mention a couple of fascinating sites I came across while trying to find a good Jane Austen quote about the weather (the one I was originally looking for, about a stupendously cold snap in London, is in Emma, I think). There is for your edification, a site with a search function for Sense and Sensibility, and other books too, Tilneys and Trap-doors, and that site also includes the Henry Tilney Fan Site–yes, the man who knows how to wash muslin. Who would’ve thought it.

Any polite comments on the weather, literary examples thereof, or really excellent time wasters online?

Posted in Jane Austen, Regency, Research | Tagged Frost Fairs, Jane Austen, weather | 4 Replies

What are your books about?

Updated on February 12, 2013 by Janet Mullany

What are our books really about? Is there one central theme common to the books you write, or to the books you enjoy reading?

This has been on my mind ever since I and some other romance writers were interviewed for a local news bureau’s story on St. Valentine’s Day. Note that we were all St. Valentine Day losers–there was a distinct lack of caviar, chocolate, champagne or heart-shaped hot-tubs in our lives, and the reporter adopted that arch “I’m only writing about romances” tone we’re all so tired of hearing. Her first question to me–and she didn’t include this in the interview–I thought was the most interesting one. She asked me, in a rather patronizing tone, whether romances were “only about people falling in love and getting married, and about families.”

And I asked her what other sorts of stories there were. I believe that’s what all stories are about, when it comes down to it. Even in Beowulf the monster has a mother. If you’re interested in the whole storytelling-myth-archetypes topic, check out Christopher Vogler’s The Hero’s Journey, or, if you’re feeling really brave, you can tackle Joseph Campbell whose whole area of scholarship was on the subject.

If I had to give a quick definition of what I write about (naturally I have this suspicion that I’m writing about the same people all the time and/or I’m writing about myself, both of which are to a certain extent true), I’d respond that I like to write about people discovering their true identity.

How about you? Do you find common themes in the books you write or the books you find memorable reads?

Janet

Posted in Reading, Writing | Tagged themes | 6 Replies

Near misses with the classics

Updated on February 12, 2013 by Janet Mullany

Last week I blogged about favorite books when I was a kid including at least one writer loathed by teachers. That got me thinking about books forced upon me at school that nearlyput me off the authors for life. And in fact I recently re-read one of them, Cranford, and loved it (thanks, Pam Rosenthal, for suggesting it). I was wondering what other books, or authors, others encountered at the wrong time and place, school or elsewhere, and how you’ve come to terms–or not–with them.

Cranford by Mrs. Gaskell was chosen by educators for its length, I think. It’s a very short novel, mainly a series of vignettes about life among the spinsters of a small provincial English town in the 1840s. I can’t really find any other reason to inflict it on a bunch of teenage girls who were fantasizing about marrying John, Paul, George, or Ringo. We were totally clueless about what the novel was even about or when it was set. I had the vague impression it was set in America, as there was a reference early on to “the railroad” and not railway–apparently an early Victorian term. I think we’d have responded much better to Wives and Daughters (yes, I’m always going on about Wives and Daughters), which is so romantic (but long), and with a decidely modern outlook on mother-daughter relationships. And then there’s always the hero and his famous knobstick in North and South (which I tried to re-read recently but found heavy going).

Continuing the catalogue of literary disasters, we were also inflicted with Silas Marner by George Eliot. Guess what: it’s short. It’s a very difficult book. It’s particularly tedious if you’re trying to guess the inseam measurement of Mick and the boys. Now I think we would have loved the teenage angst of Mill on the Floss (not my favorite), or Dorothea and her toyboy Ladislaw in Middlemarch. Or even the uberhot Daniel Deronda (though he is fairly boring) and naughty Gwendolyn Harleth.

Sadly, Thomas Hardy was represented by Under the Greenwood Tree. I still have no idea what it was about. I remember a lot of smock-clad yokels pontificating away about life, the universe, and everything, and a scene the teacher (bless her heart) described as being extremely risque, when the heroine appears at an open window with her hair down (the hopeless tart). It’s so sad. To think we could have had the rampant romanticism of Tess of the d’Urbervilles or Far from the Madding Crowd (both made into terrific movies).

Tell us about your near misses!

Posted in Reading | Tagged classic novels, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy | 9 Replies

Portia da Costa and those naughty Victorians

Updated on February 12, 2013 by Janet Mullany

Our guest today is multi-published English author Portia da Costa, whose witty, sexy, mischievous writing style is an absolute delight. She’s here to talk about the Ladies Sewing Circle. Sounds very respectable, doesn’t it … over to you, Portia. First, tell us about the Ladies Sewing Circle series.

The Ladies’ Sewing Circle is one of those happy accidents really. I never really meant to write a series, but the editor liked my first Victorian story and suggested that I write some more. The Circle is a group of fairly well to do Victorian women who meet regularly, with the ostensible purpose of practicing their sewing skill, taking tea and exchanging a bit of polite social chitchat. However, once they get together, not a lot of actual sewing goes on and the chitchat is far from polite, because they’re all too busy gossiping about scandal and comparing naughty sexual stories and fantasies. I think the group probably started out innocently enough, but it gradually grew bawdier and bawdier, especially when Madame Sofia Chamfleur became its unofficial grande dame and leader.

In A GENTLEWOMAN’S PREDICAMENT, as Mrs. Sofia Harewood, she’s an inquisitive widow who yearns to enjoy the bedroom pleasures she never really experienced with her late husband. Fortunately, a friend at the Circle knows just the place for her, and that’s the House of Madame Chamfleur, a discreet establishment for ladies in search of erotic fulfillment. Sofia pays a visit to the House, and to cut a long story short, it’s everything she’d hoped for and more. And to her surprise and delight, “Madame” isn’t a Madame at all and Sofia ends up marrying him!

The second story, A GENTLEWOMAN’S RAVISHMENT, features Prudence Enderby, one of the most incorrigible members of the Circle, whose dearest fantasy is to be abducted and ravished by a ruthless stranger. Needless to say, the new Madame Chamfleur, Sofia, is able to make that dream come true for her. A GENTLEWOMAN’S PLEASURE and A GENTLEWOMAN’S DALLIANCE are stories featuring other Circle members, Lucy Dawson and Mary Brigstock. Both these ladies have a daringly sensual encounter to recount to their friends over the needlepoint and the cups of Oolong.

IN THE FLESH is the first Sewing Circle novel, and it’s the story of Beatrice Weatherly, a newcomer to the group, and young woman who’s fallen into societal disgrace by posing nude for photographs. Beatrice accepts that her ruin is her own fault, but never one to feel sorry for herself, she makes the best of a bad job by accepting a scandalous “indecent proposal” from a devastatingly handsome and wealthy ladies’ man, Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie. He’s a friend of the Chamfleurs, and he’s fallen head over heels in lust with Beatrice after seeing her sensuous poses. But what starts out as an indulgent affair and a business arrangement quickly becomes much, much more… and Beatrice and Edmund must face both their deepening feelings for each other and a horrible tragedy from his past that haunts the present and their future together.

The second Ladies’ Sewing Circle novel is entitled DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH, and will hopefully be published later this year or early next year. Adela Ruffington is the Circle member in the spotlight this time, and the story describes her love/hate relationship with her distant cousin Wilson Ruffington, who’s both a scientific genius and heir to all the family’s fortune. This strong willed and mercurial pair must weather the stormy waters of a marriage of convenience on their way to eventual happiness.

What was it like making the transition from contemporary to historical?

It was very exciting, as well as a little scary initially. I’d always told myself I probably couldn’t write a historical novel, because I wasn’t a history scholar. But when I was encouraged to try, I really enjoyed the experience, and found it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I’d feared, because over the years, I’d subconsciously gathered a lot of the historical background I needed, through my longstanding interest in all things Victorian.

What is it that fascinates you about the Victorian period?

Lots of things about the Victorian period appeal to me. The later years are my favorite part of the era, from around 1887 onwards, and I think that time in particular was an age in transition, especially for women, who were starting to see that they could be educated and independent, have rights, and pursue other kinds of work than just domestic service. The vote was a long way off yet, but women were definitely seeing as a goal to be achieved.

And, of course, the late Victorian fin de siècle was a very naughty time too, as the more risqué side of society emerged from the prim, family orientated façade of the middle years. Notorious figures like Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley and Sarah Bernhardt shone in the arts and ‘It’ girls like Lily Langry were idolized as Professional Beauties. Even the sinuous sultry, curves of 1890s Art Nouveau were an expression of eroticism in themselves.

I think what captivates me most about the period though, is the fact that despite it being a historical era, and thus an “unknown country”, we’re still very much in touch with it too. In the area where I live we’re surrounded by Victorian architecture, both great and domestic, and our British television has always provided a rich wealth of dramatizations of Victorian classics, all of which make it easy to step back in time. I think I’ve watched the Granada Television Sherlock Holmes series so often that it almost feels like 221B Baker Street is my second home. The late Victorian era is also linked to us by the advances in technology that were taking place then. The Victorians loved their cameras, so we see them as they were in their photographs, but in the period I’m writing about, sound recording and film were being developed too. I get shudders when I hear a recording such as this one of Big Ben and know that the announcer is an actual Victorian speaking to me from 1890, the year when Beatrice Weatherly and Edmund Ellsworth Ritchie meet. And it’s the same when I see this little clip, just a couple of seconds filmed by Louis Le Prince at Roundhay Park, not too far from where I live, in 1888. These moments aren’t from a costume drama; these are real Victorians too, goofing about in a garden for the camera, and I find that incredibly moving.

What did you find out in your research that surprised you?

Well, it’s not so much a surprise, more a happy, unexpected discovery, but in the course of watching Victorian set movies, I found Topsy-Turvy, and to my astonishment, I realized how much I love Gilbert and Sullivan. I’d never paid much attention to their operettas until then, and long ago in my junior school years, I’d actively disliked them because the whole school seemed to go G&S crazy for the annual production. However, coming to the music later, I was just blown away by the gorgeous melodies, the clever lyrics and smart social commentary, and the sheer, energetic artistry and bravura of Gilbert and Sullivan. I’m no singer, but when nobody is about, I’ve been known to trill along to “A Wand’ring Minstrel I”!

Do you find UK and US readers have different expectations in erotic romance? How about editors?

I’d never thought about it, to be honest. I just hope that what I write works for both readers and editors wherever they live, and I do my utmost to produce a story that’s well written, grabs the imagination, and has sympathetic, believable characters.

What’s your writing process?

Now I’m laughing. I wouldn’t dignify my way of working with the term “process”. Ideas come to me gradually and sort of gather together until I’ve got a rough idea of the story. Then I try and write an outline. An outline which I barely even look at when I come to write; it’s just there as a safety net in case I get stuck. I suppose I’m very much a pantser, really, but one who’s working with a general idea of the storyline in the background. I just potter along, pausing to go off on wild research tangents every now and again, chasing up facts that will never actually be in the book, but which I have to know for my own peace of mind. I’m a slowish writer, because my stories tend to unfold in quite a leisurely and very intense sort of way. I also sometimes have to backtrack and remove/rewrite sections because I don’t feel they’ve worked as well as I’d like.

What’s next for you?

Well, in terms of what I’m writing, I’m firmly back in the present day for the time being, working on a trilogy of contemporary BDSM Spice Briefs – THREE COLORS SEXY – that will appear at the end of the year. My next release upcoming will be another contemporary Spice Brief, out in July, called A VERY PERSONAL ASSISTANT. This one’s about a busy female executive who takes an afternoon off when she’s feeling burnt out, and ends up succumbing to the considerable charms and erotic expertise of her male PA.

As I mentioned before, I have DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH in the pipeline, and I’d absolutely love to write more Victorian fiction. But as the Spice Briefs line closes at the end of 2012, there probably won’t be any more Ladies’ Sewing Circle shorts, alas.

Like most authors, I’m waiting to hear about various ideas that are out with editors, and also I have one or two items of contemporary erotica and erotic romance that I’m planning to self-publish.

I have a print copy of IN THE FLESH to give away to one lucky commenter, and I’m happy to send it anywhere in the world.

Many thanks to the ladies of Risky Regencies for inviting me to visit!

Tell us what you love about the Victorian era–is it the clothes, the amazing corsets, or the naughtiness lurking beneath the respectable surface? Your comment or question for Portia will enter you into the drawing for the prize, and we’ll announce the winner on Monday at 7 EST.