Category: Gail Eastwood

Happy New Year and Twelfth Night!

Updated on January 24, 2023 by Gail Eastwood

How do you celebrate the January holidays? I think I have only just recovered from celebrating New Year’s Eve, when I hosted a group of old friends who gather to enjoy a festive dinner every year. My health has improved tremendously (9 months of physical therapy has helped a lot) but my stamina is still not what it was. And yet, tomorrow I am heading off to an all-day celebration of Twelfth Night (including a feast) in a beautiful Gothic church hall in Fairhaven, MA. I LOVE this event and am so pleased I’m well enough to go this year! I fully endorse the idea of twelve days in the Christmas season.

The characters in my new release, LORD OF MISRULE, celebrate both of these holidays in the course of the story, which begins on Christmas Eve day and ends on Twelfth Night (not counting the epilogue). On New Year’s Eve, they are traveling, so they celebrate with other strangers in the public room of an inn. On Twelfth Night they are back in the little village of Little Macclow, and they –well, I recommend you read the book, LOL.

We know that many of the old traditions surrounding Christmas and these January holidays had been forbidden by the Puritans in the mid-17^th century. Celebrating Christmas in any form was actually illegal. (No doubt some families continued to celebrate secretly.) However, once the Puritans fell from power, it took time and an actual campaign by one man determined to see the customs revived to bring them back into fashion by the early 18^th century. The revival faded a bit (too “old-fashioned” by Regency times) but was then not only revived again but expanded in the Victorian times, when new customs were added from the German traditions. But I only recently discovered how the revival really came to pass. While researching for LORD OF MISRULE I stumbled across a most excellent blogpost from 2009 on the Austenonly.com website, which addresses the misconception some people have that all the old customs weren’t being observed during the Regency. The article “But Surely Christmas in England didn’t exist until Dickens invented it?” talks about the role played by writer William [or Robert] Wynstanley, who through his annual publication of Poor Robin’s Almanac over a period of thirty-eight years [1663-1701] promoted the revival of Christmas traditions. How’s that for perseverance?

Later, a version under the same name was published by Ben Franklin’s brother and served as the model for his more famous Poor Richard’s Almanac. I see confusion between the different versions and end-dates that don’t pay attention to where these almanacs were published. (the researcher’s headache.) The publication continued to be issued by others (including possibly Robert Herrick whose name is also associated with it) as late as (pick one!) 1776? 1828?

From the 1664 edition:

“Provide for Christmas ere that it do come
To feast thy neighbour good cheer to have some;
Good bread and drink, a fire in the hall,
Brawn, pudding, souse and good mustard withal;
beef, mutton, pork, and shred pies of the best,
Pig, veal, goose, capon, and turkey well drest;
Apples and nuts to throw about the hall,
That boys and girls may scramble for them all.
Sing jolly carols, make the fiddlers play,
Let scrupulous fanatics keep away;
For oftentimes seen no arranter knave
Than some who do counterfeit most to be grave.”

I hope you have enjoyed a wonderful holiday season shared with people you love! We here at the Riskies wish you all the very best in 2019, and we thank you for following our humble efforts here. Do you have any special holiday traditions for New Year’s or Twelfth Night? We would love to hear about them.

Posted in Gail Eastwood, Holidays, Reading, Regency, Research | Tagged Christmas, Christmas customs, Gail Eastwood, holidays, New Year's, research, Twelfth Night | Leave a reply

Real Regency Heroines, for Women’s History Month

Updated on January 24, 2023 by Gail Eastwood

from http://www.squarepianotech.com/?page_id=376

March is Women’s History Month (in the U.S.). It’s also National Reading Month and National Nutrition Month. I thought of writing about how these can be related. (Reading feeds our minds, and how about reading about women? And writing about them, of course.) But instead, let’s talk about real heroines of the Regency period. (See giveaway details at the end.)

Wikipedia lists fifty-three “Women of the Regency Era” who have their own pages. They range from the obvious (Jane Austen) to the notorious (Harriet Wilson) to the questionable (Princess Caraboo). But rather than list them here, or try to even scratch the surface of this topic, I’d like to invite you to chime in with your favorite candidates. Who were the real heroines of our period?

I would hold that merely existing in the period isn’t enough. What qualities do we expect heroines to demonstrate? Courage, for one, I’m sure you’d agree –no matter what time period she lives in. Certainly in real Regency heroines, courage was necessary to pursue any course outside of normal expectations. Tenacity is another one I am sure was needed just to live any kind of satisfying life as a woman in the early 19^th century. What else? And who comes to your mind?

Let’s think about the various ways in which women could be “significant”. Which of these women contributed to the betterment of society, or added to the knowledge or literacy of our world? Or gave their support (sometimes invisibly) to men who accomplished significant things? What other ways did they make impacts?

And also, I would make a distinction between fame and significance. Certainly Lady Emma Hamilton’s beauty and choices made her infamous in her own time and famous even today. Do you think she made the best life out of the limited choices she had? Does she belong on the list of significant women?

I’ll start, offering Mary Wollstonecraft. While she lived almost too early to be included, she was only 38 when she died in childbirth, producing the daughter who would become Mary Shelley. That was in 1797, five years after she published her Rights of Women. Can you imagine what her life might have been like, or what controversies she might have stirred up, if she had lived on into the full Regency era? And I would say she gave us a daughter who also became a significant woman of the Regency.

Perhaps I’ll print the names on Wikipedia’s list a bit later this month, after we’ve had some time to discuss this topic. I wonder how many of them we can come up with on our own, and how many we’ll feel can be classified as heroines?

I’ll even offer this: a free ebook to one commenter, either chosen randomly or if one person stands out as offering the most interesting response, by the end of March. Offering a book feels right during National Reading Month!!

Posted in Gail Eastwood, Risky Regencies | Tagged Gail Eastwood, Regency, Regency heroines, Regency Women, women's history, Women's History Month | 24 Replies

A Background of War

Updated on January 24, 2023 by Gail Eastwood

Have any of you already seen movie director Peter Jackson’s magnificent documentary about World War I, “They Shall Not Grow Old”? Today it is opening in 500 more theaters around the US after the preliminary viewings have been so well-received. What, you may ask, does this film have to do with the Regency? Bear with me.

My hubby and I went out in gusty minus 15 degree wind chills earlier in January to view this film, and I have to tell you, it is unforgettable. Jackson and his production teams delved through 100 hours of old, grainy film footage shot at varying speeds on hand-reeled cameras and 600 hours of oral history recordings made available by the British Imperial War Museum to pull together this amazing experience. By choosing a narrowly focused story and using every modern film and computer technique available to enhance the material, they truly captured an indelible, brilliantly rendered experience of being on the front lines in France during The Great War.

My brain always seems to pull things into a Regency frame of reference, and I felt that this film also captured a sense of what war in the Regency period would also have felt like. It probably captures it for any time, but the differences in technology between WWI and more recent wars are legion.

What struck me is that WWI’s ground war was probably the last that still somewhat resembled what wars had been like through history up to that point. In WWI, vehicles were still pulled by horses, and many officers still were mounted. Artillery cannon may have been more accurate and had a longer range, but the experience of loading and firing them (and receiving fire) had not changed much in 100 years. Infantry still used rifles with fixed bayonets. The misery of life in the trenches had not changed much, either.

The Napoleonic conflicts were just about as long past then as WWI is to us today. Jackson’s film does not try to capture the very different experiences of the air or sea parts of the Great War, where the technology differences would be more significant. But to me, the images of men trying to release a heavily-loaded team-drawn wagon from deep mud, or of the cannons rocking back when they fire, or simply of men waiting for battle, could have been pulled from Napoleonic France with very little added imagination.

Painting of the Battle of Waterloo by artist William Holmes Sullivan — Waterloo, by William Holmes Sullivan

Britain was at war with France from 1793-1815. There were impacts at home that may or may not inform the background of our Regency stories. The reality of men coming home wounded, or men who never made it home, of news events that people talked about, all form an underpinning to the era. Four of my Regency romances all feature heroes who served in the war, and in three of those, the effects of the war are deeply integral to the story.

Even impacts after the war, when the influx of soldiers coming home led to unemployment and other social problems, can figure in our stories, as a mere mention in passing or as an important part of plot or character.

Jackson’s film, at the end, shows exactly those same kinds of problems faced by the returning soldiers from WWI. We like to think the lack of gratitude or awareness was not as bad at the end of the Napoleonic Wars –people in Britain did fear the Little General might come right to their shores. Also, the population was not as huge, and every class felt some effect of war, whether it was the aristocratic families whose younger sons were officers, or the poor whose sons risked life and limb for the promise of pay. In WWI, the threat to Great Britain was perhaps not as vivid as it was before, or after. One soldier in Jackson’s film who was able to return to his old job after fighting in the war recalls being asked, “Where’ve you been, mate? Workin’ nights?”

I recommend this film to you, for a greater understanding of what the background of war can mean to our characters, and so to enrich our own storytelling. If it isn’t at a theater near you, it is also available online, at: https://tinyurl.com/y9ae3w2r . But the large screen version will be far more affecting, and it also includes a separate, fascinating short film about how Jackson made this amazing documentary. (Just be patient through the first few minutes.)

But be prepared –it isn’t pretty, and it is very moving. I managed not to cry until the end, but when the song Jackson chose for the credits began to play, I lost it. My paternal grandfather served in France during WWI (in the American army) and he used to sing that song all the time when I was a child. Hinkey-dinky-parlez-vous is embedded in my family memories. Although I must add, NOT most of the verses I heard sung for Jackson’s film!!

Have you seen the film? Do you think the similarities & emotion translate across 100 years of time to the Regency period? What do you think about the background of war in Regency romances?

Posted in Gail Eastwood, History, Regency, Research, Risky Regencies, TV and Film, Writing | Tagged Gail Eastwood, Napoleonic Wars, Peter Jackson, war documentary, WWI | Leave a reply

“The Falling Sickness” -for International Purple Day

Updated on January 24, 2023 by Gail Eastwood

In Regency times, “The Falling Sickness” was the name given to epilepsy, which was recognized but little understood at the time. That’s hardly any wonder, for the condition has been recognized and misunderstood going back for something like 3,000 years. Since I researched and wrote a character with epilepsy in my 4^th Regency novel, An Unlikely Hero, I wanted to post today in recognition of International Purple Day (and not because that’s my favorite color). #InternationalPurpleDay is the annual day set aside to raise awareness of #epilepsy world-wide. Are you wearing purple today?

The first known description of an epileptic seizure was found in a text from ancient Mesopotamia. Predictably, the cause was considered paranormal, blamed on the influence of their Moon god. Possession by demons or spirits has been a common explanation throughout history, and epilepsy has frequently been treated as a form of insanity. Influence of the moon has long been associated with it, and the terms “moon struck” and “lunatic,” deriving from that, helped to support the insanity diagnosis.

The Greeks called it the “Sacred Disease” and associated it with genius (and lunacy), but still ascribed a divine cause. Good old Hippocrates, however, tried to debunk that, identifying it as a medically treatable disease of the brain that furthermore had a genetic component. Not bad for the 5^th century BC. He called it the “great disease” and the term for “grand mal” seizures comes from the French version of his term. But of course, for many more centuries no one listened to him.

People fear what they don’t understand. Even into the 18^th century, they thought epilepsy was contagious, even while superstitious explanations for the cause continued. Laws addressed epilepsy –from the earliest Code of Hammurabi that said slaves with epilepsy could be sent back to their seller if a seizure happened within a certain return period, to laws in the U.S. and many other countries that forbade epileptics to marry, required them to undergo sterilization, and even set up “colonies” to separate them from society (supposedly to “help” them).

The first medical treatment for epilepsy (potassium bromide, essentially a sedative) wasn’t offered until the Victorian era, c. 1855. But at least it was the beginning of a search for treatments and a change in attitude from the days of assuming “evil spirits” were at work. However, those marriage laws, laws that prevented epileptics from having driver’s licenses, and many other forms of discrimination have continued until modern times. Misunderstanding and prejudice still continue today.

Who would put an epileptic character into a romance novel? I would. I write “sweet” romance, but I’m “risky” in other ways. I like to follow roads less taken. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to reveal that the heroine’s twin sister in An Unlikely Hero has epilepsy, and much of the plot outside of the main romance hinges entirely on attitudes about her illness. From the father who tries denial to the aunt who thinks Vivien should be able to just stop doing it, they reflect unaccepting attitudes that still happen today. The fact that in the Regency period the wrong husband for Vivien would be able to just lock her away in an insane asylum for life looms large over the sisters’ activities, and social attitudes give leverage to the villain who… well, let’s not give everything away.

International Purple Day is important. Bringing epilepsy out into the light so people will understand and accept it instead of fearing it helps to change social attitudes. Did you know that the last of the 17 U.S. states that forbade epileptics to marry only repealed their law in 1980? Did you know that the trendy Keto diet was first developed to try to help epileptic children? Or that 1.2% of the population (3 million people) in the U.S. (or 1% in Canada) have epilepsy?

When Signet NAL published An Unlikely Hero (in 1996), a friend wrote to me and told me she cried when she finished the book. She had grown up with a father who had epilepsy and had to hide it in order to keep his driver’s license and his job. I can barely begin to imagine the stress of having to live like that, but I tried to capture some sense of it when I wrote my story. A reissued (but not re-edited) version of An Unlikely Hero is available as an ebook from Penguin Random House, in case you are inspired to check out the story.

Have you read other works of fiction that included characters with epilepsy? How do you feel about including health issues like that as part of a romance? I hope you’ll let me know in the comments!

Posted in Gail Eastwood, Risky Regencies | Tagged epilepsy, Epilepsy Awareness, Gail Eastwood, International Purple Day, Purple Day | Leave a reply

Regency Heroine Winners

Updated on January 24, 2023 by Gail Eastwood

Well, I want to say that everyone who offered suggestions for my “real Regency heroines” list are winners simply by being generous people who participated and expanded everyone’s knowledge of the period by doing so. But I did promise specifically to give away a free ebook or two, and since the response was so wonderful, I gave away four!!

The winners were chosen at random and they are: Sharon Farrell, Queen PoohBear, Harriet Robinson, and author Kim Lambert (who posted on FB). I included several people who posted on FB because I know not everyone finds it easy to post comments on the blog. Congratulations to all four winners! And thanks again to everyone for helping to create a most interesting roster of admirable women!