Category: Regency

I want to go to Brighton….

Updated on May 24, 2013 by Myretta

Well, Lydia Bennet wanted to go to Brighton. And by the time Pride & Prejudice was published, Brighton was a thriving seaside resort and, apparently, the location of some highly desirable soldiers – Lydia’s main reason for wanting to go. As we approach the start of summer and those nice, lazy, seaside holidays, let’s take a look at Brighton.

Brighton was originally a fishing village, one of the flourishing ports along England’s south coast. By 1740, however, it was pretty much in decline due to erosion of the town’s beach resulting in loss of buildings, several severe storms, and an ageing population.

Bathing machine

Fortunately for Brighton, during the late 18th century sea bathing came into fashion in a big way. The growth in national wealth that resulted in large estates and grand manor houses, also caused urban centers to be more prosperous. People who chose to live in towns had the means to travel outside them. Seaside resorts offered something more than available in the towns or even the countryside.

Royal Pavilion

Spas surrounding mineral springs, such as Bath and Buxton, had been frequented for health reasons from time immemorial. The 18th century saw the advent of seabathing as another healthy activity. The first resorts were located in declining coastal towns such as Brighton, Hasings, Margate, Scarborough, and Weymouth.

Brighton, in particular, benefited from its location in a densely populated region of England and its easy access from London. Moreover, failing economy in the area resulted in a surfeit of accommodation, providing places for visitors to stay.

Bathing dress

Brighton was well-established as a seaside resort before the Prince of Wales (later George IV) took a fancy to it in 1783. However, George’s visits and his Royal Pavilion, begun in 1786, certainly increased the draw, first as the place frequented by the Prince of Wales and, later by the Pavilion itself as a tourist attraction.

If you wanted a little seabathing in Brighton during the Regency, you did not have to wait for an invitation from the prince. Brighton had plenty of hotels and guest houses from which to sally forth in your fetching bathing dress and rent a bathing machine for your dip into the channel.

So, do you want to go to Brighton? Or do you have something other than a little seabathing in store for your holidays?

Recommended sources: Georgian Brighton by Sue Berry and Spas of England and Principal Sea-Bathing Places by A. B. Granville.

Posted in Regency, Research | 5 Replies

It’s Here (Almost) A Reputation For Notoriety

Updated on May 20, 2013 by Diane Gaston

I have had such a busy couple of weeks with a family reunion in California and my daughter’s college graduation (Yay!) that release day of A Reputation for Notoriety has sneaked up on me. It is tomorrow!

In honor of release day, I’m giving away one signed copy of A Reputation for Notoriety to one lucky commenter chosen at random.

The back cover blurb of A Reputation for Notoriety

Raising the stakes…

As the unacknowledged son of the lecherous Lord Westleigh, John “Rhys” Rhysdale was forced to earn a crust gambling on the streets. Now he owns the most thrilling new gaming establishment in London.

Witnessing polite society’s debauchery and excess every night, Rhys prefers to live on its fringes, but a mysterious masked lady tempts him into the throng.

Lady Celia Gale, known only as Madame Fortune, matches Rhys card for card and kiss for stolen kiss. But the stakes are raised when Rhys discovers she’s from the very world he despises…

The Masquerade Club.
Identities concealed, desires revealed…

The first review!

4 Stars! “…It’s passionate, intense and seductive. The characters are lively with pulsating sexual tension and there are enough secrets, scandals and complications to make a lady swoon with glee!” — Maria Ferrer, RT BOOKReviews (read the whole review)

I wanted to write a gaming hell story and a story about a bastard son. Thus A Reputation for Notoriety was born. The question for me was what kind of gaming house did I want? I certainly did not want my hero to run a disreputable gaming house and I wanted one that society ladies could attend. The only way I could think of that a lady could attend would be in a mask, but I’d already used that idea in The Wagering Widow. I couldn’t repeat that idea.

Or could I? I decided to use the same gaming house that appeared in The Wagering Widow and to use the hero’s memory of the wagering widow as the idea for his house. I suppose this “proves” that all my Regency people really do live in the same “world.”

I like to think of it that way. I like to think that they all really existed and lived the lives I imagined for them. I like to think that they might pass each other on a Mayfair street or choose the same books from Hachards. While characters in one book are enmeshed in conflict, I like to think that others are living their happily-ever-after.

The latest of my Regency people will begin their story tomorrow. Look for A Reputation for Notoriety on bookstore shelves tomorrow or for sale from online vendors. The ebook version will appear June 1.

Do you like to imagine the people in books are real? What has been keeping you busy these days? Comment for a chance to win a signed copy of A Reputation for Notoriety.

Posted in Giveaways, Reading, Regency, Risky Book Talk | 23 Replies

In the Regency, but not wholly of the Regency

Updated on May 16, 2013 by susanna

Like Carolyn and Diane, I’ve been following with interest the discussion on the state of historical romances in general and Regencies in particular that’s been prominent on the romance blogosphere since Jane at Dear Author’s provocatively titled post, We Should Let the Historical Genre Die.

I’m never sure where I fit in during discussions of the State of the Regency, because I never can decide just how much of a Regency writer I am. Back when the Golden Heart and Ritas had two separate categories for Regencies and other historicals, I used to angst endlessly about where to enter my books. What if I entered them in Regency and got marked down for not having enough ballrooms and dukes? Or what if I entered them in historical, only to have some judge see the “1811” dateline at the top of the first chapter and think, “Hey! This is a Regency. I’m sick of Regencies. If I wanted to judge one, I would’ve signed up for that category.”

In the end, I entered The Sergeant’s Lady as a historical and its prequel, A Marriage of Inconvenience, as a Regency. Why? Well, The Sergeant’s Lady is set almost entirely in Spain during the Peninsular War with, as the title makes clear, a common sergeant as a hero. Despite its 1811-12 setting and British protagonists, it just doesn’t feel Regency. A Marriage of Inconvenience, on the other hand, is a house party story set in Gloucestershire, with a wealthy viscount for a hero and a poor relation cousin of a baronet for a heroine. Regency tropes everywhere you look.

My third book, An Infamous Marriage, is maybe a half-Regency. The hero and heroine are of the gentry rather than the nobility, and though they move in exalted circles in Brussels in the run-up to Waterloo because of the hero’s rank as a major-general, that’s not what their story is about. And my fourth book, A Dream Defiant, despite its 1813 setting is another non-Regency–it takes place in Spain in the aftermath of the Battle of Vittoria, the hero is a black soldier (the son of Virginian slaves who ran away to the British army and freedom during the American Revolution) and the heroine is another soldier’s widow, an ordinary village girl whose ambition in life is to take over her home village’s posting inn and make it famous for serving the best meals on the Great North Road.

I don’t want the Regency to die because I have such an insatiable passion for the opening 15 years or so of the 19th century. I mean, what would I do with all my research books if i couldn’t base my novels upon their contents?

Susanna's Shelf

But when I write my Regencies (or Regencies in year only, as the case may be), I’m trying my best to ground them in a specific place and time–and that’s what I’d like to see more of in the genre as a whole. I know a lot of writers and readers love historicals for the “Once Upon a Time” feeling, and the last thing I want to do is deny anyone the pleasure of the stories they like best. But for myself I don’t want once upon a time. I want 1812 at the Battle of Salamanca, or Seattle in the 1850’s, or Philadelphia in 1776. And I don’t want the only alternatives to Regency to be Victorian, Western, and Medieval. I want Colonial American historicals. I want more stories set on the West Coast, like Bonnie Dee’s lovely Captive Bride. I want a Civil War romance from the Union side. Given the role of women at the time it’d be tricky to pull off, but I’d love to see an ancient Greek romance set sometime around the Greco-Persian wars. And so many more. I want more history–in my Regencies and across the genre.

What about you? What unexplored corners of the Regency world would you like to see more of? And what other periods of history strike your fancy?

Posted in Reading, Regency, Risky Regencies, Writing | Tagged publishing, Susanna Fraser | 22 Replies

Sick of the Regency?

Updated on May 13, 2013 by Diane Gaston

Last week on my Diane’s Blog, I mentioned the discussion on Dear Author titled We Should Let The Historical Genre Die.

At the end of the blog Jane says:

I’m not going to launch a historical romance campaign. I think I’m actively looking for the historical romance genre to die. For Regency dukes to molder into dust. For dashing earls to be crushed. Only then can the genre reinvent itself. I don’t want to save the historical romance genre. I want it to die and from the ashes, maybe then, a new and fresh historical voices will arise unconstrained by both reader, editor and agent expectations.

Of the 122 comments, several remarked about being tired of Regency and blaming the “demise” of the Historical Romance on the fact that the vast majority are Regency. One commenter said:

I have tried writing Regency but, as you pointed out, there are no original plots and the readership for this period is so knowledgeable I wouldn’t dare get the slightest flick of a fan out of place!

No original plots? (and I try so hard….)

Other commenters complained about what we’ve discussed here many times, the “wallpaper” historical, one that puts the characters in costume but has them acting in 21st century ways. Can’t disagree with that personally, although I know some readers prefer this sort of Regency.

The discussion apparently began with a blog on All About Romance, asking Where Have All The Historical Romances Gone? with some of the same points made, especially in the comments.

Evangaline Holland joined the debate in her blog post, The Trouble With Historical Romance. In the comments she remarked that other romance genres ebb and flow with changing tastes and audiences, but she cited this parenthetical example:

(look at how quickly Harlequin’s contemporary romance lines shift and morph based on audience response, whereas Harlequin Historical–once in danger of being axed completely–shifts at a comparatively glacial pace).

I must remark that saying this about Harlequin Historical is a misconception. HH has never given up Westerns, even when other publishers did, and they’ve experimented with lots of different time periods and settings: Jeannie Linn’s Chinese historicals, Ancient Rome, Vikings, Irish Medevials, Amanda’s Elizabethans and more.

Suffice to say that I found all these discussions about historical romance very interesting. The various opinions about Regency Historical Romance was often daunting and discouraging–I also thought they were at least partially true.

That little anxious mini-me who lives inside my brain was wailing, “What’s the use!” Her chin was on the floor and she was halfway to believing that nobody liked Regencies anymore.

Until my dh and I went to Old Town Coffee Tea & Spice in Alexandria with a friend. We were there a long time, picking out lots of loose tea, so we were getting pretty chummy with the salesclerk, a woman in her 50s, I’d guess.

My dh asked her, “Do you read romance novels?” (I was as surprised as she was at the question. My dh is not usually my publicist!)

She responded, “Yes.” She paused for a few seconds. “But I only read Regencies.”

Next time we go, I’m bringing her a book!

So what do you think?
Do you think the Historical Romance genre should die so it can be resurrected into something better?
Do you think Regency plots are over done? If so, which ones?
Do you think the problem with Historicals is there is not enough diversity of time periods? If so, what time periods and settings would you like to see more of?

Posted in Reading, Regency, Writing | 31 Replies

Travelling through England

Updated on May 3, 2013 by Myretta

The Jane Austen Gazetteer at The Republic of Pemberley is a compendium of information about the locations in each of Jane Austen’s novels using period resources. For example, the maps are from John Cary’s Maps of England from 1812 through 1818. In putting these together, we also examined a great many travel guides and relied heavily on Kearsley’s Traveller’s Entertaining Guide through Great Britain.

Kearsley gives you the standard description of roads and cross-roads, distances from London and from other locations. In addition it provides some historical and topographical information for many of the towns along the way.

Bath, for example, ” has been famous from the time of the Romans for its hot springs, the most remarkable in England and inferior to few in Europe: they are not only used as baths, but internally as a medicine; and great benefit is derived from them in gouty, paralytic, bilious and other cases. The reputation of these waters is so much increased that Bath is become the principal resort, next to the metropolis, for persons of rank and fortune and for the constant residence of opulent invalids as well as numerous votaries of dissipation. In splendour and elegance of buildings it exceeds every town in England, being constructed of a white stone of which the surrounding soil is chiefly composed. It is seated on the river Avon in a valley, and, from the reflection of the sun’s rays from the white soil, it is very hot in summer. The principal seasons for the waters are spring and autumn. The poor, who come here to drink them, may be received in a magnificent hospital. It is supposed to be very ancient. King Edgar was crowned here. On the l. is Prior-park, lord Hawarden.” Then it goes on to list the York Hotel, White Hart, White Lion, Lamb as places you might want to stay.

About Brighton (or Brightelmstone as it was known), Kearsley writes, “Brighthelmston was a poor town inhabited chiefly by fishermen; but having for some years past become a fashionable place of resort, on account of its convenience for bathing, it has been enlarged by many handsome new buildings. The Steine , a fine lawn between the town and the sea forms a beautiful and favourite resort for the company. Here Charles II embarked for France in 1651 after the battle of Worcester. Great flocks of sheep are fed on the neighbouring hills . This town is sometimes called Brighton. It is the station of the packet boats to and from Dieppe in time of peace . The prince of Wales has a bathing residence here.”

Oxford

Oxford, according to Kearsley, is “a celebrated university, and a bishop’s see. Besides the cathedral it has thirteen parish churches. It is seated at the confluence of the Thames and Cherwell, on an emininence. The town is three miles in circumference, and is of a circular form. It consists chiefly of two spacious streets, crossing each other in the middle of the town. The university is said to have been founded by the immortal Alfred, receiving from him many privileges and large revenues. Here are twenty colleges and five halls, several of which are in the streets, and give the city an air of magnificence. The colleges are Univeristy, Baliol, Merton, Exeter, Oriel, Queen’s, Nw, Lincoln, All-Souls, Magdalen, Brasenose, Corpus Christi, Christchurch, Trinity, St. John Baptist’s, Jesus, Wadham, Pembroke, Worcester, and Hertfrod. The halls are Alban, Edmund, St. Mary’s, New Inn, and ST. Mary Magdalen. All travellers agree in confessing that there is not such another group of buildings nor such another university in the world.” While there, you might stay at Star, Cross, King’s Arms, Angel, &c..

Kearsley’s is not the only guide to provide this kind of information. Paterson’s Roads also interrupts the long lists of towns on each road with descriptions of various places of interest. Cary’s New Itinerary is mostly just an itinerary. The descriptions found in Cary concern which buildings you’ll pass on a particular route (not unlike “take the second left after the Dunkin Donuts”). Most guides also provide the traveller with a list of available inns. And these are not all. You might like to take a look at A Guide to All the Watering and Sea Bathing Places for 1813 or Crosby’s Complete Pocket Gazetteer of England and Wales. Poke around Google Books. You’ll be amazed at the number of travel guides to be had.