Category: Regency

Objects of desire

Updated on February 13, 2013 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

Like Laurie, I’ve been scrambling to finish my packet of RITA books, figure out the difference between a 5.8 book and a 6.2 one (decimals confuse me), and get the scores sent off on time. Therefore, my post this week is something rather lazy, but, I hope, kind of interesting for “Regency geeks” like myself.

Last week in the “New York Times”, I read an article titled “Furniture of the Regency, an era of high whimsy, to be auctioned in London.” It concerns the estate of Maurice Turpin, a London antiques dealer, which is being sold by Christie’s next week. Over 900 lots of furniture, objets, bibelots, etc. Including a Davenport writing desk, a Canterbury music stand, a worktable with little spaces for sewing supplies, a Regency wine cooler modeled on an ancient sarcophagus, and an ivory Indian tea caddy (the only object that had a picture–I tried to scan it, but it didn’t work). I was almost drooling just thinking about all those wondrous goodies I can’t afford!

The article, along with details of the sale, also had some interesting historic tidbits. Like these:

“It was a world as fashion conscious as our own. When the Prince Regent changed his mealtimes, his admirers followed. Breakfast was served as a buffet from 10 am until noon, which led to the introduction of the breakfast room, often one fitted with breakfront side cabinets whose grilled doors were lined with pleated silk panels, another new fashion”

“Separate rooms were provided for listening to music, playing indoor games like billiards, and viewing paintings and sculpture. Conservatories were attached to living rooms so that guests could easily enjoy hothouse plants like orchids and cactuses” (This makes me want to write a scene where the villain gets pushed into that cactus, and emerges with spines stuck in his butt!)

“The library was often not just the principal room, but was distinctively and comfortably furnished with a variety of tables for specific purposes–sofa tables, writing tables, reading tables, bookstands, games tables…” (Examples of all of these are in the sale)

“The dining room also had its own distinct types: a table could be extended with endless spare leaves, serving tables, wine tables, and monumental sideboards, often built in. When the Prince Regent moved his dinnertime from 3 pm to sometime from 6 to 7 pm, gaslights and Colza oil lamps and twin-light candelabra were used to increase the illumination in the dining room”

The article concludes by saying “For those who want to learn more (about English Regency furniture), the Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation in New York is offering a four-part seminar on Regency furniture and architecture” (http://www.soanefoundation.com) I would efinitely take advantage of this if I just lived in NY!

So, what I wonder now is this: if money was no object, what items would you like to own from the Regency? I’d love to have one of those sofas with tacky, Egyptian-style feet, plus that wine cooler. And maybe a nice little tea caddy. And my very own quizzing glass.

What everyone thinks is true… Part III

Updated on February 12, 2013 by Elena Greene

Taking a break from the pleasure of viewing athletic male bodies in tight bodysuits (isn’t men’s speed skating grand?) to do the final bit of myth-busting on the history of pregnancy and childbirth.

#4: Husbands were always excluded from the birthing chamber.

Well, yes and no. Much as my husband bemoaned the loss of the “good old days” and offered to take up smoking and pacing rather than attend me through my two labors, having the husband in the delivery room isn’t really a modern invention.

It’s true that the centuries-old childbirth traditions usually excluded males. There was a female bonding ritual associated with childbirth: closing up windows and doors, lighting candles, the drinking of caudle (a hot spiced wine or ale) by the laboring woman’s female friends and relatives. Usually the man was not welcome, but that was when births were attended by midwives.

When male practitioners were starting to get in on the act, it became inappropriate to exclude husbands. Believe it or not, some opponents of man-midwifery wrote, with great zeal, about the risks of the man-midwife becoming inflamed with passion by the sight of the laboring woman. I can just picture that, remembering what a femme fatale I must have looked during my two labors!

So husbands were not as a rule excluded from the birthing chamber. Old-fashioned female friends and relatives of the woman might complain or try to enforce the earlier ritual, but during the 18th century and into the 19th, the old rituals of childbirth were eroding, especially among the monied classes.

During Victorian times, when “chloroform-and-forceps” births became more common, the moral support provided by friends and family was increasingly replaced with medication. Doctors began to exclude any “unnecessary” persons from the birthing chamber, claiming they only distressed the patient anyway. By the time hospital births became more common (in the 1920’s and 30’s) everyone was excluded until the return to natural childbirth of our own time. And now there are some women who believe we should return to the old patterns of childbirth, with women helping women.

Anyway, during “our period” husbands sometimes did attend their wives. Prince Leopold was quite devoted to Princess Charlotte and attended during her 50-hour fatal ordeal. So on a happier note, it is perfectly acceptable for a proper Regency hero to attend the heroine during the birth of their child. It is equally possible that a scummy husband would go off hunting.

So who do you think about men in the delivery room? If you lived in the Regency, what might you prefer? Would you like a return to the old ritual? How would you feel about having your mother, mother-in-law, sisters, cousins, girlfriends and neighbors all there egging you on? Would it feel supportive or overwhelming? Who would you not want to have there?

And oh yes, I was modern enough to want my husband there. He does a wicked neck massage that really helped. Bucking other trends, though, I refused to do that “hee-hee-hoo-hoo” breathing. And promised my husband that anyone bringing a camera or any recording device near me before the baby and I were cleaned up would die a quick but painful death. 🙂

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, an RT Reviewers’ Choice Award nominee
www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Regency, Research | Tagged childbirth, pregnancy | 11 Replies

Tell Us What You Want!

Updated on February 12, 2013 by Cara King

We at Risky Regencies are always delighted to know which posts you, our blog visitors, find most interesting here — or what you’d like to see here in the future. At the moment, the best we can do is judge based on the number of comments a post receives — so if a post gets a lot of comments, we assume that our visitors found it interesting…and if a post doesn’t, we may not make similar posts in the future.

However, we also know that there are some posts that our visitors may enjoy quite a bit, but that do not elicit comments! But we have a hard time telling the difference between posts you enjoy but don’t see the need to comment on, and posts that don’t really interest you.

So, for example, the fact that Bertie’s last two posts received only three comments each, none of which were from visitors to the blog, might indicate that people aren’t really interested in poor Bertie’s hapless posts. (Or it might not.)

Similarly, the fact that my two “what dirty bits did Kemble cut out of Shakespeare” posts also received no visitor comments might seem to indicate that our blog readers aren’t interested in Regency Shakespeare…. Then again, it might just be that our visitors felt the posts did not lend themselves to comments.

In other words, do you really want me to stop posting Bertie’s clueless questions? And the naughty bits from Shakespeare? Do you want more talk about Jane Austen movie hunks, or about Georgette Heyer novels, or about Horatio Hornblower? Do you want to hear more about the writing process, about how we create our novels, or how the publishing process works? Are you interested in hearing about what we’re working on now? Do you want to discuss your favorite romance heroes, or the romance cliches you hate the most, or what you require in a heroine? Do you want more Regency history info here? Do you want to discuss your favorite Regencies, and get recommendations that may lead to new favorites?

Do let us know!

Cara
Cara King, www.caraking.com
MY LADY GAMESTER — out now from Signet Regency!!!

Posted in Reading, Regency, Writing | 5 Replies

My Regency “friend” Harriet, Part I

Updated on February 12, 2013 by Elena Greene

I’ve been continuing to work my way through the Letters of Harriet, Countess Granville. She was the daughter of the 5th Duke of Devonshire and the famous Duchess, Georgiana and her letters are full of interesting tidbits. However, they’re not an easy read, because she used so much French (alas, I took Spanish in high school) and there are gaps in the story (when she was together with her siblings there was no need to write letters). I also wish there were more explanatory footnotes. Since she wrote mostly to family, she used a lot of nicknames. I know some of them: “Hart” is her brother, who became the 6th Duke of Devonshire, “Silence” is Lady Jersey, “Poodle” must be the dandy Poodle Byng, etc… But there are still places I get confused about persons or events she writes about, which would have been clear to the friends and family with whom she corresponded.

But despite that, I really like Harriet and I can easily relate to her feelings about family and society. Born into high society and then married to Lord Granville, a politician and diplomat, she did quite a bit of entertaining and seemed to enjoy it to some degree.

Here’s a snippet from a letter from London in 1819:

“My ball was as pretty and successful as possible. My front room was as light as day and the back all pink muslin and flowers. The two large rooms below were filled with little round supper tables, and all the flirtations went down to back their sentiments with soup and entrees. They danced with spirit till six o’clock, when Colinet said he could play no more.”

But it’s also clear that she found the pace of fashionable life wearisome at times. Here she writes about a day spent with Lady Jersey in Paris:

“At two o’clock yesterday morning Lady Jersey called for me, and we never stopped to take breath till eleven o’clock at night, when she set me down here more dead than alive, she was going to end her day with the Hollands.

We began by a bonbon shop, where she spent much time and money. Then to a china shop, ditto. Then to St. Mande, where we found the Morleys in great spirits… Our next move was to the Cadran Bleu, where we found Granville and Lord Jersey waiting for us, and where we had an excellent dinner, which being swallowed, we ran across to the Theatre de la Gaite, saw ‘Le Bouquet des Poissardes’, a gay sort of melodrame, and then got in time for the ballet at the Opera, and Lady Granville said, ‘Can this be I’?”

Everything does sound fun, but a bit much for one day!

Harriet’s marriage was a happy one. She loved her five children dearly and missed them when parted due to social and political obligations. Here she writes from the country before departing for London for a fall session of Parliament:

“I cannot endure the thoughts of Monday fortnight. I am so happy here. My health also seems to profit by every mouthful of air, and the misfortune is that there is scarcely anything in London to weight against all I enjoy here. Breakfast by candlelight in a fog, no interest strong enough to make society piquant, no time for air and exercise, away from my chicks.”

She enjoyed the slower pace of life in the Hague (in the Netherlands), where her husband served as ambassador.

“Yesterday was a happy day. In the morning early I walked with my blooming daughters on the Vijjverberg, where we had the whole advantage of bright sun and air soft was May. I then came home and received a cadeau of three plover’s eggs in a little box… At two we drove in the curricle (Granville having for fifty sovereigns bought two little grey horses), to the sea and walked on the sands.”

Apparently this life made her reflect on the London season, as she wrote to her sister:

“…I did not know myself what a London spring was to me. You have never had to encounter it in all its plenitude, and the unwearied dissipation and nightly sittings through it all. The little pleasure and the gnawing anxieties must be looked at afar to see them in their proper light.”

I feel a sort of sympathy with this attitude. I like the occasional concert or party but I truly love quiet times with family and close friends, the sort of thing that would be boring to write too much about, but a major part of my characters’ happy endings. This picture of the Granvilles at the top epitomizes that to me.

If you were a Regency heroine, what would be your ideal life: a fashionable whirl, a quiet life in the country, or some sort of mix?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene

Posted in Regency, Research | Tagged countess granville, lady harriet cavendish | 2 Replies

My Regency “friend” Harriet, Part II

Updated on February 11, 2013 by Elena Greene

Last week I blogged about the Letters of Harriet, Countess Granville and how I could relate to her feelings about the fashionable life versus family life. We’ve sometimes talked here about what we would ask Jane Austen if some time machine made it possible for us to meet. I think I’d be so intimidated that I would either clam up or start babbling like Miss Bates (and probably end up as a comic secondary character in her next work). Harriet feels more like someone I could drink tea and gossip with, though like Jane Austen, she could indulge in a bit of snark:

“It is said here that Mr. John Grefuhle is to marry Emily Rumbold. He is
immensely rich, good-looking and gentlemanlike, and quite English in his manner and language. I hope he will, for she is a good girl, I believe, and she has tried all Europe in vain for a husband.”

“Mr. Chichester has fallen deeply in love with Lady Harriet Butler, and it is supposed will propose at my ball. Edward Montagu whips up a little love and
despair upon the occasion, which will do none of them any harm.”

And here’s a character sketch I found intriguing. It feels like a spoof of our typical cynical Regency rake:

“I admire F. Lamb perhaps more than I like him. I think him uncommonly agreeable and clever, but he sees life in the most degrading light, and he simplifies the thing by thinking all men rogues and all women ——-. He looks old and world-beaten, but still handsome. He seems to enjoy being here, and sport, food
and sleep fill up his time. At any spare moment he reads ‘The Heart of Midlothian’, of which he says: ‘Why, if you wish for my opinion, I think it the worst novel I ever read.’”

What historical Regency personage would you like to chat with?

Elena

www.elenagreene.com

www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene

Posted in Regency, Research | Tagged countess granville, lady harriet cavendish | 2 Replies