Category: Regency

Prepare for the Regency Bicentennial

Updated on January 31, 2011 by Diane Gaston

(First I gotta give a big huzzah for Colin Firth winning the SAG Awards for best actor and for The King’s Speech winning best picture. So perfect!!! Just had to get that out of my system)

On February 6, 1811, the Prince of Wales signed papers making him Regent and unknowingly marking the official beginning of a period in history that, among so many other things, has spawned an entire genre of Romance novels, of which I am proud to include my books. We at Risky Regencies celebrate the time period every day, year in and year out, but to mark this very special 200 year anniversary, I’d thought I’d share my thoughts on why we are still enthralled with such a specific, and brief, time in history.

In honor of the Regency Bicentennial, I’m giving away a copy (albeit a used copy) of J.B. Priestley’s The Prince of Pleasure to one lucky commenter (although the cover might be different than pictured here). The winner will be chosen at random tomorrow so give me your comments before 1/31/11 12 noon ET

On my first blog with the Riskies I mused about why the Regency is such a popular genre in Romance. This blog is an adaptation of that one and, I thought, a good introduction to Regency Bicentennial Week.

First of all, the Regency was a beautiful time period. The lovely Classical architecture and decor of the Georgian age became more varied and colorful, but avoided the excesses of the Victorians. The Regency was a time of great wealth, of beautiful Country houses and gardens, of lovely, elegant fashions. Gone were powdered hair, white wigs, and heavy make-up of the Georgian age. Regency women wore beautifully draping empire-waist silks and muslins, dresses that would still be considered lovely today. Men’s clothing also became more like our modern clothing, the bright-colored brocades and laces of the 1700s giving way to the simplicity, cleanliness, and perfect tailoring Beau Brummell insisted upon. Men and women rode though Hyde Park in fine carriages drawn by perfectly matched horses. The titled elite gathered in exclusive places like Almack’s and White’s. Men sported at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Saloon or Tattersal’s. Ladies made “morning calls” in the afternoon, and made their curtsey to the Queen in opulent gowns.

Exciting people lived during the Regency. My favorite is the truly great but imperfect Duke of Wellington, the man who defeated the Emperor Napoleon, but there is also the Prince Regent (“Prinny”), Lord Byron, Beau Brummell, Jane Austen, Caroline Lamb, Harriette Wilson (who Amanda wrote about in her April 15 blog about courtesans), and so many more fascinating people.

The Regency time period echoes our World War II era in my mind, a time of great courage, honor, and drama, and one that eventually led into great social change. The drama of the long war with Napoleon, culminating in Waterloo, a battle still discussed, written about and fictionalized today. Also occurring at this time was the War of 1812, less victorious for the British, events in India, and the humming of impending social change, the beginning of the decline of the upper classes and the growth of wealth from industry and trade, social unrest nipping at the heels of the class system.

The Regency is a transitional period between the decadence of the 18th century and the repression of the Victorian Age. As such there are elements of both, providing rich opportunities for dramatic conflict. For example, it is an age when the idea of marrying for love came to the fore, and yet, marriages of convenience still took place. Women–married women, that is–were still allowed to enjoy a sexual relationship, although more discreetly than did their Georgian mothers. Their poor Victorian daughters were not so lucky. Roles and behavior were more fluid in the Regency, less defined than the eras before or after, allowing the novelist great license to explore.

The Regency is an accessible period: Distant enough to provide an escape from every day life into a world of beauty and conflict, but familiar enough to be able to imagine ourselves living in it.

I love going into the world of Regency England every time I sit down to write. It often becomes as real to me as if I truly lived there. I aspire to bring the Regency vividly alive in my books so readers might love it as much as I do.

It is great to be among this wonderful group of authors who feel that same love of the Regency and that same desire to explore it in new, exciting, and “risky” ways.

Now, for a chance to win The Prince of Pleasure, tell us what you love about the Regency….or comment about anything, like Colin Firth and The King’s Speech!

Posted in Regency | 18 Replies

Can we Reconstruct the Social Past?

Updated on January 19, 2011 by carolyn

I had an interesting conversation recently regarding present-day misconceptions about the past. In this conversation we floated the idea that historical romance had created its own, essentially false, depiction of life during the Regency. We talked about whether or not these inaccurate ideas were so deeply embedded that an accurate depiction of them could be roundly denounced.

There is a difference between history and historical fiction. In the case of the former, the point, one hopes, in writing about history, is to be accurate. Fiction serves a different role. Fiction, at some level, has to recognize the ways in which, say, a Regency Romance, privileges the needs of modern readers over historical accuracy.

What I constantly find odd, however, is that way in which we sometimes talk about the past as if those people were a different species. There is, I think, a speed at which evolution progresses — over millions of years, punctuated by the odd catastrophe that challenges the very survival of a species, and the speed at which social culture evolves. Millennia vs. a few years.

The human sex drive is an evolutionary survival tactic and our bodies have evolved to make procreation likelier than not. The way human cultures deal with that fact seem to be fairly fluid. I think historical researchers sometimes conflate cultural sexual norms with the human sexual drive.

In the West, we have this notion of sexual repression that comes to us from the Victorian age — women weren’t supposed to like sex, everyone was all uptight and people, particularly women, who appeared to embrace their sexual nature were punished. We could talk all day about the ways in which Western cultures have attempted to control and repress human sexuality. There is plenty of evidence of that.

However, no amount of social repression negates the fact that sex feels good. Our bodies are hard wired for sexual desire and to experience sexual pleasure. Repression is bound to fail. It cannot help but fail. We exist today because it did, in fact, fail.

My point, after all that, is that this trope of the innocent, unsexual female who has no curiosity or drive to engage in sex (and I do mean the act) seems to me to be fundamentally false. Of course there were people who refrained from sex until marriage, but there simply had to be a lot of people who didn’t. The idea that women didn’t have any non-social way to control their fertility also seems suspect to me.

The Heyer-esque innocent, however compelling she is on the written page, with an almost complete denial of female sexual agency sometimes bothers me and is, I think, more a representation of Heyer’s social millieu than the actual Regenecy — In other words, she wrote about a world as her culture norms imagined it ought to have been. Lydia in Pride and Prejudice is an example of that tension.

So, after all these ill-formed thoughts, what do you think about the accuracy of Regency Romance and do you care?

What Is It About the Regency?

Updated on September 13, 2010 by Diane Gaston

We’ve covered this before on Risky Regencies, many times in many ways, but I just want to go over it again. Maybe it is because I’m starting to write a new book. Maybe it is because I’ve heard some readers say they are tired of the Regency. I don’t know.

What is the appeal of the Regency in romance novels? Why do you like to read novels written in this era?

Is it the fashions?

The drama of the Napoleonic War?

(like how I stuck in my bookcover?)

The manners?

Georgette Heyer?

Jane Austen?

Darcy?

Or are we more intrigued by the Regency as a time of social transition? The wealth and power of the nobility is diminishing as the lot of the common man is rising.

What is it about the Regency that appeals to you? Why do you think some readers are tired of it? What part of the Regency do you like most in your Regency romances?

Posted in Regency | 22 Replies

Regency Websites and Blogs

Updated on June 28, 2010 by Diane Gaston

We all have favorite websites and blogs, those places we go to be entertained or to learn things. Here are five of mine, all dealing with the Regency, at least sometimes. It is not an exhaustive list, but five sites I return to fairly often, either because I need them or because they entertain me.

So off the top of my head, 5 websites or blogs I like:

The Georgian Index – so much information here. One of the things I love about this site is I can always find some shop to insert in my books, but there’s so much more here. Here’s an example:
House of Millard/ Millard’s warehouse/draper – No.16 Cheapside – Bengal Muslins, flannels – advertised in La belle Asemblee 1812-3 – (locale) City
– I can have my heroine walk into a draper shop that really existed!

Number One London – this is Kristine Hughes and Victoria Hinshaw’s blog and they never cease to amaze me with the information they provide. And it’s always fun, too. Here’s Kristine’s first report from the Battle of Waterloo reenactment.

Regency Ramble – This treasure is the creation of my fellow Harlequin Historical author, Ann Lethbridge, aka Michelle Ann Young. Ann hails from the UK and she does something I love! She tells us about the flora and fauna of the Regency period, among other things Regency, including fashion prints. Here is her latest. Have you ever heard of a bustard?

Cogitations and Meditations – This is our friend Keira Soleore’s blog and by some magic I cannot perform on my own, Keira made it so I receive her blog in my email, so I never miss a thing. Keira has a miriad of things on her blog, very intelligent things oftentimes. Or very exotic, like this latest Picture Day Friday. Not always Regency, but always interesting.

Wikipedia – I know I know I know. You can’t trust Wikipedia because not all the information is cross-referenced and thus it is susceptible to being false, but, gee, there’s nothing like it to quickly find that elusive fact that probably is not false. I’ve used Wikipedia extensively to find out stuff like Like – When did Queen Charlotte die? (Nov 17, 1818) because I know it happens right in the time period I might be writing about. Or, I recently needed to know something about carriages. I started by looking at Wikipedia. (gig). My Three Soldiers Series required knowing details of the Battle of Waterloo. Wikipedia had great information on the battle and, from my other reading of the subject, it looked accurate.

What are your favorite blogs and websites? Besides Risky Regencies, I mean!

Visit me Thursday on Diane’s Blog where I will show off the bookcover of Chivalrous Captain, Rebel Lady AND give away two prizes – a signed copy of Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady and the entire set of Amanda’s Muse Trilogy!

Posted in Regency | Tagged Blogs, Websites | 11 Replies

Janet’s Improper Relations

Updated on February 18, 2010 by Diane Gaston

Diane here, with the absolute delight of interviewing Riskies own Janet Mullany about her Little Black Dress release, Improper Relations, released today! If you haven’t already, hurry over to Book Depository (with its free shipping) or any UK book vendor and order this book.

I read Improper Relations and I am absolutely in awe. I don’t think I’ve read anyone who reminded me more of Georgette Heyer, except Janet writes like Heyer after a few drinks.

But don’t just listen to me. Here’s a review of Improper Relations

What I continue to love about Janet Mullany’s books is how she manages to convincingly tell her story in first person from both her hero and her heroine’s perspective. The first person narrative gives an extremely refreshing take on the insanity which populates the plot; from the way her heroine observes the foibles of her own family, to the slowly beautiful dance it takes the hero to discover he’s in love. I can’t wait to see where she goes next–Stacey, Publisher’s Weekly, Beyond the Book.

Janet will give away a signed copy of Improper Relations to one lucky commenter chosen at random. Without further ado, here’s Janet!

Janet, what were you doing? Channeling a very naughty Georgette Heyer? Tell us about Improper Relations!I brought a conversation at a conference to a total embarrassed stop when I told a group of writers (who I’d never met before) that I really wasn’t very interested in men because relationships between women were so much more interesting and that’s what I was currently writing about! To clarify my out-of-the-closet confession, I wanted to write a romance where a friendship between two women is as central to the book as the romantic relationship itself, and loyalty, to the friend or the husband, cause the conflict that drive the plot. And I have to admit I really wanted to start a book with the sentence: My story begins with a marriage.

You did such a clever job of tying all the threads together. It made me very curious about your plotting process. Did you figure it all out ahead of time? Or did you fly by the seat of your pants?
A bit of both. I sold it on proposal, so I knew roughly what was going to happen, but I trusted to luck about how everything would tie in. There was a character, a rather horrible old lady, who appeared quite early on and she turned out be very significant later. I blogged about that at the Riskies after I’d written a scene with her in the middle of the night as an example of trusting your instincts when writing, which I really did with this book. I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about fixing to get ready etc. to write and my first drafts are usually very clean, which is just as well.

Your voice is so distinct. Were there any writers in particular who inspired your style?
I’ve read a lot, but mostly outside romance. I write romance because I think what I write fits in with the genre (which is huge, there’s room for a lot of variants and niches!) so I don’t think I ever fell into the trap of writing as though I were writing a romance (does that make sense?). I don’t analyze what I do a lot, but I’ve always been able to make people laugh. Apparently John Cleese realized that his repressed anger was the inspiration for Monty Python sketches that involved people shut up together shouting at each other (The Argument Sketch here). I tend to like getting groups of people behaving badly together, and I don’t quite know what that says about me (it was at the core of my last book, A Most Lamentable Comedy, where they were all engaged in amateur theatricals in the country). The huge resolution scene in Improper Relations has about six to ten people coming in and out of a room at an inn.

I didn’t see any special research in Improper Relations. Was there any?
Uh. No. Originally Shad, the hero, started off as a military officer, but I was reading Nelson: A Personal History, by Christopher Hibbert (wonderful historian) while I was writing it and so he became a naval man.

What is risky about Improper Relations?
I don’t think it is a particularly risky book, to be honest, other than in style and structure. It’s all very conventional stuff, but I think the risk comes in the delivery. With all my books, either readers are going to get it or they’re going to be confused–I hope more of the former than the latter! If there is an element of risk, it’s in having a heroine who allows herself to be manipulated by someone she loves–and it’s not the hero or another man, it’s her best friend. Oh, and the hero and heroine end up in bed at the end of the book and go to sleep instead of having a boinkfest. I wanted them to fade into domestic tranquillity.

I’m in awe about how you included just about every Regency cliché there is. How did you do that?
I had a sort of shopping list of things I wanted to include, as well as the first sentence! I wanted to do a marriage of convenience because I thought the sex would be interesting to write about; I also wanted a duel, a Vauxhall Garden scene, the heroine to be transformed by a makeover into a ravishing beauty, a John Thorpe, a Wickham … I make absolutely no secret of the fact that I’m writing for my own pleasure and entertainment. And, yes, there’s sex in this, but sex as practiced by uptight Georgian people in an era where men married good girls and had sex for procreation, and paid bad girls for anything else. So great sex in marriage is a delightful, if worrying, surprise.

What amazingly clever, wickedly irreverent, riotously funny book is next for you?
My next Little Black Dress book, for spring 2011, is going to be called Mr. Bishop and the Actress–it’s funny that with all three of the books for Little Black Dress the title has come first or very early in the process. And I hope it’s all of the above! I don’t know if this is generally known outside England, but if you tack on “…as the actress said to the bishop” to an innocent statement, it immediately makes it obscene. For instance, “Do you think it will snow today?” “Yes, we’re supposed to get six inches … as the actress said to the bishop.” (The same thing works with fortune cookies, if you add “in bed.”) Possibly Shad and Charlotte (hero and heroine of Improper Relations) will appear as secondary characters.

In April, I have a Loose-Id e-novella, Reader, I Married Him, a dirty version of Jane Eyre, and then in October I have Jane & the Damned from HarperCollins and my novella which may or may not be called Little to Hex Her, based on Emma, in the anthology Bespelling Jane with Mary Balogh, Susan Krinard, and Colleen Gleason.

I can’t wait!

Remember, everyone, comment for a chance to win a copy of Improper Relations. Ask Janet a question or see how many Regency conventions we can list. What are your favorites?

Posted in Regency | Tagged Georgette Heyer, Improper Relations, Janet Mullany | 36 Replies