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Category: Research

Posts in which we talk about research

A Night at the Opera

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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 , , | 4 Replies

The Clothes Make the Heroine?

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Recently, I played the character of Celia in a production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Celia and her cousin Rosalind are both daughters of dukes who, at the beginning of the play, live in luxury in a palace….until Rosalind is banished. Then Celia and Rosalind run away to the Forest of Arden — Celia disguised as a shepherdess, and Rosalind disguised as Celia’s little brother. Due to Celia’s smart thinking, they’ve brought their “jewels and their wealth” along with them, so they take care of sheep the same way Marie Antoinette did, and have a lot of fun along the way.

So, you’re thinking, what does this have to do with writing Regency romances? I’ll get to that in a moment. 🙂

I wore two costumes in this play. In the first picture here (photo credit: Jesse Sheldon), you see me in a very tight, binding, ouch-my-back-and-shoulders-hurt pale blue gown with a train, a gauze overskirt, trailing sleeves that almost reach the ground, (fake) fur trim, and (fake) pearls sewn all over the gown. I also have a heavy necklace, and a headpiece with a back veil that’s so long it almost touches the floor.

In the second picture here (photo credit: Jesse Sheldon), I am royalty pretending to be common. My green dress still has some trim, but it’s much simpler, and much more comfortable. I skip, I run, I lie down under a tree at one point. I can do pretty much anything but bend forward too far (this dress has a pretty low neckline). 🙂

What I found right away was that the first dress very much changed the way I moved. It kept me upright. It kept me from walking backwards (unless I carefully handled my train while doing so.) It very much restricted how I could move my arms (which I could hardly raise). And sitting on anything was problematic — the “pearls” which adorned the dress are everywhere, so sitting involved sitting on a lot of large beads — rather uncomfortable!

Once I got used to the restricted movement of this gown, I learned its advantages. The long trailing sleeves made smooth, graceful arm movements very dramatic, and highlighted any hand gestures beautifully. The train, sleeves, and long veil clearly stated that this was an important person — and a wealthy one. It was true conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure in one costume.

This leads me to think about the aristocratic ladies of the Regency period. I think one’s first impulse is to assume that all of those empire gowns were just so comfortable. But if you think about it, some of them were fussy…some had trains….some had huge headpieces with feathers…some were probably quite tight…and the stays certainly would have kept things like bending at the waist, and certain sorts of twisting, to a minimum…

So our heroines, particularly when dressed up for balls and such, probably moved and stood in a very different way from women who were servants or shopkeepers. Our elegant heroines would know that a small hand gesture or a graceful inclination of the head would speak volumes. Our young, tomboyish heroines might chafe against such restrictive clothing, and keep trying to do things they really shouldn’t (and getting in trouble.)

I’m sure none of this is new to most of you — but it’s the sort of thing that wearing a costume can make one ponder yet again! So what do you think the advantages and disadvantages of Regency costume were? What character or plot elements might a heroine’s costume cause, or reveal? Can you think of any dress-related plot points in Regencies that you’ve read?

All comments welcome!

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

Posted in Research, Writing | Tagged , , | 8 Replies

Forgotten Regency

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It seems puzzling to me that the English Regency period is so neglected in popular culture. Certainly it has been celebrated in the movies based on Jane Austen’s books, and there are also the modern Regency romances to consider. But I can rarely find the English Regency represented in other forms, while the Victorian era is everywhere.

A few years ago I became interested in collecting figurines. I wanted to find porcelain ladies dressed in Regency fashion. I have found a few, but for the most part current collectable “lady figurines” are of the Victorian era. The same goes for collectable dolls. The odd thing is that if a Regency figurine or doll appears on the market there is a high interest in it—if my experiences on eBay are of any significance. Believe me, you need your Big Girl panties on (or Big Boy boxers) if you are going to join the bidding!

Another area that demonstrates the popularity of the English Regency and the French Empire period is old fashion prints. Again, the most sought after seem to be those of the English Regency/French Empire era. There are many listings of Victorian fashion plates, but as far as I have been able to see, it is the Regency era prints that generate the most interest.

But still, the Victorian era rules in promotion. Romantic decorating? Magazines seem to equate romantic with Victorian. If a photo of a room with Empire influences is shown, I usually miss seeing a mention of the era. Often the antiques used in a room otherwise decorated in Victorian style are pieces that were also used in the Regency period—Queen Anne, Hepplewhite, Chippendale, and even Regency style.

I admit that this is all my unstudied opinion, and I know the English Regency was short—but it seems to me that there is more interest in it than marketers realize. It is more than our traditional Regency romance novels that seem to be overlooked by those in the business of deciding what we want to buy and bringing it to market.

Opinions?

Laurie
LORD RYBURN’S APPRENTICE
Signet, January 2006

Posted in Regency, Research | Tagged | 3 Replies

Errors Large and Small

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I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s been rushing to finish reading her Rita books! There’s definitely a difference between reading a 400-page novel and reading fifty pages of manuscript (as one does for the Golden Heart Contest, which is what I’ve judged in years past.) 🙂

So here are my random opinions on judging today:

JUDGES SHOULD, when reading an unpublished writer’s manuscript, just read it the way they would read any published piece of fiction. When reading a bought novel, one doesn’t stop on page 2 to analyze the goals, motivations, and conflicts, so don’t do it now! At least not on the first read-through.

JUDGES SHOULD NOT become too rule-bound. Nor should they let their tastes or prejudices overwhelm their judgment.

I THINK THERE IS A DIFFERENCE between serious historical errors and minor ones, and I think a judge should take this into account. Certainly, every historical author and every judge will have his or her own opinions on which errors are egregious, which serious, and which unimportant….and here are a few opinions of mine. (By the way, in the interest of discretion, I will point out that none of the following refers to any books I am currently judging!) 🙂

ERRORS THAT BOTHER ME LITTLE OR NOT AT ALL:

1. If a character uses a word in 1810 that has its earliest OED cite as 1830, that doesn’t bother me. (Words were often spoken long before they were written.) An exception, of course, is a word like “mesmerize” which has a clear and sudden origin (a friend of mine once saw that word used in an Elizabethan-set novel…)

2. If characters are not always wearing their gloves and hats when they ought, that rarely bothers me. (I have seen experts almost come to blows over when and if ladies removed their hats when paying calls, so I know the subject has its murky areas!)

3. If an Almack’s patroness is referred to as a Patroness in a year she wasn’t, or if Wellington is called a duke back before he was a duke, or if characters use candles when they should use oil lamps, that doesn’t bother me at all.

4. If Almack’s is having balls every day of the week.

ERRORS THAT DO BOTHER ME, AT LEAST SOMEWHAT:

— basic card game errors (such as piquet being written as a four-person card game, or a character who’s so good at faro that he beats every else); cards are very easy to research, so I think every writer who uses them should know the basics of any games to which she or he refers
— basic carriage errors bother me, though not hugely: i.e. I think the writer should know whether a carriage was owner-driven or coachman-driven, whether it was open, and approximately how many it could seat
— Mistaking a major inland city for a seaside town
— Regency gentlemen wearing “pants”
— Regency misses who have clearly read 21st century sex manuals

ERRORS THAT BOTHER ME A GREAT DEAL:
— when Sir John Doe is occasionally referred to as Sir John but much more often as Sir Doe
— knighthoods being inherited titles
— Regency gentlemen driving buggies through London
— heroes who run away to sea at age eighteen and buy a commission in the navy

So which errors bother you? Which errors don’t bother you?

And which of the above errors do you think I should start caring more or less about??? 🙂

All opinions welcome!

Cara (off to read!!!)

Posted in Research, Writing | Tagged , , | 10 Replies

Go With The Floe

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Over the past few weeks, my fellow Riskies have discussed research, historical accuracy, and how nitpicky is too nitpicky (or not), as well as how easy it is to get swept away by research. I am in the middle of writing a Regency-set historical, and am having some of the same problems, but from another angle: I don’t want to do the research.

It’s not that I’m not interested, because I am terribly interested in all the stuff I should be researching, it’s just that time is at a premium, and any time spent away from writing is . . . time spent away from writing. I already have a procrastination issue, I know how easy it would be for me to dive in to do the required research, not to surface for several weeks. Since I don’t plot in advance, and I always forget to take notes when inspiration strikes, I panic at the thought I might lose a thread of the plot, or a really good idea for the next conflict. Time spent away from the writing–well, you get the idea.

In my opinion, the best historical romances are those that are imbued with the whole world of the time period, not necessarily the ones that reveal the most knowledge. My favorites are those that only show the tip of the research iceberg–going with the floe, so to speak. I feel fairly confident I get the historical tone right in my writing, but I know I have fallen down on the research job (my dad is my research partner, and he put in all the work on A Singular Lady, but I did not double-check his notes when it came to titles and special licenses, my two most egregious errors. Definitely my bad, sorry Dad).

Right now I have to spend some time finding answers to some of these questions:

What were people who came from the Ottoman Empire called during the Regency? Turks? Ottos? Footstools?

What were relations like between the Ottoman Empire and England during the Regency? Did the government take any official stand on the Ottoman Empire’s holding of Greece?

What was banking like? The stock market? (I read A Conspiracy of Paper, but that is about sixty years too early, and I don’t recall the details, just that it was a good story).

If there was a public ruckus, who came in to break it up and haul the miscreants off to be punished?

Could a man unbutton a lady’s gown if he were standing in front of her? And if he could, could he do it with one hand?

What did practicers of The Fancy (boxing) wear to practice?

And now? I have stalled enough. Before I get back to writing, I have to–darn it–go do the research.

Megan
www.meganframpton.com

Posted in Regency, Research, Writing | Tagged | 10 Replies
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