This week, Risky Regencies is pleased to be able to give away TWO copies of the just-released 10th Anniversary Limited Edition Pride & Prejudice Collector’s Set, which contains both the DVDs and the illustrated companion book for the A&E/BBC miniseries starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.

To enter, all you have to do is comment on at least one of the Riskies’ posts this week. For each day this week (from Monday through Saturday) that you comment on that day’s post, you will earn one chance to win — so if you comment on one post, you have one chance, and if you comment on all six posts, you have six chances, and so on.

The DVD is formatted for Region 1, so only US and Canadian entries are eligible.

Visit us early and often for your chance to win; and then stick around to join the thought-provoking discussions, admire gorgeous pictures of Mr. Darcy et al, and chat about your favorite romance novels, or anything to do with Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, or the English Regency.

To learn more about this edition of Pride & Prejudice, visit the
A&E Store.

Winners will be announced on Sunday!

“Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back that is an outrage” –Winston Churchill

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them” –Joseph Brodsky

This past week was Banned Books Week. (For more info, check out the ALA’s official site). I always enjoy this week–not because I think banning books is a good idea (!), but because most of my life has been so white-bread boring that I enjoy feeling a bit subversive just for reading a book. 🙂 In preparing this post, I spent a fascinating hour or so scanning lists of banned books on the Internet. Here are a few from around the Regency period:

Candide, Voltaire–In 1930, US Customs seized a shipment of Harvard-bound copies claiming obscenity. Two Harvard profs mounted a spirited defense of the work, and Customs later admitted a different edition

Fanny Hill, John Cleland–written in 1749, this tale of a prostitute was known for its frank sexual descriptions and its parodies of books like Moll Flanders. It wasn’t cleared from US obscenity charges until 1966.

And speaking of Moll Flanders–Defoe’s novel was banned from the US Mail under the Comstock Law of 1873 (the same law that banned the dissemination of birth control devices and information)

Rousseau’s Confessions–seized by US Customs in 1924 as being “injurious to public morality”

And a few I just got a laugh from:

Ibsen’s A Doll’s House–in 1983 members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee called to ban this play because it “propagates feminist views”

These geniuses also tried to ban Diary of Anne Frank (also in 1983) for being “a real downer”

Vasilisa the Beautiful: Russian Fairy Tales was challenged in Mena, Arkansas in 1990 because it contains “violence, voodoo, and cannibalism” (the perfect story, IMO!)

D.T. Suzuki’s Zen Buddhism: Select Writings, challenged in Canton, Michigan in 1987–“this book details the teachings of the religion of Buddhism in such a way that the reader could very likely embrace its teachings and choose this as his religion.” Because, of course, the last thing we need in this world is a bunch of peaceful Buddhists meditating all over the place.

What are some of your favorite “dangerous” books?

There are guilty pleasures, and then there are pleasures that are just wrong.

One of my guilty pleasures is watching historical movies, no matter the quality. A friend from high school and I (visitors to my blog will know her as the Super-Smart Lawyer) settle down on my couch after my son is asleep, crack open a bottle of wine, and indulge. We’ve seen two versions of Wuthering Heights (Olivier and Dalton), Clive Owen in Return of the Native, Century and King Arthur, Jane Eyre (just the Dalton version so far), and of course some others I can’t recall–we’ve been doing this for awhile now.

My recent Sean Bean obsession, fueled by my viewing of the Sharpe series, has now led me to this: Scarlett. It is the 1994 mini-series based on Alexandra Ripley‘s sequel to Margaret Mitchell‘s Gone With The Wind. He plays a minor character in it, and to my surprise, I discovered it starred another historical favorite, Timothy Dalton.

But when I got it home from the library, I felt a little queasy. It’s six hours long! It’s a TV mini-series! Based on the sequel to a much-beloved book! If I do watch it, it will be alone, so I can hide my shame. My friend does not deserve six hours of cheesy TV melodrama.

Has anyone seen it? Can recommend it? Or not? And what is your guiltiest pleasure movie?

Megan
www.meganframpton.com

S e x.

Sex in the Regency. My advice would be, don’t go there. Look at our own times. Is there a consensus on sexuality? Hardly, and yet everyone has an opinion. Trying to figure out sexual mores from a distance of almost two hundred years is a little daunting. Because for every discovery you make, there’s an exception, and you just end up even more confused.

Sex was for procreation. Except when it wasn’t. Yes, the aristocracy wanted to be sure that their heirs were actually theirs and not the third footman’s…but it didn’t mean anyone was going to enjoy it. Except for the sorts of misbehavior that were purely for enjoyment. Women were stupid creatures who didn’t have any sort of control over the physical desire they weren’t mean to know about. Anything you, uh, did on your own (see how polite I’m being today!) would cause a whole host of exotic, distressing, life-threatening physical and mental symptoms, and everyone would know what you’d been doing.

And oh yes, let’s not forget the distressing consequences of unprotected sex, particularly for women.

It’s enough to make you wonder why and how the Regency is now viewed as this incredibly sexy period. Because, of course, it is. The clothes, the clothes, celebrating men’s beautiful athletic bodies (never in the history of clothing has a style so blatantly demanded that you look there, yes, there–and I don’t count codpieces because they’re just silly). Wonderful, feminine, floaty, transparent gowns for women with not a whole lot underneath. It’s almost as though fashion was an acceptable means of erotic expression.

Romance has created a sort of never-never Regencyland which is a lot of fun to explore. I think it’s also a lot of fun to incorporate some real history into our fantasy. But how much, and what? Real events, real people? What books have you read that you felt really gave you a sense of being in another time and place?

Janet

When in the depths of first draft hell, sometimes I reach for some favorite quotes to keep me slogging. But not the usual motivational stuff. Later, I will appreciate words like Eleanor Roosevelt’s: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” But when I’m at this stage, I want gritty realism and black humor.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not drive on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. – Winston Churchill

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. – Thomas Mann

There’s only one person who needs a glass of water oftener than a small child tucked in for the night, and that’s a writer sitting down to write. – Mignon McLaughlin

If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad. – Lord Byron

Easy reading is damn hard writing. – Nathaniel Hawthorne

The first draft of anything is sh*t. – Ernest Hemingway

Only a mediocre writer is always at his best. – W. Somerset Maugham

Here’s another one I love, though not specific to writing:

Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
– Gimli, in the cinematic version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Return of the King

So do any of you have favorite quotes, writing-related or otherwise, that help you get through the day?

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, finalist NJRW Golden Leaf
www.elenagreene.com