Category: Risky Regencies

Read-A-Romance-Month

Updated on August 15, 2016 by Mary Blayney

Did you know that August is Read A Romance month? it’s a growing movement started by romance advocate Bobbi Dumas who reviews for NPR, the New York Times and Kirkus. Click on this link for details on RARM: http://www.readaromancemonth.com/about-read-a-romance-month-2/

This year I am participating along with 92 other authors including, among others Regency authors, Joanna Bourne, Lauren Wittig, Cathy Maxwell, Caroline Linden and Jade Lee. There are 93 authors in all, three each day of the month. Authors answer questions based on this year’s theme, books they recommend and more personal recollections of romantic moments in their own lives.

Take a minute to check out the calendar, make a copy and be sure to share the details with your friends http://www.readaromancemonth.com/author-calendar-2016/ See if some of your favorite authors are interviewed, come by on their day, read and comment.

MY DATE is Monday August 21. I’ll remind you more than once so you WILL remember.

I read, write and love romance! Have you heard of Read A Romance Month before this post? Do you have any other favorite sites that celebrate romance?

Posted in Risky Regencies | 5 Replies

Regency shop windows

Updated on June 27, 2016 by Rose Lerner

“Folkstone Strawberries or more carraway comfits for Mary Ann,” showing Samuel William Fores’s at the corner of Sackville Street and Piccadilly, c.1810, attrib. Isaac and George Cruikshank. Via Wikimedia Commons.

The above caricature shows a printseller/publisher’s shop window with what mostly appears to be books on display. Windows with lots of small panes were popular in Regency storefronts for at least two reasons (maybe more—I’m not sure how good the technology was for making large sheets of glass at the time):

1. Glass was still taxed by weight. A larger pane requires a thicker weight of glass. (This applied to greenhouses as well, by the way. You see them with lots of little panes.)

2. Shoplifting and property crime was endemic, and a small pane of glass was easier and cheaper to replace if someone broke it to steal your goods. (This was called “starring the glaze” by those in the biz, and here is how it was done, from a 1839 Commissioners Report:

One or two parties divert attention while another “stars.” This is either done by a diamond, or by inserting a small pen-knife through the putty near the corner of a pane and cracking it; the wet finger carries the crack in any direction; an angle is generally formed. The piece is wrought to and fro, and removed; if necessary, another piece is starred, to allow of the free ingress of the hand.

Read the full report to learn more about different theft techniques.)

Small panes also presumably meant it would take a lot more effort and time for thieves to access everything in the store window—and provided a convenient way to display more small wares, because as you can see in the above engraving, they built the windows with lots of tiny shelves to display items in every pane!

Here’s a still of a sweet shop in Bath from the 1995 Persuasion, from this excellent blog post at Jane Austen’s World. I looked at their screencaps a lot while creating the Honey Moon confectionary in my Lively St. Lemeston series.

More Georgian and Regency shop windows:

A much fancier confectionery.

A printseller. Crowds looking at the prints in printsellers’ windows seem to be a popular caricuture topic because I found LOTS of them. I especially love these dandies picking pockets from this wonderful post on dandy caricatures.

A cobbler/shoemaker.

This tavern in colonial America has ivy leaves in the window for Christmas!

A haberdasher.

A circulating library.

“Night,” from the Hogarth series “Four Times of the Day,” 1736. Via Wikimedia Commons.

The dentist/barbershop to the right of this Hogarth painting has a candle in every window pane, probably because at night the windows would reflect and amplify the light back into the room, serving as sconces.

Rundell & Bridge’s in 1822. (For those of you, like me, who are curious about the subject of the caricature: it looks like Lady Conyngham was a mistress of the Prince Regent and involved in political maneuvering about the Privy Purse, i.e. the Regent’s publicly funded allowance from Parliament.)

And here is one of my very favorite things in the Metropolitan Museum, an actual 1775-7 fancy Parisian storefront, carved from oak and stunningly beautiful.

Do you have a favorite shop whose window you like to look in when you go by? There’s a wedding dress store in downtown Seattle that I’m very fond of…

Posted in Risky Regencies | 3 Replies

Visiting Sotterley Plantation, MD

Updated on June 23, 2016 by Janet Mullany

I went on a field trip yesterday with a bunch of museum/history geeks to Sotterley Plantation, in Hollywood. (No, not that Hollywood. The one in Maryland.) It’s on the Patuxent River and is the only tidewater plantation open to the public, and is over four hundred years old.

Did I mention how old it is? I did. The land was first colonized by James Bowles in 1699, who built a modest two room a few red years after, which forms the core of the house. It’s possible to date it so accurately because dendochronology has determined that the cypress posts used in construction date to 1703. This extremely red room, apparently a highly popular color in the period, is the oldest part of the house. There’s a dark rectangle to the right of the notice on the door which is actually a hole cut in the woodwork to reveal the original cypress post.

chinesestaircase Naturally subsequent owners began to make expansions and improvements, and suddenly, later in the century, Chinoiserie became all the rage. Hence this extraordinary staircase in the expansion of the house undertaken by George Plater III (lots of Georges in this family). He also became a governor of the State of Maryland, and, eew, I cannot get this out of my head: he married a 13 year old who had their first baby when she was 14, and who became, according to the Sotterly website, “a political and social asset to her husband.” Gawd.

yellow A pretty yellow parlor was added in this period and the shell alcoves in the room are original (built with help from Mt. Vernon’s slaves).

Note the picture over the mantelpiece. This is an amazing bit of Colonial Revival kitsch. Colonial Revival was a big hit in the second half of the nineteenth century. There was a sudden burst of interest in the noble patriots of the revolution, gentlemen and landowners (and that meant slave owners. Mr. Bowles bought over 200 slaves when he arrived in 1799, and so it continued). Given Maryland’s geographical location, the division during the Civil War, and the reluctance of the state to free its slaves, the colonial period seemed a lot safer. The Colonial Revival movement presented an imaginary version of the good old days, in terms not only of interior design and decoration, but also in interpreting uncomfortable history. So a late 19th century artist was moved to paint this (pardon my assymetry):

painting

Wow. Is it Tara? Is it … well goodness only knows, but the artist had apparently never visited this house in Suffolk, Sotterley Hall, which it’s meant to depict:

sotterleysuffolk

The Platers believed they were descended from a Thomas Playter who owned Sotterley Hall in the fifteenth century (they weren’t), hence the name of the plantation.

And here’s a pic of a view from the gardens of the house, looking out over the Patuxent:

patuxent

Are you planning to visit any historical sites, or have you been to any recently? Plans for the summer?

Posted in History, Places, Risky Regencies | Tagged Sotterley | Leave a reply

Simplify*

Updated on May 16, 2016 by Mary Blayney

For many readers I suspect that one of the most appealing aspects of Regency life is its simplicity. In fact the day-to-day life of the well born may have been annoyingly busy but, in the fantasy world that most of us write, the characters live a life at a leisure pace the 21st century reader can only dream about. Or maybe enjoy on a solo vacation or a religious retreat.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately as I try to find a way to simplify a life that involves a lot of travel, mentoring some promising writers, welcoming spring with gardening, taking care of the endless threatening health issues and, oh yes, trying to work in writing and exercise

Believing in baby steps I no longer answer the phone and rely on people to leave messages which I can return at my convenience. Dinner is on the table as a finished meal only two or three nights a week thanks to a spouse who is okay with peanut butter and crackers (or occasionally will cook for both of us)

But I need to simplify not just eliminate. I could cancel our cable. That would end the distraction of TV but would not be fair to the rest of the household who depend on it for evening entertainment. Maybe I could reduce email to twice a day. But even that would take a good bit of time. Move to a less convivial neighborhood where neighbors do not stop in? Not an option if I want to stay married.

As I typed this I remembered the solution. I read it in the Washington Post years ago. A woman came to a therapist asking what she could do about a life that was out of control. His answer is THE ANSWER and I’m relieved that writing this post reminded me: IF YOU TAKE CARE OF YOUR INNER LIFE YOUR OUTER LIFE WILL TAKE CARE OF ITSLEF.

Did that advice work for the patient? I have no idea but I will tell you it has always worked for me. Until I lose sight of it. So it’s back to evening meditation and extra time at church to just sit and absorb the silence. I KNOW it will work because it has in the past.

Tell me what is the beas advice you ever absorbed, acted on and discovered was the truth?

*In the pursuit of simplicity I have no pictures. Far from home and access to my photos!

Posted in Risky Regencies | 8 Replies

Regency material culture, part 2

Updated on May 13, 2016 by Rose Lerner

Hey y’all! Gambled Away, my anthology with Molly O’Keefe, Jeannie Lin, Isabel Cooper and Joanna Bourne, releases in just a few days. So I thought I’d do another installment on nifty items I came across during the research for it! (You may remember part 1, featuring guillotine earrings, E.O. wheels, season tickets carved out of ivory, and more.)

1. This beautiful seal fob of a bird flying out of a cage with the words “LA LIBERTÉ”. I would give anything to know the story behind commissioning it. It could be a mourning seal, because of the clouds, but I’d like to believe that it belonged to someone who got out of a bad situation and had it made to celebrate. I like to imagine that my heroine Maggie, who loves pawnshops and secondhand markets and French Revolution-y stuff (she and her best friend run a 1780s and 90s-themed gambling den), bought this somewhere and uses it as her seal.

Posted in Risky Regencies | 4 Replies