Back to Top

“Engaging Oldfield”

Updated on by

Happy Tuesday, everyone!  I am deep in finishing up a book due Oct. 31 (the first in my Elizabethan mystery series!  I’m soooo excited about it), but first a little Tuesday business.  The winner of Love and Louis XIV is…Elizabeth Mahon!  Check your email inbox for more info…

And in looking around for a blog topic today, I found out that Georgian actress Anne Oldfield died on this day in 1730.  I’m a huge theater buff, and love to collect books about the history of the theater/opera/ballet, so I sorted through my shelves until I found Joanne Lafler’s The Celebrated Mrs. Oldfield: The Life and Art of an Augustan Actress.

Anne Oldfield was born in London in 1683, the daughter of a poor soldier.  She was apprenticed to a seamstress, but she loved reciting poetry and plays, and one day was overheard (it was said in a tavern!) by theater impresario George Farquhar, who was impressed with her beauty and her speaking voice.  She then found herself engaged at Drury Theater and was an instant hit, at first for her looks more than any acting ability, but as the years passed she honed her craft and became renowned as a great comic actress.

Some of her most famous roles were in plays by Ben Jonson (Volpone and Epicoene) and Colley Cibber (The Careless Husband, The Provok’d Husband), who declared she “here she outdid her usual Outdoing.”

She was one of the great theatrical idols of her day, renowned for her talent and her ladylike behavior, her clothes and hats copied, her plays sold-out.  Alexander Pope, in Sober Advice from Horace, said,  “Engaging Oldfield, who, with grace and ease, Could join the arts to ruin and to please.”

She died at 47 at her fine house at 60 Grosvenor Street in London, leaving her rather large fortune to her two sons.  She was buried at Westminster Abbey.


Who would you love to go back in time and see onstage???

Posted in Research | Tagged , | 5 Replies

Inglorious October 25

Updated on by

Good morning/afternoon everyone. I’m recycling a blog post from October 25, 2007 today, the anniversary of two major battles, neither of which have anything to do with the Regency period.

In 1415, Henry V won the Battle of Agincourt, one of the attempts by England to get a foothold in France (and am I the only person who prefers the Olivier version over the Branagh film?).


And in 1854, thanks to bungled orders, political infighting among officers, and the famed stiff upper lip, the Charge of the Light Brigade took place, when the 13th Hussars charged directly into enemy guns during the Crimean War. As a French general commented, “C’est magnifique mais ce ne pas la guerre.” (Roughly translated as: it’s magnificent, but not war. Well, it sounds better in French.)

I’d hazard a guess that we remember these events by the two poets who immortalized them rather by the history. Here’s an excerpt from the famous St. Crispin’s Day speech by Shakespeare:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Tennyson, another master of the soundbite, immortalized the Charge of the Light Brigade, a peom that, if you are an English person of a certain age, you had drummed into you at school, or at least the more quotable bits of it:

Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

I wonder if we would remember these two events–the English tried for a couple more centuries to claim bits of France, but failed; and the famous Charge was a tactical blunder of monumental stupidity–if it weren’t for the poets.

And a reminder that the contest to win one of my books about Jane Austen as a vampire is still open at Dark Jane Austen. Now I must go and write. What are you up to today?

Posted in Research | Tagged , , | 2 Replies

Title help and giveaway!

Updated on by

I just got the second proof copy of the Print-on-Demand version of Lady Dearing’s Masquerade. The first copy had a few problems, which I’ve fixed and this copy looks great! Even though I believe e-books are real books, having a copy I can hold in my hands is still really, really cool.

So now I am looking at this proof copy. Susanna’s post last week,  Trouble with Titles reminded me of how I’ve been struggling with a title for my balloonist story. The connection: I’d be delighted to give away this copy in exchange for some help brainstorming.

Note: this is just brainstorming–I’m going to pick a winner at random, not based on who gives the best title advice. I won’t necessarily use any of the names we come up with.  I still have a few months’ work to finish the story, so the Perfect Title Fairy might still deliver.

Just tell me what you think of my ideas so far and let me know if any new ones come to you.

To give you an idea of the story, here’s the tiny blurb I currently have up on my website, which sounds kind of trite (quick pitches are another thing I struggle with).

My hero, Gil, is a Waterloo veteran turned aeronaut. Not trusting the future, he lives for the moment, while my heroine, Emma, is a village schoolteacher so weighed down by past tragedies she has forgotten how to enjoy life. Together they deal with ghosts from their pasts, a saboteur and a passion that won’t be denied.

My initial working title was Heaven Sent. He crashes into the meadow behind her cottage and changes her life. Clever, huh?  Not so much. There are at least eight books on Amazon with that title, mostly romance in various sub-genres but also one book that was religious in nature.

I decided I was not in love with that title anyway.

So I took out my journal and trusty blue gel pen and started brainstorming:

The Angel and the Aeronaut — too traditional Regency!  Too much sex in this book for that title.

Then I thought of playing with Flight of …. something.  Flight of Fancy?  Flight of Passion? But I also found a few books with titles like that.

OK, maybe The Height of something?  Folly? Passion? Desire?

Or something to do with rogues–my hero seems like a bit of a rogue and rogues are sexy, right?  Rescued by a Rogue?  Or does that sound too Regency again?

That’s where my brainstorming petered out.  So for the chance to win the final proof copy of Lady Dearing’s Masquerade, let me know what you think of these title ideas.  New ideas warmly welcomed!

I’ll announce the winner next Friday.

Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene
www.twitter.com/ElenaGreene7

Posted in Giveaways, Risky Book Talk, Writing | Tagged , | 19 Replies

Hurricane

Updated on by

Today in the mid-atlantic states and the northeast we will be having a hurricane. Not just any old hurricane, but a storm such as has never been seen before. It looks like New Jersey and New York city will be hardest hit. The Washington D.C. area where I live will be on the outskirts of the storm, but, even so, the federal government is closed, the subway and bus lines will not run, schools are closed and we’ve been warned for two days to be prepared.

I’ve been to the grocery store twice and purchased all the essentials. Toilet paper. Cat food. Kitty litter….and food and drink for the people in the household. If we have electricity, I’ll let you know how we are faring during the day. If not, I’ll be back when I can.

Meanwhile, here’s a snippet about a hurricane in England, March 23, 1822.

And one from October 18, 1812, and another from October 19 and 20 that same year.


If you are in the storm’s path, I wish you good luck. Stay safe.
Any advice for weathering a storm? What should I read, if I need to read by candlelight?

Posted in Research | Tagged | 10 Replies

Tuesday

Updated on by

Quick post today–I am finishing up the WIP to get it turned in by (hopefully) the end of the week!  This is something a little different for me, the first in a mystery series.  It’s set in the early Elizabethan period (book one is 1558, right before Elizabeth becomes queen; book two will take place around the coronation in January 1559).  It has a heroine–Kate Haywood, the daughter of the queen’s chief musician (and a musician herself, who discovers a new talent for solving murders).  It has a title–Murder at Hatfield House.  It has a release date–October 2013.  And I have a new pseudonym–Amanda Carmack.  Now it must get finished.

Here are a couple pics of the setting:

And some pretty dresses (my heroine gets to dress up a lot more in book two, tentatively titled Murder at Westminster Abbey), which I am very excited about, of course!!

I’m also worrying about East Coast friends (thankfully many of them post Facebook updates), thinking about last minute wedding stuff (7 weeks away!), and trying to get back onto a regular exercise routine, which I have been slacking on for too long.  I hope everyone has a good, safe week….

Posted in Risky Book Talk | Tagged , , | 2 Replies
Follow
Get every new post delivered to your inbox
Join millions of other followers
Powered By WPFruits.com