I was inspired to write this post because of the question it raised, which I think is kickass. Today, February 11, is the birthday of William Fox Talbot (1800-1877) who is credited with being the inventor of photography.
As with many scientific discoveries, the bits and pieces of evidence–optical and chemical–were lying around for some time, and it took an enquiring mind to put them together.
The optical side of photography was provided with the Camera Obscura, which had been around for centuries as an aid to drawing. Leonardo da Vinci used it, and his contemporary Daniel Barbaro described it thus:
Close all shutters and doors until no light enters the camera except through the lens, and opposite hold a piece of paper, which you move forward and backward until the scene appears in the sharpest detail. There on the paper you will see the whole view as it really is, with its distances, its colours and shadows and motion, the clouds, the water twinkling, the birds flying. By holding the paper steady you can trace the whole perspective with a pen, shade it and delicately colour it from nature.
An early sci-fi novel by Charles-Francois Tiphaigne de la Roche (1729-1774), Giphantie, predicted the invention of photography.
For centuries people had been aware that some colors bleach in the sun, but it wasn’t clear whether this was the effect of heat, air, or light. In the seventeenth century, Robert Boyle, a founder of the Royal Society, reported that silver chloride darkened with exposure. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Thomas Wedgwood of pottery fame experimented with capturing images but couldn’t make them permanent.
The first successful picture was made with an eight hour exposure by Joseph Niepce in 1827, using material that hardened on exposure to light–he named it a heliograph. Rejected by the Royal Society, Niepce went into partnership with Louis Daguerre, who reduced the exposure time to half an hour and discovered that salt stabilized the image, and invented the daguerrotype.
Interestingly, neither Niepce nor Fox Talbot could draw, which is why they were so interested in artificial means of producing images. Niepce was forced to look elsewhere to continue his interest in lithography when his artist son went to war in 1814 (and may have died at Waterloo–something I couldn’t confirm). Fox Talbot continued his own experiments, successfully producing his first photograph of the oriel window at Lacock Abbey,Wiltshire, in 1835.
The photograph at the top of this post is also by Fox Talbot, showing Nelson’s column under construction in Trafalgar Square in 1843.
He nicknamed his cameras mousetraps.
In 1844-46 he published a collection of photographs, The Pencil of Nature (get your mind out of the gutter), demonstrating that this technology had both artistic and practical possibilities–in inventorying possessions, creating likenesses, and possibly also being of use in the legal system. He reminded readers:
The plates of the present work are impressed by the agency of Light alone, without any aid whatever from the artist’s pencil. They are the sun-pictures themselves, and not, as some persons have imagined, engravings in imitation.
If Talbot Fox had been born earlier, or if he had been a particularly precocious teenager, we might have had photos of the Regency. So, the kickass question. Imagine you’ve gone back in time with your digital camera carefully concealed in your capacious muff or elegant reticule (or, okay, tucked inside your stays):
What would you photograph and why?
And in the shameless self-promotion area, I’m guest blogging today at the Knight Agency blog for their Valentine’s Day celebration about my favorite pair of literary lovers and offering a copy of Improper Relations as a prize. Also check out my website which has been updated with excerpts, news, and aCONTEST!
All righty! We’ve had a spirited discussion in the comments about possible Heyer titles to read. I’ve made an executive decision and decided we should stick with Regency-set stories for now. In future, an Edith Layton title seems like an excellent suggested reading.
I went off to Wikipedia and swiped their descriptions of the Heyer novels people suggested. It’s possible I missed some, but that would be inadvertent on my part, not a deliberate omission.
It happens that I have already read The Regency Buck and would like to expand my Heyer horizons. But I did really really really like it. Lots. Some of these stories sound just wonderful! I’m a sucker for Cinderella stories, which many of these are . . . ::swoon::
There’s a poll at the bottom of this post. If there’s a malfunction, leave your vote in the comments. Any ties or controversies will be settled among and by the Riskies.
A Civil Contract
Viscount Lynton comes home to find himself the heir to debts after the death of his father. Having no means of restoring his family home he contemplates selling it. The family lawyer, however, suggests a marriage of convenience as an alternative. Lynton meets with Mr Chawleigh, a common Cit, and with Jenny, his plain and exquisitely shy daughter, and eventually agrees to be married. However he remains in love with Julia Oversley who is the exact opposite of Jenny. While Julia is ethereally beautiful and elegant, Jenny is plain and dowdy. The marriage is not a very happy one, although Jenny, who has been in love with Lynton for a long time, tries to make his life as comfortable as she can. Mr Chawleigh makes it difficult for Lynton to forget he is in his debt and the young man often wishes he were free of his obligations to him.
A veteran of the Peninsular War (1808-1814), Lynton has followed the exile and return of Napoleon with keen interest. Having read about the forthcoming battle in Belgium, he decides to gamble on the stock exchange. As he had foreseen, shares plummet down, only to soar again at the news of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo (1815). Lynton no longer needs his father in law’s financial support. In the meantime, Julia has married an older and wealthy suitor, whom she flaunts on a visit to Lynton’s. The latter realizes with a guilty feeling that he will probably be much happier and comfortable with devoted Jenny than he would ever have been with beautiful but self-centered Julia.
An Infamous Army
In the early summer of 1815, while the Battle of Waterloo is just a threat, Brussels is the most exciting city in Europe and many of the British aristocracy have rented homes there. The novel opens in the home of Lord and Lady Worth, where several of their friends are discussing the precarious situation in Belgium. Everyone is anxious for the Duke of Wellington to arrive from Vienna. When the other guests leave, Lady Worth’s brother, Sir Peregrine Taverner, (Perry) expresses his fears about remaining in Brussels, especially since his wife, Harriet is expecting their third child. In the end he decides that if his brother-in-law deems it safe to stay, then it must be safe enough. After he goes, Judith tells her husband about her hopes that Worth’s brother, Colonel the Hon. Charles Audley (who is a member of Wellington’s staff and is still in Vienna) will fall in love with her new friend, Miss Lucy Devenish. This leads her husband to accuse her of trying to play match maker and remark “I perceive that life in Brussels is going to be even more interesting than I had expected.” More About This Title
Cotillion
Heroine Kitty Charing has been brought up in rural isolation by her rich and eccentric guardian, Matthew Penicuik, whom she calls Uncle Matthew. Uncle Matthew makes the whimsical decision to name Kitty as his heiress, but only if she marries one of his extensive collection of great-nephews, the offspring of his assorted and much-loathed sisters.
Uncle Matthew expects that Kitty will marry Jack Westruther, his favourite great-nephew, and Kitty would be only too happy to comply: she has adored Jack for years. But Jack, while he intends someday to wed Kitty (believing that Uncle Matthew’s money must be willed either to her or to him), prefers to lead a rakish lifestyle as long as possible. Confident that Kitty will not accept any of his cousins, Jack declines to attend the family party at which Uncle Matthew intends for his great-nephews to propose to Kitty. . . . The complications that ensue are reflected in the title: a cotillion was originally a dance for four couples. More About This Title
Friday’s Child
The wild young Viscount Sheringham is fast running through his considerable income through gambling and other extravagant pursuits; and he cannot as yet touch the principal, unless he marries. As the lady with whom he currently fancies himself in love, the beautiful Isabella Milborne, is also an heiress, he proposes to her.
Isabella rejects him with contumely, citing his dissipated lifestyle. A lively quarrel then follows with his obnoxious widowed mother and her brother, who wish to retain control of his father’s fortune themselves. The Viscount storms off in a fit of pique, vowing to marry the first female he meets. This turns out to be the pretty but orphaned and shy Hero Wantage, who has secretly loved him since they were children, and who now lives with one of his neighbours in the position of Cinderella, complete with Ugly Sisters.
The rest of the novel, chronicling the Viscount’s gradual transition to maturity and the realisation that the one he really loves is Hero (the “loving and giving” child of the title) is told with Miss Heyer’s characteristic wit, and features some of her most memorable dialogue, plot twists and characters (such as the fiery but lovelorn George Wrotham, whose hobby is fighting duels).
Regency Buck
Judith Taverner is a beautiful young heiress who comes to London to join high society. She takes an instant dislike to her unwilling guardian, Julian, fifth Earl of Worth, who, having met her earlier in a small town filled with bucks watching a boxing match, treats her with a familiarity reserved for loose women. Judith soon becomes a sensation in London. She get many offers of marriage (including one from the Duke of Clarence). Worth does not permit her to marry any one of them. This initially makes Judith very angry, but she comes to appreciate it later. Judith has a younger brother named Peregrine (Perry) who is a young handsome boy with very little sense and a lot of money to spare. Hence, he is always getting into trouble. Perry and Judith’s cousin Bernard Taverner seems always so kind and attentive, though there is little love lost between him and Worth. . . . The sparring and eventual love affair of Judith and Julian, against the backdrop of Judith’s brother Peregrine’s romance and danger, make up this novel. More About this Title.
Sylvester
Sylvester, a wealthy duke, is considering marriage. After discussing his prospects with his ailing mother, who thinks he is too arrogant towards the women he thinks are possibilities, he travels to London to discuss the matter with his godmother, Lady Ingham. Lady Ingham tells him of her granddaughter, whose mother (lady Ingham’s daughter) was his mother’s closest friend. He is disgusted by Lady Ingham’s efforts at match-making, and departs for a hunt in the countryside. It is at this hunt that he meets the father of the girl Lady Ingham offered him. Impressed by the man’s hunting, Sylvester consents to being his guest. As the visit progresses, it is patent to Sylvester that the whole was engineered by Lady Ingham to make him fall in love with Phoebe, whom he considers insipid and talentless. Phoebe, meanwhile, is terrified of being made to marry Sylvester. More about this title
The Foundling
A bored duke slips away from his overprotective servants and family and gets caught up in a variety of mishaps, eventually gaining self-confidence and a new outlook on life.
The Quiet Gentleman
Gervase Frant, 7th Earl of St Erth, returns to his family seat at Stanyon, having inherited from his father while abroad with the army against Napoleon.
Also residing at Stanyon are his stepmother are the Dowager Lady St Erth, Gervase’s younger half-brother Martin, his cousin Theo and his stepmother’s young friend, Drusilla, who is on a long-term visit.
Lady St Erth and Martin rapidly make plain to Gervase, in ways verging on the highly anti-social, that they are rather disappointed to see him home. They had expected him to die, as the officer death rate was high, and had wanted him to die, as Martin would have inherited instead. . . . More about this Title
The Reluctant Widow
The heroine, Elinor Rochdale, daughter of a ruined gentleman, accepts the role of a governess to sustain herself. Stepping into the wrong carriage at a Sussex village, Elinor finds herself in the wrong house, required by the sensible, sophisticated Edward Carlyon to marry his profligate cousin, Eustace Cheviot. In a somewhat dazed state, Elinor soon finds herself coerced into becoming the wife of a dying man, the mistress of a ruined estate and a partner in a secret conspiracy to save the family’s name in only one night.
The Spanish Bride
From the moment that Harry Smith met the 14-year-old Juana in 1812 he was trapped, trapped by a love that was surrounded on all sides by the Napoleonic wars. From the Siege of Badajos to Waterloo Harry & Juana were virtually inseparable – even when separated.
The Talisman Ring
On his deathbed, Baron Lavenham arranges a marriage between his great-nephew, Sir Tristram Shield, and his young French granddaughter, Eustacie de Vauban. His grandson and heir, Ludovic, is on the run on the Continent, after allegedly murdering a man in a dispute over a valuable heirloom, the talisman ring. The romantic Eustacie, appalled by her betrothed’s phlegmatic character, runs away and soon encounters a smuggler, who turns out to be her cousin Ludovic. The two take refuge at a local inn, after Ludovic is injured escaping from Excisemen. There they encounter an older lady, Miss Sarah Thane, who vows to help them. The subsequent plot revolves around proving Ludovic’s innocence by finding the missing ring and unmasking the real murderer.
The Toll-Gate
After acting as an aide-de-camp at the Battle of Waterloo, Jack Staple is finding civilian life tedious. Following a formal (and somewhat boring) dinner party in honour of his cousin’s engagement, Jack sets out by himself on horseback to visit a more congenial friend some 60 miles away. After getting lost in the dark and rain he reaches a toll-gate where a frightened 11-year old lad is acting as toll collector in the absence of his father. A combination of curiosity, compassion, tiredness, and dampness lead him to stay at the toll house overnight with a view to sorting out the situation in the morning.
Over the next few days Jack’s circle of acquaintances rapidly expands to include a highwayman, a Bow Street runner, and the local gentry plus their devoted retainers. Other complications include a dead body, stolen treasure, and some masked villains. In the process of preventing a scandal, Jack also manages to identify the murderer, deal with the villains, retrieve the treasure, satisfy the law, provide for his friends, and resolve his own romance.
Venetia
Venetia Lanyon grew up in the country, away from the world with only her younger brother Aubrey, bookish and lamed, for company. Her peace and quiet is one day disturbed by the rakish Lord Damerel. She at first sensibly keeps away from him for his very discourteous treatment of her, but when Lord Damerel finds an injured Aubrey and not only takes him into his home to recover but treats him with great kindness, she revises her first opinion of him and they soon become the best of friends. When Venetia and Lord Damerel fall in love, however, Damerel is convinced that marriage with him would cause Venetia’s social ruin. Venetia disagrees, and sets about creating her own happy ending.
And Now, Please Vote
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(Warning: this is going to be a post that depends a lot on you, because I am interested to see what everyone thinks!) Often when I’m wasting my time, er, doing valuable research online I love to read blogs about fashion, beauty products, opera and ballet, jazz, all sorts of things, and I especially love blogs about movies. (Even though this means my Netflix account is totally out of control because of it). One of my favorite movie blogs is the Self Styled Siren, a wonderfully witty and intelligent look at classic movies. She recently had a fascinating post called “Unearthing the Uncool”.
This post started with a statement the Siren made on Facebook: “It is much easier to proclaim dislike for a popular movie than to admit liking an uncool movie,” which sparked a fascinating stream of comments and proclamations of love for movies and actors that are generally deemed “uncool.” (For instance, the Siren defends the 1940 Pride and Prejudice, stuff like Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Stewart Granger, and, gasp!, even Kevin Costner). I myself have a deep and abiding love for movie musicals, like The Sound of Music, Brigadoon, and Camelot, that others often hoot at derisively. (you know who you are, haters!). I know this is also true in literary fiction, and that in mysteries some sub-genres are looked at as “cooler” than others, so I started to wonder if this could apply to romance novels. We definitely don’t seem to have that “cool”/”uncool” divide that movies do, though I suppose there are genres or authors that have a cooler reputation than others. Is it “cool” to admit to liking old-skool stuff like Whitney My Love? (I think I just came to reading historicals too late, when tastes had changed, to get into them. I had very different romantic fantasies). Is it “uncool” to admit we can’t really get into, say, urban fantasy, which seems very cool (as I mostly can’t, much as I want to!)?
Traditional Regencies certainly used to be “uncool,” considered by some to be dry books for stereotypical grannies (I had someone tell me once I couldn’t possibly write them, I looked too young! Which was flattering, of course, but kinda made me want to get all lecture-y on them about the intelligence and variety of trads. Ditto for a friend of my mine who ONE TIME read a Regency, didn’t like it–even though she couldn’t remember the title–and decided they were all like that one). But now that they’re obscure and out-of-print and all that, maybe they’re like some little indie band out of Austin. And on some book blogs there are often threads like “books you like that no one else has read” or “books everyone liked that you hated,” which I guess can be sort of like cool/uncool. Mostly, though, romance genres seem to be pretty much anything goes. If I don’t like something, someone else will, and vice versa, and I like it that way. The variety is what makes it fun.
So I am sending it to you! Do you think there is that “coolness” factor in romance fiction? If so, what would it be? And what movies do you love that others make fun of?
(p.s. I have not seen that movie The Enchanted Cottage, but I totally want to! I mean, look at that poster. People were whispering about them! The whole town!)
Janet and I (and Cara’s Todd, it turns out) have been caught in a near record-breaking Washington, DC, snowfall. I’m sure this is not a surprise; it’s made the news, but something this big cannot be ignored!
Those of you who live in places where snow is commonplace may not realize the significance of a 30 inch snowfall in Washington, DC (in my Virginia area we only managed 27 inches). We ususally get only one or two snowstorms a year and two or three inches of snow brings us to a crashing halt. Thirty inches in paralyzing.
Here’s the view from my bedroom window Saturday. We still had more snow to come.
And the same view Sunday afternoon after we were almost dug out. That’s my husband, who is 5’11” reaching up to clean the car.
Our front stoop and sidewalk are untouched.
We have not ventured out yet, but the roads remain so bad that the Federal Government is closed. (This is a very big deal here.) Amtrak between New York and DC is halted; planes aren’t flying; buses aren’t running. The only public transportation is the metro subway underground, not above.
We’re the lucky ones. We still have one gallon of milk left and plenty of toilet paper. Thousands are without heat, including some friends of ours who live near Mount Vernon.
Which brings me to the fact that this is not a record breaking snowfall. The unofficial record of 35 inches goes back to January 28, 1772, before official records were kept. How do we know that the snowfall that date was 35 inches? Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson record it in their diaries.
It’s not all hardship, though. Thanks to Facebook, two thousand gathered in Dupont Circle in DC for a Community Snowball fight.
I went on a search for Regency era snow pictures (to make this relevant to Risky Regencies). I found two. This first one is the Liverpool Mail, dating a bit later in the 1830s.
The second is from 1804 (earlier) called: The Neglected Daughter: An Affecting Tale.
This shows what happens to daughters who stray (i.e. have babies out of wedlock)
Are you in the “snow” area? How much did you get? If you were me, would you wish you were stranded in Florida, like my friend, Darlene Gardner? Do you like or hate the snow?
Check my website for new announcements and on how to order Regency High Society Affairs, Vol 12, featuring my second book, The Wagering Widow.
I was inspired to write this post because of the question it raised, which I think is kickass. Today, February 11, is the birthday of William Fox Talbot (1800-1877) who is credited with being the inventor of photography.
Interestingly, neither Niepce nor Fox Talbot could draw, which is why they were so interested in artificial means of producing images. Niepce was forced to look elsewhere to continue his interest in lithography when his artist son went to war in 1814 (and may have died at Waterloo–something I couldn’t confirm). Fox Talbot continued his own experiments, successfully producing his first photograph of the oriel window at Lacock Abbey,Wiltshire, in 1835.
He nicknamed his cameras mousetraps.
