Tag Archives: Jane Austen

Wine and winners!

Updated on September 3, 2011 by Elena Greene

Earlier this week, I enjoyed an anniversary overnight with my husband in the Finger Lakes. Here’s the view from our room, across the vineyard and down to Seneca Lake. We had a lovely time and returned with two cases of wine. 🙂

I’ve been visiting Finger Lakes wineries since my just-out-of-college days, when my wine knowledge was next to nil. I can honestly say that at most Finger Lakes wineries, there’s very little wine snobbery. Staff are friendly, happy to answer questions and help you discover what you like. I highly recommend taking a tour.

Finger Lakes winemakers have been working with reds for a while, with some success, but I still tend to prefer European reds. IMHO the Finger Lakes wineries are at their best with white wines. I love their Chardonnays and especially those that have undergone what is called “malalactic fermentation” which basically transforms fruity acidity to a rich, buttery acidity. Yum! Especially with rich seafood dishes. I’ve now tried Rieslings from other places and still think the Finger Lakes Rieslings are unmatched, as did Tim Patterson, a wine writer in Wines & Vines: “My due diligence completed, there was only one rational conclusion: The distinctive character of Finger Lakes Riesling comes from where the grapes are grown. It’s the terroir, stupid. There’s only one growing area on the planet (so far) that regularly yields the distinctive balance of acid, alcohol, and texture that marks this bounty from this part of Upstate New York.” These Rieslings are full of flavor, great with many foods or by themselves.

But enough about what I like. What did they drink during the Regency? When I first started reading Georgette Heyer’s books, I hadn’t a clue as to what some of the wine terms meant. Here’s a rundown, since some of these terms are no longer in common use.

“Hock” refers to white wine from Germany; the term comes from the name of the town Hochheim in the Reingau region. “Claret” is red Bordeaux, from that region in France (blends which may include Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and other grapes). Burgundy was from Burgundy (made from blends including Pinot Noir), although now the term is sometimes used to denote a wine that may or may not be similar to the French wine.

Regency characters might also drink fortified wines, with a high alcohol content because they have distilled alchohol added. These included Madeira (made in the Madeira Islands, part of Portugal), port (from Portugal) or sherry (from Spain).

I don’t know if homemade wines were commonly drunk by the haut ton, but the gentry made such wines based on fruits and herbs. There’s a recipe for “Mrs Fowle’s Orange Wine” in The Jane Austen Cookbook, by Maggie Black and Deirdre Le Faye. It would be an interesting experiment to try. I suspect the result was pretty strong, since the last steps involve adding brandy.

Do you enjoy wine and what are your favorites? Have you ever tried wine-making?

But before we chat, here are the winners of the LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE Kindle ebook giveaway:

Virginia

Sapskull

girlygirlhoosier52

Danielle Gorman

bookloveroh

Congratulations! Please send your email and the email of a friend who you think might enjoy the Kindle ebook to elena @ elenagreene. com.

Elena

www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Jane Austen | Tagged burguny, claret, finger lakes, hock, Jane Austen, Lady Dearing's Masquerade, wine | 10 Replies

World On Fire

Updated on August 30, 2011 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

Happy Tuesday, everyone! What a crazy week, right? Luckily here there have been no earthquakes or floods, just continuing heat and drought (two straight months of 105+ temps–I want autumn already!) and I am buried in trying to finish revisions before I go on vacation on the 12th. So this post will be short….

I’ve been reading Amanda Foreman’s fascinating new book, A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War. It’s 900 pages so it’s taking me a while, but every time I sit down to read I find myself totally engrossed. I’m embarrassed to admit I know so much less about American history than European history, and very little about the Civil War (except what I learned as a kid touring some battlefields with my grandparents!), but almost nothing about European attitudes toward the war, but Foreman’s book reads like a novel about complex, fascinating, and very human characters of all sorts (both known and unknown). Their world, much like ours, was caught in the grip of profound uncertainty, and Britain was no exception despite their official neutrality. (British attitudes were especially complex, given how attitudes were overwhelmingly in favor of abolition but Northern mills were heavily dependent on Southern cotton–the blockade threw tens of thousands into unemployment…)

I highly recommend this book! And now I need to get offline and get back to work, so let’s look at some historical photos (which I love doing!). Have you read anything good lately? Gone on any good summer vacations?

Posted in Jane Austen | Tagged Civil War, Jane Austen | 8 Replies

Earthquakes and Storms – Regency Style

Updated on August 29, 2011 by Diane Gaston

Earthquakes and storms! Last week was quite eventful here in the Washington, D.C., area. Luckily we got through it unscathed. Just a little fear from the earthquake and only a few buildings damaged (this image showing damage to the National Cathedral is from The Atlantic Wire ). Just a lot a twigs and leaves from the hurricane here at our house, although there were several trees down in the Washington, DC area.

I got to wondering what such events would be like during the Regency?

Would there even be an earthquake in the British Isles? Seems even more unlikely than in Northern Virginia. Turns out, I found one—almost. In The London, Edinburg, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Vol. XXI, July-Dec 1842, was an article titled On The Earthquake Felt In Parts Of Cornwall, On February 17, 1842. Not exactly Regency era, but close enough!

The experiences recounted in the article were remarkably like how people experienced the earthquake in Virginia.

At Berkeley Vale, Falmouth:

About twenty minutes before nine a.m., I heard a peculiar rumbling sound, more like the moaning of the wind than thunder, which was immediately followed by a shaking of the doors and windows of the house, the whole effect lasting about half a minute. In the environs of the town of Falmouth, the noise particularly attracted attention, and although but few speak of any tremor, yet all describe it either as resembling the fall of a heavy body, or like a distant explosion. Many persons were fully persuaded a steam vessel had blown up in the harbour.

This about describes what I felt in my house, and many people around this area, still recalling 9/11, first thought of an explosion, a bomb.

The article goes on:

An intelligent person, captain of Poldory mine, describes it thus :—” I imagined some of the empty railroad waggons had been let go at the top of the incline, and were rapidly rushing past the door of my house: my neighbour, a widow woman, ran out shrieking that the side of her house was coming in.”

Many here thought the initial sound came from trucks rumbling by. I was, by the way, the modern version of that widow woman above.

I could not find information about hurricanes in Regency England, although there were many accounts of hurricanes in the West Indies and “the Colonies.” What I did find was a description of a gale from the Annual Register, Vol. 60, for the year 1818.

On March 5, 1818, was this report from Portsmouth:

The whole of last night it blew the most tremendous gale from the S. S. E. that can be remembered. The Hamsley, of and from Sunderland, sunk between the buoys of the Horse and the Elbow; the crew took to the rigging, and were all fortunately saved this morning at day light by a pilotboat that went off to their relief. During the gale, the whole of the wood-work of the new Pier at Ryde was washed away, and several houses to the eastward of the pier washed down. The ships in the roads and harbour rode out the gale. The Lively cutter had her bulwarks washed away; the brig Assiduous, Jenkins, parted from one of her anchors; the brig Shillelagh had her boats washed over her side; and the Tamar sloop of war slipped one of her cables.

Images from the Hurricane Irene hitting the east coast came to mind while I read this. Houses damaged. Piers washed away. How our ships took off for the high seas in anticipation of the storm. People needing rescue. Boats damaged.

In the more heavily flooded areas of New York and New Jersey, I watched reports of the rescue of two young men who were caught in the flood. There were reports of several people who tried to be out and about during and after the storm who experienced difficulties.

Here is more of that report from 1818 Portsmouth:

It is with regret that we must close this disastrous relation by stating, the drowning of the Hon. Mr. Thellusson (brother of Lord Rendlesham), Mr. Hassall (son of J. Hassall, Esq. of Hartshorn, county of Derby), and Mr. Leeson (son of the Hon. Mrs. Leeson), all midshipmen of his Majesty’s ship Tiber, who left that ship, soon after the gale commenced, in a wherry, which was pooped by a sea at the mouth of the harbour, and was never seen afterward: the waterman (Brown) and a boy also perished. These young gentlemen, who were most highly esteemed by their brother officers, were tempted to leave the ship at this hazardous moment by their anxious desire to see the performance of Mr. Kean that evening.

I guess young men can be foolish in any era.

Did you have any problems with the earthquake or the hurricane? If not these events, what about earthquakes and storms of years past?

Posted in Jane Austen | Tagged earthquake, Jane Austen, storm | 9 Replies

Lady Dearing’s Masquerade and Kindle Edition Giveaway!

Updated on August 27, 2011 by Elena Greene

One of the do’s and don’ts I’ve sometimes heard at romance writers’ conferences is to avoid social and political issues (“no saving the whales”). I understand the reasoning. Authors and publishers don’t want to alienate potential readers with controversial issues. And in a romance, the love story should be central.

On the other hand, if we write about characters who are interesting and well-rounded, their views and passions are going to creep into the story, and sometimes that includes social issues.

In coming up with the idea for LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, I started with the heroine, Livvy. She appeared briefly in a novella I’d written earlier, so I knew she was a childless, wealthy widow with a bad reputation and no desire to remarry. But when I started to think about her, I learned that she really wanted children. So it was natural for her to become involved with London’s Foundling Hospital.

The Foundling Hospital was founded in 1739 by Thomas Coram, who was appalled by the plight of abandoned children in London. The Hospital raised the children, provided a basic education and helped them find jobs. (Today, the Coram foundation continues to serve vulnerable children.) The Hospital took in foundlings but also had days during which mothers brought babies to the Hospital, generally because they could not afford to care for them. As there were always more babies than the Hospital could take in, admission was by lottery. The mothers who “won” cried as bitterly as those who “lost”. As a mother, I choke up whenever I think of this. Tokens (trinkets or scraps of fabric) were left with the children to aid in identification. Sometimes, though not often, parents were able to reclaim their children.

Strange as it may seem, the Foundling Hospital was controversial. Some people of the upper classes said it was immoral to succor children who were likely to have been born out of wedlock. I find this ironic, because many of the mothers bringing babies to the Hospital were servants who’d been impregnated by “gentlemen” of the households in which they served and in consequence, either lost their jobs or were in danger of losing their jobs.

While I was writing this book, I worried about the mix of elements. Could a story deal with such weighty issues and still be romantic and sexy? But in the end, I think I pulled it off, and I’m happy to be giving the story a new life in e-book form.

What do you think about social issues in romance novels? Should authors avoid them, or are there ways to make it work? Do you have any favorite romance novels that feature characters who feel passionately about some cause?

From comments on this post, I’ll draw five names to receive a Kindle edition of LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE. If you win, you can also suggest a friend who will receive one as well. You can comment through Friday (one entry per person) and I’ll announce the winners next Saturday.

Elena

www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Jane Austen | Tagged Foundling Hospital, Jane Austen, Lady Dearing's Masquerade | 23 Replies

Dirigibles and Musketeers!

Updated on August 26, 2011 by megan

Apparently I think way too much about movies I am likely not to be able to see until they come out on DVD. So here I am again, talking film (I did not go see Conan after all–early reviews made it look excruciatingly bad, not excruciatingly bad-fun, so we went to see Crazy, Stupid Love, and I do not regret it).

And except for D’Artagnan’s unfortunate hair, everything in this trailer makes it look like the film–due out in theaters in October–is fun.

Plus the actors! Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson, Mads Mikkelsen (swoon!), Christoph Waitz, Luke Evans, and Orlando Bloom–there’s a whole lotta fun stuff and good acting to look at there.

And it’s well-documented I love mash-ups, so the steampunk aspect of this is also intriguing. I have to admit to having seen the Michael York Three Muskeeteers at least twenty times growing up (and read the book likely more than that), so I am happy to have new life breathed into something I know, and love, so well.

So–does this look fun? Or lame? Or possibly both?

Posted in Jane Austen | Tagged Jane Austen, Megan | 11 Replies