It’s Day 3 of our Pride & Prejudice contest. After yesterday’s eye-candy I hope this post isn’t a disappointment!

Since we’ve talked about heroines and heroes, I’ve decided to talk about villains.

Years ago, I read about a scholarly debate as to who is the villain of P&P. Is it Wickham, Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Bennet, Lydia, Mr. Collins, Miss Bingley or Lady Catherine De Bourgh? I laughed, because I doubt Jane plotted her story around any literary concept of protagonist/antagonist. She was writing about people. More specifically, about families.

You have Elizabeth and Jane—two perfectly lovely sisters with a most Embarrassing Family. Mrs. Bennet–the archetypal foolish, matchmaking mamma. Mr. Bennet, the witty but lax father. Younger sisters including poor, pedantic Mary and the terminally featherheaded Kitty and Lydia.

This mix doesn’t surprise me. As the eldest of 4 (and the only girl) I know that the oldest siblings often turn out more responsible than the rest.

Then let’s not forget the other relative, the painfully pompous Mr. Collins who pays court to Elizabeth once he’s told Jane is taken.

My favorite Embarrassing Family moment from P&P is the Netherfield ball. Poor Elizabeth! Not only does she not see Wickham there, but Mr. Collins makes a fool of himself trying to seek Darcy’s favor. Her mother openly boasts that Jane will marry Mr. Bingley. Her younger sisters behave like hoydens, except for Mary, who shows off at the piano until her father admonishes her, perhaps a bit too glibly “You have delighted us all enough.”

(That last incident reminds me of my once-little brother, who liked to come to the door to entertain my dates with solos on his recorder. One of my own Embarrassing Family moments.)

But Darcy himself isn’t immune to the Curse of the Embarrassing Family. He’s got the stiff, censorious Lady Catherine De Bourgh trying to match him up with her “sickly and cross” daughter. His little sister Georgiana, though sweet and inoffensive in herself, has a potentially embarrassing secret in her past.

Even Wickham is related in a sense; he’s Darcy’s father’s godson. He and Lydia nearly ruin things for Elizabeth and Darcy.

Then in the secondary romance of the story, you have poor Mr. Bingley, a darling of a young man with two poisonous sisters, one of them with the hots for Darcy, or possibly, for Darcy’s ten thousand a year.

I was relieved Jane and Lizzie got the happy ending they deserved…far away from their relations!

“Mr. Bingley and Jane remained at Netherfield only a twelvemonth. So near a vicinity to her mother and Meryton relations was not desirable even to his easy temper, or her affectionate heart. The darling wish of his sisters was then gratified: he bought an estate in a neighbouring county to Derbyshire; and Jane and Elizabeth, in addition to every other source of happiness, were within thirty miles of each other.”

If you’re interested in what happened to the rest of the characters, check out Chapter 61 at the Pemberley website.

So who’s the P&P villain you most love to hate? Who do you think played the role best?

What is your favorite Embarrassing Family moment in P&P?

Any other favorite Embarrassing Family moments (real or fictional) you dare to share?

Answer any or all of these questions for a chance at one of TWO 10th Anniversary Collector’s Editions of A&E’s Pride and Prejudice. If you haven’t already, check out the contest rules and learn more about the prizes at the A&E store. Comment on each of this week’s posts for more chances to win!

Elena Greene
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, Best Regency Romance of 2005
www.elenagreene.com

This is such an exciting contest! I’m thrilled we can offer it. I hope you will enter now and come back every day this week to enter again, and, at the same time, share a love of the Regency with us.

To enter, all you have to do is put a comment on our blogs. Say something more than “nice blog.” Tell us what you think about what we say, or tell us what you liked about the A&E version of Pride & Prejudice. The only other thing is, you have to live in the US or Canada to win, because the DVD is formatted for Region 1. On Sunday Oct 8 we’ll select the winners at random. Two of you lucky people!

You really should look at the A&E Store, because there are extras included in this 10th Anniversary Limited Edition Pride & Prejudice, as well as a lot of other wonderful things to buy!

It is always a joy to watch this mini-series. In 2003, when Amanda and I returned from our Regency Tour of England (a tour created by my friend Patty Suchy of Novel Explorations, Inc.), Amanda spent a day at my house. You know what we did? We watched the whole 310 minutes of Pride & Prejudice, drooling over Mr. Darcy and screaming “We were there!” whenever we found a place we’d visited. Later, my critique partners, Darlene Gardner, Karen Ander, Lisa Dyson and our friend, Marjanna, wanted to learn more about the Regency time period, because all they knew about it was what they read in my books. So we gathered for a night of Pride & Prejudice! And, of course, they loved it.

One of the things my friends did not understand about the P&P mini series was why Jane was considered the beautiful Bennet daughter and not Lizzie. “I think she is prettier than Jane,” one of them said.

This is where I think the filmmakers were so masterful in their casting! Because I think Jane (played by actress Susannah Harker) is the ideal Regency beauty.
Take a look and compare to this detail of one of my 1815 La Belle Assemblee fashion prints:
Jane has the same oval face, pointed chin, big wide eyes as the 1815 image. She could have modeled for the ladies magazine!

Now look at Lizzie (Jennifer Ehle) compared to another 1815 fashion print detail:
Lizzie’s face is round and her complexion is rosier, not pale like Jane’s. Her mouth is full. Her “fine eyes” are not as large and round as Jane’s and the La Belle Assemblee ladies.

Luckily, however, Mr. Darcy learns to appreciate that pair of “fine eyes.”

I am certain we can all agree, however, that Mr. Darcy is the perfect Regency gentleman!

What do you think of the casting of Pride & Prejudice? Did they get Jane Austen’s characters right? Who would you have cast differently? Mr. Collins, maybe? Lydia?
Do you have a favorite character in the cast?

Let us know and you will be entered in our contest!

Cheers,
Diane

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