I came across an essay with that title recently in an old copy of Persuasions, the publication of JASNA (Jane Austen Society of North America), and it made for some fascinating reading. One of the major themes of Austen’s books is money–who has it, who doesn’t, what size house can they afford, and can they marry, should they marry, must they marry?

Naturally I now can’t find that issue and the article,* but fortunately I took notes, and I also came across this wonderfully useful site, www.measuringworth.com where you can translate the value of the pound from the thirteenth century into modern (2006 British pounds) currency, based on the retail price index. If you double that figure, you get, more or less, today’s $ value. As a rough guide, for calculating yearly incomes, for instance, multiply by one hundred.

Quick currency lesson/refresher: 12 pennies (d for denarius) make a shilling; 20 shillings (sh or s) make a pound (can’t find the symbol on blogger, but it’s a curly L for libra). Then there are guineas, which are a pound and a shilling, and used for some items–wages, horses, carriages, gambling debts–mainly luxury items. Sometime I’d like to research what was priced in guineas and what wasn’t. Anyone know? These are both sides of a golden guinea from the first decade of the nineteenth century.

The article took some prices from Jane Austen’s letters of 1810 and I translated these into the modern equivalent (rounding them up to the nearest 50c). Jane liked silk stockings which cost her 12s a pair or about $65–what you’d probably pay now for silk stockings by Prada (yes, it was an excuse to go onto ebay). She had a cloak made for 10s, about $54, which seems quite cheap for tailor-made clothes. Meat was 8d a pound ($3.50), butter a shilling a pound ($5), cheese 9 1/2d a pound ($4)–fairly close to our prices. But fresh salmon was a whopping 2s 9d a pound for a whole fish, $14–presumably because of the expense of shipping it (anyone know which rivers were the salmon rivers then? I’m guessing the Avon–I think the Thames, coming back now as a salmon river, was too polluted). A copy of Pride & Prejudice cost 18s–$94! She paid 30 guineas for the piano at Chawton, or $3,282–about what you’d pay now for a superior upright.

The most telling figures I found, however, were for the price of a quartern, the four pound loaf, which cost 11 3/4 d (eleven and three farthings) in the period 1800-1804, but by 1810 the price had risen to 2s 6d (half-a-crown), or from $6 to $13. This was the staple food of most common people and laborers made probably only a few shillings a day–life was very hard at the bottom of the social scale.

And now it’s question time. What’s your favorite money-related scene in something you’ve read or written?

Feldman, James, “How Wealthy Is Mr. Darcy–Really?” Persuasions, 1990, Vol. 12.

Sign up for the Riskies newsletter at riskies@yahoo.com and learn how to spin straw into golden guineas. Or not. But put NEWSLETTER in the subject line.

I recently found out that a Dutch translation of LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE is being released!

It’s my first international sale. I’m delighted about the nice little sum I got from the foreign rights sale, which will help keep me in paper and print cartridges as I work on finishing mess-in-progress. But mostly I just think it’s very cool.

I googled around and found the cover and blurb at www.chasingdreams.nl. You have to scroll down about halfway to find it.

Though I wish it were larger I think I like the cover–better than most on the site which lean heavily (and I mean heavily!) toward man-titty. The dress looks a bit off but Livvy and Jeremy look right.

I used an online translator to figure out the title. “Reputatie op het spel” translates literally to “Reputation on the game” which I think probably means something like “Reputation on the Line” or “Reputation at Stake”. Either way it sounds right for the book, which I’ve heard isn’t always the case with translations.

Now for the part that drove me a bit crazy. In my googling I also ran across a Dutch message board where (I think) readers were discussing the book. I felt the temptation to run their comments through the translator but then decided I’d better not blow writing time to discover they hated the thing. Oh well, there were lots of emoticons of all sorts in one of the posts so at least the book sparked a reaction.

So anyway, friends, what do you think of the packaging? Which cover do you like better?

And do you think I should go figure out what those Dutch readers think of my book or just get back to my mess-in-progress? OK, I think I know the answer to that one!

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

Lois, you’ve won a signed copy of The Spy Wore Silk!!! Please send your address to riskies@yahoo.com

Thanks to everyone who commented! Stay tuned this weekend as the Riskies visit with Colleen Gleason…

Today is Memorial Day, the day set aside by the US after the Civil War to honor military personnel who have lost their lives in service to their country. Memorial Day is particularly poignant for Americans this year, with so many of our soldiers making the ultimate sacrifice.

As the daughter of an Army officer, I have a particular regard for soldiers. Some of the heroes of my books are soldiers, and in all my books the war with Napoleon is mentioned. I love my Regency soldiers. I secretly yearn to write some Napoleonic war romances, sort of like Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series, except love stories. I own a brazillion books on the Napoleonic war and its soldiers. It seemed fitting today to tell you about one of them: Intelligence Officer in the Peninsula Letters and Diaries of Major The Honorable Edward Charles Cocks 1786-1812, Julia V. Page, editor (1986, Spellmount Ltd)

Major Cocks served in various capacities in the Peninsular war. He was attached to the regular Spanish army for a time and also with the 16th Light Dragoons. He worked as an intelligence officer behind enemy lines, performed special missions for Wellington, and was a field officer commanding soldiers. His family wanted him in Parliament, but Charles, as he was called, loved soldiering more than anything else. He was the consummate professional soldier, very much in his element in the war in Spain.

In a letter to his uncle, Charles wrote:

Few regard soldiers in their true light, that is as a body of men giving up many individual pleasures and comforts for a general national advantage, coupled certainly with the hope of personal fame and at the same time preserving more individual independence than any class of men….Men unused to war and ignorant of its ways regard slodiers as pernicious characters because they always figure them as intent on the desruction of their enemy, but a soldier only meets his foe now and then and he is every day engaged in reciprocal offices of kindness with his comrades….for my part I think there is much less ferocity in putting your foe to death when you see him aiming at your life, than in coolly rejoicing in your cabinet at home at successes purchased by the blood of thousands–Your dutiful and affectionate nephew, E. Charles Cocks

On October 8, 1812, Charles was acting as a field officer in the seige of Burgos. In the hours before dawn he led his men up a slope to regain the outer wall. When he reached the top, a French soldier fired straight at him. The ball passed through his chest, piercing the artery above his heart. He died instantly.

That morning Wellington strode into Ponsonby’s office, paced to and fro without speaking for several minutes. He started back toward the door, saying only, “Cocks is dead” before he walked out. Later Wellington wrote, “He (Cocks) is on every ground the greatest loss we have yet sustained.” When Wellington stood at his graveside, ashen-faced and remote, none of his officers dared speak to him.

Admiration for valor, gratitude for sacrifice, grief at loss. Today is not very different than 1812.

My father, Daniel J. Gaston, pictured here circa 1940s, was not called upon to make a soldier’s ultimate sacrifice. He reached an advanced age, long enough to see his daughters well-situated and happy, and his grandchildren grown. He died peacefully in 2001 before my writing career took off.

Do you have a soldier, real or fictional, who deserves tribute?

Would you like more war romances?

Can you think of any Napoleonic war romances (Heyer’s An Infamous Army comes to mind and one of Mary Jo Putney’s, featuring a blood transfusion–title fails me)?

To all our soldiers……Thanks
Diane