Cathy P, you’ve won copies of Duchess of Sin and Mistress by Midnight! Please send us your contact info at Riskies AT yahoo.com, and enjoy….
Cathy P, you’ve won copies of Duchess of Sin and Mistress by Midnight! Please send us your contact info at Riskies AT yahoo.com, and enjoy….
I can’t believe Christmas is only a few days away! I still have to finish some shopping and buy ingredients for holiday cupcakes, but the dance recital is behind me (aside from one child’s eating-confetti incident, all went well and the little sugarplums were all adorable!) and writing work is waiting for me. It’s time to make a few Christmas lists.
I already bought some of my own presents, like a Kindle 3, a cute new purple bike (to encourage myself to exercise more in the new year–now that I’ve said it here I have to do it), and a ballgown that I guess will have to wait for RWA next summer since I can’t really wear it to Target or the dog park. I have a few things on my wish list I am pretty sure I won’t be getting. Like a villa in Provence:
Or Ian Somerhalder:
Or a tiara to go with my new dress:
But I do have a few things that are a little more feasible! And if you have another TV watching history geek on your list, they might like one of these too…
Big Ben and Eiffel Tower Barbies!
This Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire doll from Madame Alexander! (They also have a fab Anne Boleyn doll…)
The Mad Men box set
Anything Hello Kitty (of course!)
This ring from Tartx (or any numbers of things from there, they have so many gorgeous items…)
Balenciaga Paris shower gel (this has become my new perfume obsession this year!)
And books, CDs, and DVDs of costume dramas are always welcome under my tree! 🙂 (Books and movies are waiting to be wrapped for everyone on my own list–but shh! Don’t tell them)
Have a wonderful holiday, and thanks so much to all our readers for visiting the Riskies and making this so much fun for me! What is on your wish list this Christmas?? What have you bought for everyone else?
I have a terrible confession to make. I am Amanda, and I am an avid royal watcher. Yes, there it is, terrible but true. I think it all started when I was a preschooler, and got up in the middle of the night to sit on the couch with my mother and watch Princess Diana’s wedding. I insisted on wearing my ballet recital tiara and a bedsheet tied around my waist for a train for days after, and I guess I never totally got over it. The best Christmas gift I ever received came that year, when my aunt bought me a porcelain Diana doll complete with massive train (which I still have). I buy British tabloids whenever possible just to read about them. And the thought of a royal wedding coming up soon fills me with guilty glee, and I have a secret longing to go to London this spring just to sit on the sidewalk with thousands of other people and watch the procession go by. (See “Kate Middleton will be sixth Queen Katherine”)
Now you know my secret. So I thought we could take a brief look at some of those other Queen Katherines and their weddings (and a few Charlottes and Victorias as well…)
Catherine of Aragon married Prince Arthur of England on November 14, 1501 (having been already married by proxy in 1499!). This was a sort of affirmation for those upstart Tudors, landing a Spanish infanta for a bride, and they did it up big-time for the 15-year-old couple. The wedding was at St. Paul’s Cathedral, presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury and witnessed by dozens of courtiers (and hundreds of commoners lined up on the procession route outside). The bride wore a white gown embroidered with silver thread, pearls, and diamonds, with her auburn hair loose to her knees and a Spanish lace veil. She was escorted up the aisle by her 10-year-old brother-in-law Henry. The celebrations went on for two weeks of jousting, balls, and masques, and then the couple (consumated or not? Who knows…) were packed off to damp Wales. Arthur died 6 months later. When Catherine went on to marry Henry, it was a quiet and private affair. In fact, all Henry’s weddings were quiet–some were even totally secret.
Catherine’s daughter Mary I married Philip of Spain in another lavish ceremony, this one at Winchester Cathedral on July 25, 1554. There were thousands of guests packed into the church to witness the ceremony, conducted by Bishop of Winchester Stephen Gardiner. The cathedral was hung with gold and crimson cloth, and everyone was dressed in their most lavish fashions despite the rain outside. Philip wore white and gold; Mary wore a purple and gold gown, “rich tissue with a border and wide sleeves, embroidered upon purple satin, set with pearls.” An immense banquet followed at the Bishop’s palace. (Here is a reproduction of her gown, as well as the chair she used for the ceremony, both seen at Winchester Cathedral. I actually quite like that dress!):
Charles II married Catherine of Braganza three times. The first was by proxy in April 1662, followed on her arrival at Portsmouth by a secret Catholic ceremony and a public Protestant one, presided over by the Bishop of London on May 21. It was a cozy affair, with a few privileged courtiers to witness it. The bride wore a rose-pink gown sewn with blue love knots, which were then cut off and passed out as favors. She was deemed quite dowdy by the fancy Court ladies, but the groom wrote to his sister, “I think myself very happy, for I am confident our two humors will agree very well together.” This is a medal struck for the occasion of their marriage:
George III married Queen Charlotte only a few hours after her arrival in England, when she was bundled into a lavish white and gold Court gown and mounds of jewels and carted off to the Chapel Royal at St. James Palace for the wedding on September 8, 1761. Despite this abrupt beginning, the marriage was a harmonious one (despite the madness and all that). The same could not be said of their son, George, the Prince Regent.
His wedding to Caroline of Brunswick on April 8, 1795 was famous for the deep inebriation of the groom. Like his parents, the wedding was at the Chapel Royal. It was attended by dozens of snickering courtiers, presided over by the (presumably taken aback) Archbishop of Canterbury, and the bride wore a gown of silver tissue and lace with a train of ermine-lined velvet so heavy she could hardly walk. Somehow they managed to beget a child within the next few days, and that was the end of that.
That unfortunate child, Princess Charlotte, grew up to marry Prince Leopold on May 2, 1816 at Carlton House in front of 50 guests. Despite the small size of the wedding, it was a lavish one. The bride’s dress of silver lame on net embroidered with silver shells and flowers and trimmed with Brussels lace, was said to cost 10,000 pounds! It still exists today.
Princess Charlotte’s Wedding Page
Queen Victoria was really the one who started all the stuff we consider to be “wedding-y” today. White dresses, veils, flowers, bridesmaids, etc. She married Prince Albert at the Chapel Royal on a rainy February 10, 1840, with crowds of people lining the route to see the royal procession. She had 12 bridesmaids to carry her train, and a gown of white satin trimmed with lace, a lace veil held by a wreath of orange blossoms, satin slippers, and a sapphire brooch given to her by her groom. (the lace was said to have cost over 1000 pounds! The veil was later worn by her youngest daughter Princess Beatrice, and Queen Victoria was buried in it). The wedding breakfast was at Buckingham Palace, after which the couple dashed off to honeymoon at Windsor. The honeymoon must have been a great success, for Princess Vicky came along 9 months later! Her wedding to the Crown Prince of Germany was also hugely lavish…
And that’s only a tiny taste of royal weddings! What is your favorite historical wedding? Are you looking forward to the next royal wedding like I am??
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! I ate too much (of course) and have already spent my gift cards, but I did get the Eiffel Tower Barbie on my list, as well as some Hello Kitty pajamas and Balenciaga Paris shower gel, so it was a happy time all around.
I also love reading the yearly favorites of the other Riskies, and of our visitors, to see what I missed and what I need to buy from the bookstore immediately! (If I had any bookstore gift cards left, that is…). I’ve already talked about a few of my own favorites this year, like Bill Bryson’s At Home and Katie Whitaker’s A Royal Passion, but there was also a lot I enjoyed as well! Here are just a few. Were any of them on your own list? (I tried to divide them into categories, and I’m sure there are a lot I forgot!)
Fiction
Romance
(I haven’t had time to read nearly as much romance as I would like this year, but there were some fabulous ones!)
–Libertine’s Kiss by Judith James: I got to interview Judith James here at the Riskies earlier this year about this book, and it still stays in my head now! My favorite historical romance in quite a while, it has a wonderful, vivid Restoration setting, a truly rakish hero, a spirited heroine, very richly drawn and sexy.
—Iron Duke by Meljean Brook: This book has quite rightly gotten an enormous amount of buzz online, and I heartily recommend it! I’ve been obsessed with reading steampunk lately, and this is the best of the genre I’ve found, highly imaginative, complex world-building, action-packed–plus a great hero and heroine. And just look at that cover–yum
—In For A Penny by Rose Lerner: a wonderful Regency romance! A typical Regency storyline–rakish lord, marriage of convenience, etc–turned on its head in a deceptively complex story. Great characters and a well-drawn authentic setting!
Mystery
–Her Highness’s First Murder by Peg Herring: It’s 1546, and a serial killer stalks London. Who better to solve the mystery than the young Princess Elizabeth, especially after one of her own ladies is killed? She joins forces with her physician’s son to track down the killer! Very suspenseful and clever, with another well-drawn setting and fascinating characters. I imagine a young Elizabeth I would be quite a bit like the one in this book…
—Bellfield Hall by Anna Dean: the first Regency-set Dido Kent mystery, and I’m already looking forward to the next! Dido is a spinster in 1805, who has to investigate when her niece’s fiance mysteriously disappears during their betrothal ball…
—The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley: Possibly my very favorite work of fiction of the year! I can’t recommend it enough, it was sort of like a more witty Nancy Drew story (with better secondary characters). It’s the 1950s and 11-year-old Flavia de Luce, a budding chemist with a special interest in poisons, has to solve the death of a man in her family’s garden. She is definitely one of the most resourceful characters I have seen! (And the second Flavia book is out soon, yay!)
Historical Fiction
–Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin: an engrossing look at the life of the “real Alice in Wonderland” Alice Liddell (who I did not know had a royal romance with Queen Victoria’s son Prince Leopold as a young lady!)
—Charlotte and Emily by Jude Morgan: Like Janet, I’m a huge fan of Jude Morgan’s book, and this was no exception. I read it straight through–definitely the best Bronte historical fiction I have come across. It’s so beautifully written and feels very “real”
Non-Fiction
—Eiffel’s Tower by Jill Jonnes: An account of the building of the Tower and the 1889 Exposition, and all the colorful characters involved in this enormous undertaking (Eiffel himself, of course, as well as Edison, Annie Oakley, an Indian maharajh, Balinese dancers, etc etc). It reminded me of Brunelleschi’s Dome, another account of the times and characters surrounding a phenomenal architectural undertaking
–And along those same lines, Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris by Graham Robb: a collection of stories about famous and not-so-famous Parisians in various historical periods. I never knew what I would find when I turned the page, and I loved that! I find books like this to be enormous inspiration when coming up with my own plots and characters
—Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon by Michael O’Brien: An account of a journey undertaken by Louisa Adams from St. Petersburg to Paris in the middle of winter in 1815, across war-torn Europe just as Napoleon arrives back from Elba. A wonderful portrait of a strong and fascinating woman (usually overshadowed by her in-laws), her difficult marriage, and the culture of the times against the backdrop of an extraordinary voyage
—Fifth Avenue, 5 AM: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman by Sam Wasson: I was recently reading a film blog about the best movie scenes of the year that mentioned Howard Hawks’ old dictum that a film only needs 3 or 4 scenes to be a good film. In the case of one of my favorite movies ever, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, it really only takes one scene to make me ignore the film’s (many) flaws and love it. Well, really there are several bits I love, but the ending is gorgeous. It’s Audrey Hepburn in a trench coat! She can’t find the cat! And it’s raining! And “Moon River” plays and they kiss–okay, now I’m crying. But this book is a great “behind the scenes” look at the making of the movie, and how revolutionary it really was
—Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff: An attempt to strip away the myths and encrusted conceptions of Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor, etc) and find the real woman, who wielded unprecedented power in a brutal world
—Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet by Jennifer Homans: A tremendous undertaking, a history of nothing less than ballet. Of course I loved it! A must-have for anyone who loves the art, it traces the evolution of technique, choreography, and performance. Very beautifully written, and engrossing.
—Wait For Me! by Deborah Mitford, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire: A memoir by the 90-year-old duchess (and last surviving Mitford sister), it was funny and charming, though some parts were definitely more interesting than others! (All the Jeeves-and-Woosterish nicknames were hilarious, though I thought she was little too hard on her sister Nancy and too easy on her Nazi-sympathizing sisters Diana and Unity…). I found some of her earlier books very helpful in researching my “duchess” books, Duchess of Sin and The Shy Duchess, and this one was no different.
My favorite “comfort read,” especially when holiday craziness gets to be too much, is Harlequin Presents! This Christmas I read two I especially devoured:
The Twelve Nights of Christmas by Sarah Morgan
And Caught on Camera With the CEO by Natalie Anderson (who is fast becoming my favorite Presents author!)
They saved my sanity this December! But now I’d like to know–where are all these Italian tycoons and Argentinian polo players who are young and gorgeous and like “ordinary” women??? Send them my way asap…
As for movies–it hasn’t been the best of movie years, but I have found some I really loved! (But there are still a few I haven’t seen yet that I am really looking forward to, like The King’s Speech, The Tempest, All Good Things, and Somewhere). A few I enjoyed are: the crazy-over-the-top Black Swan; the gorgeous, operatic I Am Love (I’m amazed Tilda Swinton is not getting more awards buzz for this!); the “the way we live now” The Social Network; the hilarious but also strangely sad Get Him To The Greek; and The Kids Are All Right.
Over at my own blog, I have a look at some of my favorite fashion looks of the year as well! I can’t believe 2010 is almost over.
What did you enjoy this year–and what are you looking forward to in 2011???
Austen Week, yay!
Happy Jane Austen Week, everyone! I’m so excited to see our annual tribute to everything Jane on the blog. But first things first–I have a new cover! The Shy Duchess will be out in March 2011, and is a spin-off from the Diamonds of Welbourne Manor anthology. (I think this looks exactly like Lady Emily–and I seriously want to steal her tiara…). The Harlequin Historical Advent Calendar contest Diane mentioned yesterday is still going strong (my day is the 16th–you can go to my website to see details! You can win a grand prize of a Kindle, or any number of daily prizes). And I’ll be at the Borders True Romance blog tomorrow!
And Christmas is flying at us! It’s busy around here, making Christmas candy, finishing the shopping, getting over a throat infection (yuck!). I’ve also been working at the part-time job, teaching a children’s ballet class, as I get them ready for their winter recital this weekend, a smaller version of The Nutcracker. It’s pink tulle, snowflakes, and craziness! And then I had to find something to write about for Jane Austen Birthday week (which is also my mom’s birthday week), and couldn’t think of anything. I’ve already talked about my favorite Austen novel (Persuasion) and my first Austen novel (Emma), and great Austen gifts (you can never go wrong with the Jane action figure!). But what to write about this year???
Since I’m buried in The Nutcracker, I started to wonder–what would it be like if Austen (or one of her contemporaries?) wrote the story? For one thing, there would be lots of opportunity for some great Regency-style costumes!
Let’s say Lady Whatsit is having her annual Christmas Ball at her grand estate of Whatsit Park, an invitation much sought after by every member of the ton. She has a claret punch, a roast goose, and fruit cakes, and copious decorations of holly and ivy with red bows. (No tree of course–they’re Regency, not Victorian! Maybe a giant stalk of ivy will have to grow out of the ballroom floor when the scene changes). There’s waltzing and flirting in the conservatory. Lady Whatsit’s two adorable children, Lady Clara and Lord Bratley, attend the party, and their godfather, the eccentric Lord Lotsamoney, gives them gifts. Clara’s is a nutcracker doll (were there such things in the Regency? I don’t know…), in the shape of–let’s say Wellington. Lord Bratley (who lives up to his name) snatches it from his sister and breaks it!
Lady Clara is heartbroken. She sneaks down after the party, bandages up poor Wellington, and falls asleep. But she’s not alone for long. Along come the French army of nefarious mice! Wellington battles them valiantly, and Clara helps out by tossing her shoe at Napoleon Mouse’s head. The French are run out of the drawing room!
In gratitude, Wellington takes Lady Clara to a grand campaign tent where the Sugar Plum Fairy (who is emphatically not Harriette Wilson) introduces her to all the grateful nations of Europe, who dance for her. Spain, Russia, China (don’t know how they got in there), etcetera. They shower her with sweets, tiaras, and gowns before she dances once more with Wellington and is then whisked back home again!
What is your favorite part of The Nutcracker? If they made an Austen novel into a ballet, which should it be? (I’d love to see a Pride & Prejudice ballet!) To one commenter on today’s post, I have a copy of Jane Austen: An Illustrated Anthology!