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Monthly Archives: March 2011

I ♥ Language

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There’s nothing that can pull you out of a good historical like an anachronism.

Of course, that can be taken too far; which among us has not rolled our eyes (if not literally, then mentally) when some member of the Historical Police has said that something could not POSSIBLY be because it didn’t exist until a year later.

To which I always say, “It’s fiction. Deal with it.”

(That doesn’t excuse just missing or poor research, such as when a Duke is called My Lord instead of Your Grace, or if a divorce is regarded as blithely in a Regency romance as it is today.)

But there are circumstances, certainly, where things existed prior to being documented. For example, language. Many of us Regency authors own Captain Francis Grose’s 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (I have two copies, myself), and it’s fun to skim through and realize many words were in existence then that you wouldn’t have thought.

And just this week comes news that the Oxford English Dictionary has added new words to its definitive tome: he words “OMG,” “LOL” and “FYI,” as well as ♥, as in “I ♥ NYC.”

The last one is just nuts! It’s the first time a symbol has been defined as a word. But certainly it has been around for much longer than its acknowledgment within the OED, and one can surmise that certain words and phrases were around a lot longer in Regency times than documentation allows for.

What words jar you from a story? What words surprised you by being extant at the time? What word do you think the OED should add next–or never allow within its pages?

Megan

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Recent discoveries online

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I’ve found a couple/few websites that I find fascinating and I want to share today.

First, an amazing if heartbreaking online exhibit, Threads of Feeling, from the Foundling Museum in London. Four thousand babies were left anonymously at the hospital between 1741 and 1760 and sometimes a note, and a small token, usually a piece of fabric or ribbon (but sometimes a key) was left with each infant and kept as part of the admission record. The fabric was either provided by the mother or cut from the child’s clothing by the hospital’s nurses. If, as occasionally happened, a mother returned, she could identify the scrap of fabric to claim her child. These fragments represent the largest collection of eighteenth fabrics in Britain.

You can find more examples of the fabrics and the ledger entries in a review at The Fort Collins Museum & Discovery Science Center Blog or at the exhibit’s Facebook page.

The museum tells the story of the 27,000 children who were left at the Foundling Hospital between 1739 and 1954, in art, interiors, and social history, and the museum is close to the site of the original building which was demolished in the early twentieth century. The founders of the original Foundling Hospital were philanthropist Thomas Coram, the artist William Hogarth and the composer George Frideric Handel, and the museum also houses the Gerald Coke Handel Collection.

The Handel House Museum in Mayfair, London was one of the many projects restored with the expertise of Patrick Baty, a specialist in historical paint and color. His blog, News from Colourman, is fascinating. His interest in architecture led to speculation and then research in authentic historical decoration and color, and if the idea of peering into a microscope to view pigments makes you go all tingly, well…

Talking of going all tingly, you’ve got to check out the hilarious Bangable Dudes in History, “Dead man porn for your still-beating heart.” I love this site. Not only do you get pics of the dudes but pie charts of their attributes. For instance, Robert Cornelius, American chemist and pioneer in photography, Joined father’s lamp company…must’ve been fighting off the chicks; Nicolai Tesla, Was besties with Mark Twain–another potential hot threesome. Find out why Shostakovich was one hot brooding bitch or Sherman was red-ginger hot. Byron is coming soon!

Have you found anything good online recently?

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Hey, winners

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We need to hear from you–yes, you, cyn209, who has won a signed copy of The Scandal of Lady Elinor by Regina Jeffers and Barbara E who has won a copy of The Vampire Voss by Colleen Gleason.

Email us at riskies AT yahoo.com.

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A Tax on Light and Air

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Like so many others, I’m working on my taxes, which takes me hours, because I save all my record-keeping for tax time and then have to find, organize, and record all my necessary information. And all this is just to take the stuff to the accountant.

I have no complaints about paying taxes. As a former public employee, married to a public employee, I have an acute sense of what taxes pay for in our society. In Regency times, however, some of the taxes seem pretty odd to us.

Window Tax.
In 1697 Parliament passed a tax on windows. The more windows in a dwelling, the higher the tax. At the time it seemed a fair way to levy taxes without requiring citizens to divulge personal financial information as they would need to do for income tax. It was assumed that the wealthier the person, the bigger the house and the more windows. The wealthy embraced this idea and began to use windows as a way to display status and success. On the other hand, landlords who owned buildings that housed the working classes, resented the tax and bricked up windows to avoid payment. The resulting lack of ventilation simply made bad living situations worse.

Glass Excise Tax.
First levied in 1745, the Glass Excise tax was initially levied on the raw materials that produced glass, but later became a tax on the glass products and was based on weight. Again, the rich embraced the use of glass in large and numerous windows as a way of showing the world how affluent they were. Glass green houses were further proof of wealth. The tax but a burden on glass manufacturere and over the years the law was tweaked, easing the tax on production houses manufacturing small glass products or those making optical glass. In 1845 it was appealed altogether. In 1851 so was the Window tax.

Have you come across any other strange taxes of the Regency period or of any historical period? Have you filed your taxes yet???

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Regina Jeffers and Lady Eleanor

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Today the Riskies welcome Regina Jeffers, the author of several Jane Austen adaptations including Darcy’s Passions, Darcy’s Temptation,Vampire Darcy’s Desire, The Phantom of Pemberley and Captain Wentworth’s Persuasion. Her latest release, The Scandal of Lady Eleanor, described by Publishers Weekly as “a knockout,” is a departure from her Austen-generated works, and she’s here to talk about the book and give away a signed copy! So please jump in and chat.

Welcome, Regina! After five successful Jane Austen related novels, how do you feel about leaving Miss Austen behind?

Well, first, I am certainly not deserting my Austen sequels and adaptations. I have an Austen short story coming out in the soon-to-be-released The Road to Pemberley, and I am currently writing a Christmas-themed Pride and Prejudice sequel. Yet, I must admit that it was liberating to write a story from beginning to end, without a framework in place. When an author tackles an Austen storyline, he must stay somewhat true to the original characters or “suffer the ire” of Janeites. In my Austen books, I work in her original wording and use what I know of the lady. With this series, I could create the characters and the conflict without my readers having a preconceived idea of how the story should go. Plus, when I returned to my current Austen book, I was happy to see “my old friends” again. Absence makes the heart grow fonder rather than out of sight, out of mind.

The Scandal of Lady Eleanor is the first book in the “Realm” series. Tell us about the Realm.

The Realm is a covert group working for the British government during the Regency Period. They rescue British citizens, bring about diplomatic portals, etc. Its members are titled aristocrats and minor sons–therefore, the name “the Realm.” The members in this series number seven: James Kerrington, Viscount Worthing (and future Earl of Linworth); Brantley Fowler, the Duke of Thornhill; Gabriel Crowden, Marquis of Godown; Aidan Kimbolt, Viscount Lexford; Marcus Wellston, the Earl of Berwick; Baron John Swenton, and Carter Lowery, the youngest son of Baron Blakehell. These men have served together for several years in India and Persia, and they possess a stout camaraderie. Each holds reason for fleeing his home and title, and each must reclaim his place in Society, while still occasionally executing a mission in the name of the government. Unfortunately, not only must these men fight their own demons, they must foil the plans of Shaheed Mir, a Baloch warlord, who believes one of them has stolen a fist-sized emerald; and Mir means to have it back.

Specifically, tell us about The Scandal of Lady Eleanor.

James Kerrington, the future Earl of Linworth and a key member of the Realm, never expected to find love again after the loss of his beloved wife, Elizabeth. But upon his return home, Kerrington’s world shifts on its axis when Eleanor Fowler, literally, stumbles into his arms. However, not all is as it seems with Eleanor, as she hides a deep secret. She had hoped the death of her father, William Fowler, the Duke of Thornhill, would offer her family a chance at redemption from their dark past, but when Sir Louis Levering produces proof of Eleanor’s father’s debauchery, she is thrown into a web of immorality and blackmail. It is up to Kerrington and his friends in the Realm to free Eleanor from Levering’s hold.

Why have you chosen to include very “modern” issues in a Regency-based romance?

Just because life appears “simpler” does not mean Regency England did not reek of scandal. Women lacked options. Even women of a wealthier class were the property of first their fathers and then their husbands. As such, Lady Eleanor Fowler is no exception. When her mother dies, her father’s debauched lifestyle invades her privacy, and she is sucked into a situation because she “loves” a parent who does not really understand the meaning of the word. Eleanor’s brother Brantley escaped the Duke of Thornhill’s hold on his household, but Eleanor is left behind to cope in the only way she knows how: Survive.

If this series were brought to film, whom would you choose to play the roles?

I have been a Matthew Macfadyen fan long before he played Mr. Darcy in the 2005 film – back to his days in Wuthering Heights, Warriors, and The Way We Live Now. He is always the Darcy in my head when I write my Austen pieces, and he is the man I see and hear in my other works. In this series, Macfadyen is James Kerrington. James Mcavoy is Carter Lowery; James Scott is Aidan Kimbolt; Matthew Goode is Brantley Fowler; Toby Stephens (as he was in Jane Eyre) is Marcus Wellston, and Alex O’Loughlin faces Gabriel Crowden. As weird as it may sound, I do not have famous women in my head when I choose the females. I see their faces and recognize their movements, but they are ordinary women. In this series, Velvet Aldridge came to mind because I fondly remembered a former student named “Velvet.” I stole Brantley Fowler’s name from a young man I met at an Enterprise Rental Car outlet. I told him I would make him famous. Inherently, I suspect, there is something wrong with me.

Thanks Regina, and congratulations on the release! Questions and comments, please, and isn’t that a gorgeous cover! We’ll pick a winner on Monday!

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