Since I have a busy day today, I’m just going to leave Sunday’s contest post open for comments! I’ll pick a winner tomorrow morning…in the meantime keep reading 🙂
Since I have a busy day today, I’m just going to leave Sunday’s contest post open for comments! I’ll pick a winner tomorrow morning…in the meantime keep reading 🙂
Happy Tuesday, everyone! I am deep in finishing up a book due Oct. 31 (the first in my Elizabethan mystery series! I’m soooo excited about it), but first a little Tuesday business. The winner of Love and Louis XIV is…Elizabeth Mahon! Check your email inbox for more info…
And in looking around for a blog topic today, I found out that Georgian actress Anne Oldfield died on this day in 1730. I’m a huge theater buff, and love to collect books about the history of the theater/opera/ballet, so I sorted through my shelves until I found Joanne Lafler’s The Celebrated Mrs. Oldfield: The Life and Art of an Augustan Actress.
Anne Oldfield was born in London in 1683, the daughter of a poor soldier. She was apprenticed to a seamstress, but she loved reciting poetry and plays, and one day was overheard (it was said in a tavern!) by theater impresario George Farquhar, who was impressed with her beauty and her speaking voice. She then found herself engaged at Drury Theater and was an instant hit, at first for her looks more than any acting ability, but as the years passed she honed her craft and became renowned as a great comic actress.
Some of her most famous roles were in plays by Ben Jonson (Volpone and Epicoene) and Colley Cibber (The Careless Husband, The Provok’d Husband), who declared she “here she outdid her usual Outdoing.”
She was one of the great theatrical idols of her day, renowned for her talent and her ladylike behavior, her clothes and hats copied, her plays sold-out. Alexander Pope, in Sober Advice from Horace, said, “Engaging Oldfield, who, with grace and ease, Could join the arts to ruin and to please.”
She died at 47 at her fine house at 60 Grosvenor Street in London, leaving her rather large fortune to her two sons. She was buried at Westminster Abbey.
Who would you love to go back in time and see onstage???
Today it’s time for a giveaway! Because I, once again, bought a book I already own, so I’m giving away the new copy of Antonia Fraser’s Love and Louis XIV:
Adelaide of Savoy, a favorite companion of Louis XIV during his dotage, remarked, “Under a king, a country is really ruled by women.” Fraser’s history of the court of the Sun King, seen through the lens of the women closest to him, is a highly readable confection, and unfolds as a sequence of cameos. There is Queen Anne of Austria, Louis’s steely moth”r and regent, who carefully molded the infant King into an Apollo adored by the court; and his wife, Marie-Therese of Spain, who gave him no trouble except by dying. Then comes a trio of mistresses: Louise de La Valliere, who became a nun as recompense for her sins; Athenais, voluptuous and fecund; and Madame de Maintenon, the discreet and redoubtable confidante of his later years. With vivid wit, Fraser demonstrates that within the edifice of the monarchy there were deep crannies of ordinary affection. (Review from the New Yorker)
For a chance to win, just leave a comment here telling us who your favorite royal mistress in history is! (I’m very fond of Madame de Pompadour…)
The winner of a copy of Tarnished Rose of the Court is…Stefanie! Please email me at amccabe7551 AT yahoo to claim your prize…
So, what am I doing this week?? Finishing up the first in my Elizabethan mystery series (hopefully out next year from NAL! I also have a new pseudonym–Amanda Carmack…). Enjoying the fall weather. Planning my Halloween costume. And realizing that my wedding is only about nine weeks away!
In very timely fashion, one of my favorite blogs, The Order of Sartorial Splendor (which documents royal fashions and is tons of fun) is having a countdown of readers’ favorite royal wedding gowns. So far they are only at #9, since #10 was a two-way tie, and I am really looking forward to seeing what’s on the list. (I do love #9, Lady Sarah Chatto! Her mother, Princess Margaret, had my #1 favorite royal wedding look of all)
My own wedding will be considerably less grand than a royal affair, but hopefully it will still be elegant and romantic! I have my dress, my shoes, my veil (my mom’s veil, which she wore at her wedding 40 years ago!), music planned, dinner menu set. I’m most excited about the venue, the historic Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe. It was built in 1873 by an order of French nuns for their girls’ school. The architect, Antoine Mouly from Paris, had worked on a recent renovation of the amazingly gorgeous St. Chapelle (I mean it–if you have not seen this place, put it on your bucket list asap!) and suggested they model the chapel after that church. The stone was quarried from around Santa Fe, but the stained glass windows came all the way from Paris, to New Orleans via ship, barge to St. Louis, then wagon to Santa Fe. It has a beautiful, elaborate Gothic altar and lovely statues, but its most distinctive feature is the Miraculous Staircase. (You can see its history on their website, which has lots of nice pics as well)
I love the history and beauty of this place, and it’s so special to me since I’ve been visiting it since I was a child and we lived in New Mexico. I came up with several wedding ideas, but in the end this was the only one for me! Since Westminster Abbey didn’t work out… (plus my dress will look great there, LOL)
See more about St. Chapelle here…
Where did you get married? If you could do it again, would it be someplace different? Where is your “dream wedding” location??