Monthly Archives: May 2015

Songs of the Regency

Updated on October 15, 2022 by carolyn

My novella for the June historical romance anthology Dancing in the Duke’s Arms (with Grace Burrowes, Shana Galen, and Miranda Neville) is done and off to beta reading, editing, and copy-editing. My story is An Unsuitable Duchess. I posted last time about some research results. Most of that research survived in some form or another in the penultimate version. (Cue applause!!)

While I was ~~madly fixing~~ ::KoffKoff:: revising, I needed some additional research on what songs might have been sung in 1819. This turned out to be slightly harder than I wanted it to be, mainly because what seemed like the most likely on-point resource was a 1794 text that was a Google Books listing only. There was no text available.

I’ve seen this happen when someone, sorry, but often an academic press, has an annotated version of the text on sale, as with The Regency Epicure. There is no defensible reason, in my opinion, for the removal of a public domain title from Google Books just because there’s an annotated version available for purchase. To be clear, of course the annotated version is different and shouldn’t be freely available as to the copyrighted annotations. But the original remains in the public domain and should therefore remain available to the public.

But I digress. The 1794 songbook was not available and I did not have time to see if I could get it on Interlibrary loan. The book is listed in WorldCat, so there are libraries that have it. Nevertheless, I found something that answered the need well enough, and that was The British Melodist or National Song Book, containing English, Scottish, and Irish songs With a Selection of More than Four Hundred Choice Posts and Sentiments. There are several versions, with the earliest available text dated 1822. A similar book from 1813 is not available because some [ expletive ] is selling a paper copy on Amazon. And that someone just grabbed the book from Google and claims to have cleaned up the OCR text. I hate this. It pisses me off. It should not be permitted. It’s selling for $18.00. S0 eff you, dude. Right. HE got the benefit of a book in the public domain and now the actual public is screwed. You’re darn right I’m mad. We should all be angry!

I’m in danger of digressing again. Sorry.

The British Melodist of 1822 is recent enough for me to be confident that I’m not far off base in having my characters mention the titles of songs, and a few lines from one, in 1819.

Some of the songs and their titles surprised me. Here are a few examples.

Black-eyed Susan

All in the downs the fleet was moor’d,
The streamers waving in the wind,
when black-ey’d Susan came on board:
Oh! where shall I my true-love find?
Tell me ye jovial sailors, tell me true,
if my sweet William sails among the crew!
(first verse only)

Here’s another interesting one:

The Soldier’s Widow; or Return from Waterloo.

Sad was the plaint of the wand’ring stranger,
Hungry and pale was the infant she bore;
Return’d from the land of misfortune & danger,
She hop’d to find peace on her dear native shore.

O neat was her cottage, and great was her treasure,
A treasure to her more than diamonds or pearl
In the smiles of her William consisted her pleasure,
And the fond caresses of her little girl.

Duty commanded, her William attended,
And she could not bear with her soldier to part
She roam’d oe’r the field when the battle was ended,
She kiss’d his pale lip, & she pressed his cold heart.

They bore her away, of all comfort bereft her,
Affliction her dart at her bosom did hurl;
Oh no, little darling, one comfort is left her,
The sweet smiling kiss of her dear little girl.

Below is a song title I used in my story. I include the lyrics since they’re culturally significant. Talk about a message, eh? But there’s fascinating subtext there. The warning and moral wouldn’t be necessary if there weren’t young ladies who felt just that way.

No One Shall Govern Me.

When young and thoughtless, Laura said,
No one shall win my heart;
But little dreamt the simple maid,
Of love’s delusive art.
At ball or play,
She flirt away,
And ever giddy be;
But always said,
I ne’er will wed,
No one shall govern me.
No, no, no, no, no, no,
No one shall govern me.

But time on airy pinions flew,
And Laura’s charms decay’d;
Too soon alas! The damsel grew
A pettish pert old maid.
At ball or play,
No longer gay,
Poor Laura now you’ll see;
Nor does she cry,
For reasons why,
No one shall govern me.
No, no, no &c.

A lesson learned, ye ladies fair,
From Laura’s wretched fate;
Lest you, like her, should in despair
Repent alas! Back too late.

Let me advise –
While young, be wise,
Nor coy and silly be;
I’m certain I
Would never cry,
No one shall govern me.
No, no, no &c.
I’d gladly govern’d be.

Here’s another from the last few pages:

Drown it in the Bowl.

The glossy sparkle on the board,
The wine is ruby bright,
The reign of pleasure is restor’d,
Of ease and fond delight.
The day is gone, the night’s our own,
Then let us feast the soul;
If any care or pain remain,
Why drown it in the bowl.

This world they say’s a world of woe,
That I do deny;
Can sorrow from the goblet flow?
Or pain from beauty’s eye?
The wise are fools, with all their rules,
When they would joys controul:
If life’s a pain, I say again,
Let’s drown it in the bowl.

That time flies fast the poets sing;
Then surely it is wise,
In rosy wine to dip his wings,
And seize him as he flies.
This night is ours; then strew with flowers
The moments as they roll:
If any pain or care remain,
Why drown it in the bowl.

Possibly Interesting End Note

Normally, I would have done a copy and paste of the lyrics text or used an embedded image because, wow. LOTS OF TYPING!!!

But while I was doing my revisions and found myself behind because ::hand waving, a tissue, sobs omgwtf!:: I lost five chapters of revisions and had to completely redo them from paper edits. ::horrible flashbacks::

I became desperate to find a way to go faster where I had long chunks of new text. So, I hooked up my microphone and turned on the Mac dictation feature and dictated those sections. And danged if it didn’t work pretty damned well. And that includes the dictation working in my Windows 7 Parallels virtual machine. I honestly didn’t think Mac dictation would work across the virtual machine, but as long as I clicked in my WordPerfect document, my dictated words appeared.

And so, I dictated these lyrics into this post, and while there were a few hilarious interpretations, the dictation was remarkably accurate, all things considered. It was very quick to go a line at a time for these lyrics and fix the mostly minor issues.

I’m converted now to using dictation for work where I have longer blocks of text to transfer. I always do paper read throughs of my manuscripts so this is a regular occurrence for me. I redid my five chapters of edits in two days — working on my lunch hour (on the laptop) and then at home on the iMac, and let me represent to you that many of those chapters were a sea of ink and paragraphs written on the back of the pages.

A win, over all, I’d say because now there’s less of a barrier to posts like this one.

Posted in Former Riskies, Regency, Research | Tagged Dictation, songbooks, Songs | 5 Replies

Fictionalizing the Past

Updated on October 15, 2022 by Sandra Schwab

[My apologies for this late post. After coming home from university, I spent the late afternoon recording a video of me reading bits of my new book to you lovely people (this involved an accident with the retractable desk and making faces at the camera and checking whether “lamp” is really pronounced with a “p” or not). Then I spent the early evening editing the video, watching the software crash, editing the video again, finally starting the process to upload it to YouTube only to be told it would take 900 minutes to upload this lovely 5-minute video. At which point I nearly broke down and cried. After four hours, I eventually abandoned all hope & decided to do this post without a reading. *sigh*]

sketch of the Saalburg, by Sandra Schwab

The main gate of the Saalburg, a reconstructed Roman fort

When you’ve been reading and writing Regency-set historical romances for more than a decade, chances are that you’ve become quite familiar with the conventions of the genre, including the way the genre fictionalizes the Regency period. In other words, you know how the construction of this particular romantic fantasy works: the characters are typically from the upper classes (with an abundance of dukes *g*); the stories are typically set in London during the Season and / or on a lavish country estate; the hero is often tall, dark, and dangerous and might be a rake, but doesn’t suffer from syphilis; everybody has excellent teeth; nobody has any fleas nor lice. You also know exactly what kind of things are typically not touched upon: e.g., child labor, the massive economic problems after the Napoleonic Wars, the often dire situation of domestic servants.

You know this framework inside out, you know exactly what does and doesn’t work and what needs to be tweaked to fit the fantasy.

And then somebody on Twitter talks you into writing a romance novel set in ancient Rome.

And thus, you find yourself, for the most part, without any kind of framework.

For me this was certainly one of the most difficult parts of writing my Roman romance. It didn’t help that during the first few weeks I kept comparing my work to that of Rosemary Sutcliff, whose books I’ve adored since I was eight years old. No, this didn’t help at all. Instead it threw me into full-blown panic mode. How preposterous of me to think I could even begin to imitate Sutcliff’s work!

It took me a few days to realize that of course I wasn’t imitating Sutcliff’s novel. I was creating my own version of the Roman period, which in turn forced me to consciously think about how to fictionalize the past — something I hadn’t really done in years because I am so very familiar with the Regency period and the Victorian Age.

But suddenly I was forced to think about things like

How do you write about a world with completely different religious principles? (Funnily enough, my Roman hero ended up being the most religious character I have written to date.)
How do you write about a city that, for the most part, no longer exists? (The perfectionist part of me had a little melt-down over this.)
How do you write about slavery? How do you convey the full horror of slavery while at the same time making it part of the everyday life of your characters?
How do you explain an understanding of sex that was in many ways radically different from our own?
And why the heck wasn’t the Colosseum called Colosseum?!!?!? (This came up during a frantic bout of last-minute research last weekend.)

Roman military standards

Writing my Roman romance thus became a true adventure, which allowed me to not only explore a different time period, but also to question and challenge my own writing process and my process of translating the past into fiction.

Indeed, it also challenged me to rethink my own view on history and made me realize there are many aspects of the past we know little or nothing about.

A good example of this is the question whether or not centurions were legally allowed to marry. Though there are a good many grave stones that were erected by a centurion’s “wife”, they are not conclusive proof because the terms maritus (“husband”) and uxor (“wife”) were also used by partners who were not formally wed. Apart from formal, legal marriage, there were two other forms of socially accepted long-term relationships, namely concubinatus and contubernium. While the former refers to “lying together”, the latter term was used for a relationship where the partners lived together in one house. (Initially, the term denoted a community of people sharing a tent, and as such it was also used in a military context to refer to a group of eight soldiers sharing a tent during campaign or a room in the barracks in the fort.)

I have to admit that I found it slightly disturbing that my research often didn’t turn up hard facts, but forced me to make decisions about (key) aspects of my characters’ lives. (It gets even worse when you move beyond the borders of the Roman Empire!) (But hey, who would be stupid enough to do such a thing???) (Eh…um…)

Giving all the challenges of writing a romance set in a completely different period than what I’m used to, I am so thrilled that my first Roman romance it out in the wild. 🙂

Here’s the blurb:

A proud warrior.
A brave woman.
A forbidden love that is tested by the intrigues of ancient Rome and the hostilities at the northernmost edge of the empire.

Centurion Marcus Florius Corvus has a splendid career in the legions ahead of him. Yet a visit to Rome and a chance encounter with an old friend change his whole life: He falls in love with one of his friend’s pleasure slaves and becomes entrapped in an evil scheme designed to destroy him. And yet—he cannot help risking everything for Lia, the woman he has given his heart to, even if it means he will be banished to one of the most dangerous places in the Roman Empire: the northern frontier of Britannia.

Do you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription? Then you can now grab a copy of the first part of the serialized edition of Eagle’s Honor: Banished: www.amazon.com/dp/B00X50PXC2/

If you don’t have a KU subscription, you can also pre-order the complete edition, which will be cheaper for you: www.amazon.com/dp/B00WMAKH4K/

Please note that this is a steamy historical with explicit sex scenes, some graphic language, and shocking questions about a centurion’s vine staff. And people eat, like, the STRANGEST things! 😉

Would you like to be among the first to read Marcus & Lia’s full story? Then leave a comment for a chance to win a digital copy of the complete edition of Eagle’s Honor: Banished.

Posted in Former Riskies, Writing | 7 Replies

A Visit to Newstead Abbey, by Guest Author Camille Elliot

Updated on May 30, 2015 by Gail Eastwood

Today the Riskies welcome guest author, Camille Elliot. She’s offering a giveaway, too, so be sure to check the details at the end of her post.

Hello! My name is Camille Elliot and I’m a relatively new Regency romance author.

I’ve been reading Regencies since I was thirteen years old, but didn’t start writing them until a few years ago. For my 40^th birthday, I decided to take a “bucket list” trip to England rather than throwing a big party, and I’m so glad I went! It was the most wonderful experience I’ve ever had and it inspired some scenes in my latest Regency, The Spinster’s Christmas.

I was able to visit Lord Byron’s estate, Newstead Abbey, and it absolutely captivated me from the first sight of the ruined chapel front attached to the house.

The grounds are absolutely stunning—not as extensive as, say, Chatsworth, but beautifully cultivated. Most of the gardens were developed in the late 1800s but some of the gardens nearer to the house had been there when Lord Byron lived at Newstead.

Two of the gardens that really captivated me were the Small Walled Garden and the Rose Garden. They were originally the kitchen gardens, but were developed, I believe, in the late 1800s. The Small Walled Garden is especially beautiful with arches made of trained pear trees, and the high walls make it seem like it’s cut off from the rest of the world.

The Rose Garden is gigantic and I could see it as a wonderful place for children to play hide and seek. What was rather funny was the way the trees were sculpted. My friend, Liz Babbs, said they looked like Hershey’s kisses, but I thought they looked like giant turds.

When I wrote The Spinster’s Christmas, I went back to my memories of Newstead Abbey for a key scene in the book (in other words, a major kissing scene). The children are playing Hide and Seek in the Rose Garden, which I named the Lower Gardens, and my heroine speaks to my hero in the Small Walled Garden, which I named the Upper Gardens.

When writing the scene, I almost felt like I was back at Newstead. Sigh. I hope to go back to England soon, and back to Newstead again!

Thanks so much for visiting with us today and sharing this adventure, Camy!

Camy writes Christian romantic suspense as Camy Tang and Regency romance as USA Today bestselling author Camille Elliot. She lives in San Jose, California, with her engineer husband and rambunctious dog. She is a staff worker for her church youth group and leads one of the Sunday worship teams. Her latest novel, The Spinster’s Christmas, is now available for pre-order: http://camilleelliot.com/books/lady_wynwood_series/1_the_spinsters_christmas

This story is the first in Camy’s new series.

The Lady Wynwood series:

The pain and suffering of her short marriage eventually brought widowed Lady Wynwood emotional and spiritual peace. She is able to help her extended family members find love and happiness, but what about herself?

The Spinster’s Christmas:

Miranda Belmoore has never felt attuned to the rest of society. Her family has never understood her blunt speech and unwillingness to bow to conventional strictures, and so they have always made her feel that there is something wrong with her. Now as a poor relation in her cousin’s house, she makes plans to escape a life of drudgery and disdain from her own family members.

Naval Captain Gerard Foremont is having difficulty adjusting to life back on land, frustrated that his career has been cut short by his severely injured knee. Guilt haunts him as he sees the strain his long convalescence has had upon his parents. As they spend Christmastide with the Belmoores, he wants to help fulfill his mother’s wish to have her orphaned niece come to stay with them.

However, an enemy has infiltrated the family party, bent on revenge and determined that Twelfth Night will end in someone’s death …

Camy is offering three copies of The Spinster’s Christmas when it releases (please note it is not available yet!!) to three lucky winners who will be chosen randomly from among those who comment below. Do you have a favorite place in England you would most like to go back to visit again? If you haven’t been there, what one place is highest on your “wish to see” list? Writers, what real places have inspired scenes in your stories?

Posted in Giveaways, Guest, Places, Research, Risky Regencies, Writing | Tagged Camille Elliot, English Gardens, Newstead Abbey, Regency Romance | 18 Replies

Viking vs Regency Romance by Guest Author Michelle Styles

Updated on May 26, 2015 by diane

Welcome my friend and fellow Harlequin Historical author Michelle Styles who writes in a variety of time periods, including Roman, Victorian, Regency and Viking. Michelle is the perfect person to explain to us how Viking Romance differs from Regency Romance and how they are alike.

Michelle’s latest Viking Romance, Summer of the Viking, is available June 1. Prejudice in Regency Society was a special UK release in April, easily available to North American readers from Book Depository.

Here’s Michelle!

As I write both Viking and Regency Romances, Diane Gaston thought this blog would be the perfect opportunity for me to compare and contrast the two time periods. A bit like the questions I used to always answer on high school history exams.

The big similarity is that they are both romances. At their heart, Viking and Regency romances are about the growing emotional relationship between the couple. Society may change but deep human emotions remain the same. This fact makes it easier for an author to find a way into a time period. Ultimately romance is about the emotions and the characters’ emotional reactions to the events which overtake them, within the confines of the society they exist in.

Regency society is an urban society. People have banded together and live in cities. This puts certain pressures on behaviour and accepted standards of behaviour. Like Western settings, Viking romance are rural. Although urban centres did exist, I am not sure we would recognise them as cities in the same way that we do now or indeed as the Regency did. It means many activities were done within the home — hard for a heroine suddenly to acquire a new wardrobe, for example. Or to go to the theatre. Or meet friends for tea.

Because society was far more violent, the choice of occupation for the hero is far less. Basically, unless the hero became a priest, he would be a warrior. He would also be a merchant, farmer and a politician but under-pinning all of this was his status as a warrior. His skill with the sword and shield as well as leading men will have been tested. He will have travelled as the Vikings were forced to look beyond their shores for trade.

Regency heroes can and do have lots of different occupations and hobbies. They do not necessarily have to be leaders of men in battle or skilled with weaponry. They can be more refined, if you will. It means their reactions to various events may be different than that of a Viking. Viking heroes tend to be the ultimate in alpha male dom. Regency heroes while still alpha are not quite so uber, unreconstructed.

The rate of literacy was far lower in the Viking era. The whole concept of sitting down and reading was alien to a certain extent. Theirs was an oral culture which means memory was hugely important. There was no such thing as university, for example. Young men might go away to be trained but the universities are founded because of a need for clergymen, rather than for warriors. Equally for the writer, the ordinary Regency voice is accessible through diaries, journals and other published sources. Nothing like that exists for the Viking period. We can’t be precisely sure of the slang or the exact manner of speech. This can be also considered a blessing as there is no one to tell you that you made an error either.

Equally the concept of private space was different. There was much more communal living. The hearth was central in the room, rather than being at one side and things happened in the great hall. While the lord might have a private hut or chamber, there were no great houses with little nooks for privacy.

Sexuality and marriage were different. As the Viking society was pre-Christian until near the end of the Viking period, the taboos against divorce or indeed sex didn’t exist. Women could divorce as well as men. Indeed several sagas use this as crucial plot points. Men could take mistresses. And sometimes would have more than one wife. However, from we know from the sagas, polygamy was not popular and most had one wife at a time. Men could also have mistresses and there were various concepts of legitimacy. Children belonged to the man and he was expected to contribute to their upbringing. So if a noble had a one night stand, he would leave a token for the woman in case there was a result. The population pressure was not great and incidence of child mortality was high. Men needed heirs.

Communication was far worse in Viking period. We do not know how long it took for a message to get between two places. Transport was also much more primitive. The roads were appalling to non-existent and those who could travelled by boat.

Slavery existed but it was different from what we think of as slavery today. It was very possible for a high born man or woman to be sold as a captive. They could be ransomed. Slavery was not based on colour or creed. It would be unthinkable to a Viking not to have slavery because there were no machines to certain tasks. Everything was handmade. However when writing about things like the existence of slaves, one has to use a light hand and not rub modern noses in the fact.

Why are these things important? Knowing the limitations makes it easier for an author to craft the story. But ultimately because the spine of the story is the growing relationship, there are a lot of similarities.

Which do I like writing more? In Viking set romance, there tends to be more sword fights and I do love writing a good fight!

Giveaway: to celebrate the publication of my latest Summer of the Viking, I would like to offer one reader a signed copy. Please email me (michelle@michellestyles.co.uk ) with the answer to the following: where is Summer of the Viking set? Hint – look on my website: www.michellestyles.co.uk

I will draw the winner next Wednesday (3 June 2015).

Thanks, Michelle! Another difference I noticed right away was that Viking Romances are more likely to have a bare-chested, leather-clad, sword-carrying, tattooed hero on the cover! Whew!

Posted in Giveaways, Guest, History, Regency | Tagged Alpha Heroes, Michelle Styles, Regency Romance, Viking Romance | 6 Replies

That which we call a historical romance hero by any other name would smell like sandalwood and MAN

Updated on May 25, 2015 by Rose Lerner

Naming characters has been on my mind recently. I’ve been cleaning up and doing the first round of beta revisions on the next Lively St. Lemeston book, and I always leave a lot of names of secondary characters to be finalized at the end. I’m also planning my next project, a novella for an anthology, so I’m choosing names for my central characters.

I take names very seriously, especially for heroes and heroines. I was on a writing date with a friend, working for hours, and I think she was a little taken aback to realize I was thrilled to have finalized three names! What can I say, I’m picky about names. Plus, the heroine and her best friend in the novella are both not originally from England, which means tracking down a different set of naming resources than I usually use.

So I thought today I’d share some of my favorite naming resources, plus the fruits of my recent research.

Resources, England:

The Guiness Book of Names by Leslie Dunkling includes lists of the top fifty first names for girls and boys in England and Wales for 1700 and 1800. I figure names on either list are fair game.

Homes of Family Names in Great Britain by Henry Brougham Guppy (possessor of an amazing name himself), 1890, includes lists of English last names organized by county, sometimes with notes on their origin. I love this book so much I had it printed and bound at the Third Place Books espresso book machine. Did I mention organized by county?

I stole this trick from Cecilia Grant: Debrett’s Baronetage of England, 1835, is a great place to find first and last names that I can be sure are appropriate for an aristocratic character.

When I’m choosing a title rather than a last name (e.g., the Earl of Tassell), I sometimes go with a last name, and sometimes with a place name. The Guiness Book of Names, mentioned above, has a lot of great place names in it, plus building blocks for creating your own. Wikipedia also provides lists of villages in UK counties. For example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Villages_in_West_Sussex

Genealogy sites are an amazing resource, and you can often find them for other countries, too! My favorite for Regency England is this Genes Reunited database of England and Wales death records from 1837 forward. Here’s a search for the name Clementia limited to people born between 1770 and 1790. As you can see it is great at recognizing related names, too!

Resources, Not England:

The thing about naming characters from other countries and cultures is that I don’t have intuition about the name. Even when I was naming the Jewish characters in True Pretenses, I discovered that Ashkenazi Jewish surnames (very familiar to me in their modern form) were completely different during the Regency. So I only chose last names that actually appeared in my research books, and I did the same for some first names (though not all–a couple of people who are only briefly mentioned have common Yiddish or Ladino names that I just hope were in use at the time, like Faige and Speranza). Obviously that provides less options, but I really didn’t want to fuck it up.

I followed the same method for naming an Indian secondary character/future heroine in my upcoming book, although I’m still hoping to find more good online resources for this before I write her book and have to choose dozens of names.

(For a good start at understanding the complexities of naming an Indian character without accidentally mixing and matching religion, location, caste &c., check out these tips from Alisha Rai and Suleikha Snyder. You can see them walking someone through the naming process too! Of course, that’s not even getting into whether the name was used in a particular time period.)

For naming the heroine of my novella, who was born in Portugal, I started with Behind the Name’s list of Portuguese girls’ names. Once I had a shortlist of names I liked, I tested their historicity by plugging them into this FamilySearch database of Portugal Catholic baptisms 1570-1910. (Obviously this only works for Catholic names!)

The name I eventually chose: Magdalena Da Silva. She goes by Maggie.

For naming her best friend (with benefits), I found this amazing database of eighteenth century Dutch Ashkenazi Jews (organized in lists alphabetically by surname which makes it fantabulously usable for my purposes). His name: Meyer Hennipzeel. He goes by Meyer Henney in England.

While paging through Debrett’s for my hero (eventually named Simon Radcliffe-Gould), I discovered some marvelous things.

Debrett’s contains a list of baronet family mottoes. I haven’t had time to go through it fully but my favorite on the first page is “Agitatione purgator. Cleansed by agitation. Russell, of Middlesex.”

I found a couple of family crests worthy of Monty Python. The Acton family, of Aldenham Hall, Shropshire, are represented by “A human leg and thigh in armour, couped, and dropping blood, all proper, garnished, or.” [Image]

And the Prices of Treggwainton, Cornwall, use “On a wreath of the colours a dragon’s head vert, erased gules, holding in its mouth a sinister hand erect, couped, dropping blood from the wrist, all proper.” [Image–and look, you can buy a set of Georgian silver dessert spoons with this crest on it!]

And of course, names:

Buckworth-Herne-Soames
Dalrymple-Horn-Elphinstone
Vanden-Bempde-Johnstone
Philadelphia-Letitia Cotton
Sir Peter Parker

And my absolute favorite…

…the Page-Turners! YES. There was an actual family named the Page-Turners. I want to name my hero this so badly, I can’t even tell you. I know it would be distracting but it’s SO FUNNY. I don’t think I would ever get tired of it.

Sir Gregory Page-Turner (1748–1805). Image via Wikimedia Commons.

This guy is a babe, I have to say. I also enjoyed this tidbit about his life:

“Sir Edward Turner, 2nd Baronet had a country house, Ambrosden House, built by the architect Sanderson Miller in the 1740s. Sir Gregory never lived at Ambrosden, thought the house too big and in 1767 sought to demolish part of it to make it smaller. This proved impractical so in 1768 he had the entire house demolished.”

Do you have a favorite historical name you’d like to see in a book? How about a favorite name resource?

ETA: Joanna Bourne alerted me to this, for late 18th-century French names: The Guillotined. So cool!

Posted in Names, Research | 20 Replies