Today marks the anniversary of the first Luddite riot. Chambers Book of Days calls it “a black-letter day in the annals of Nottinghamshire.”
Luddites were stocking knitters and wool croppers in Nottingham, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire, who were trying to save their livelihoods by smashing the machines that replaced them. They were against being replaced by low-skilled workers. They wanted their fair pay. They also wanted an end to inferior products created by machine which undermined the reputation of their craft.
On March 11, 1811, the first Luddites destroyed sixty-three knitting frames, sparking a series of such incidents that spanned over about 6 years.
No one knows for certain where the name Luddites came from. It is said to have originated from an apprentice weaver named Ludd who smashed his loom in anger at the master who beat him. Or, less dramatically, The Book of Days says a youth named Ludlam who when his framework-knitter father told him to “square his needles” took his hammer and smashed them.
However the name originated, the leaders of the rioting against the industrialization of their craft came to be called General Ludd or King Ludd, and the character became as legendary as Robin Hood.
The government refused to step in to aid the Luddites (in spite of Lord Byron speaking in their behalf in Parliament). They focussed on enforcement, but, because the Luddites disguised themselves and because their communities were so tightly unified with them, most were never caught and punished. Basically the rioters and protesters, the machine smashers, were all desperate enough to risk hanging or transportation.
Eventually enough machines were destroyed and enough manufacturers were willing to cede to the Luddites wishes that the movement lost some steam. Even though some Luddite leaders joined other movements for social change. By 1817 frame smashing ceased to become an issue.
Today we still use the term Luddite to refer to any opponent of industrial change or innovation.
I can’t say I’m an opponent of industrial innovation, but I sure can’t figure out how to use all the features on my Smart TV!
In what way are you a Luddite? Or, if not you, do you know a Luddite?
(by the way, I’ll pick Sally MacKenzie’s winner after 12 midnight tonight)
Several weeks ago when I had the good fortune to join Risky Regencies, I prosed on forever about Regency heroes, fictional and those appearing on cover art (not to mention GB). It is time I spoke about Regency heroines.
When I conceive a story in my head it almost always starts with the hero. Heroes are so much easier for me. Apart from the obvious reason that I love to fantasize about dishy Regency guys, I think it is because the men in those times were able to lead such interesting lives, while the women had very few options, unless they were willing to risk social ostracism or give up on respectability altogether and live in the demimonde.
In some ways I love to explore women who were willing to risk being shamed (Morgana running a courtesan school in A Reputable Rake, for example; Emily gambling in The Wagering Widow; or even Maggie, a total imposter, in The Improper Wife ). I like even more to imagine what life would be like for those women outside of respectable society (Maddie, the ruined girl, in The Mysterious Miss M). My next Mills & Boon features a singer as the heroine, and in my next Warner–now called Hachette–the heroine is a con artist.
All of these heroines require a mindset quite different from today’s woman, and it is sometimes hard to find that point where the modern reader can identify with the Regency woman’s predicament. Why be afraid you are going to wind up a prostitute? the modern woman might say. Why not just get a job?
The reality was, the Regency woman could not just get a job. She had to have references, even for such lowly positions as house maid or shop girl. And once ruined, any respectable employment was denied her.
There are plenty of weak, victim-like Regency heroine stereotypes – governesses, servants of any sort, impoverished vicar’s daughters, ladies companions, abused wives – but I think today’s reader wants the heroine to be strong, not a victim. I truly believe there have been strong women in every era of history, certainly in the Regency as well. I like to explore how women of the time period rose above their constaints and refused to be victims.
You know what else? It is hard finding reasons for Regency heroines to engage in “intimacies” with those hunky Regency men. I think the Regency woman’s mindset about sex had to be quite different from our own. She’d worry about pregnancy each and every time, no doubt. No respectable man would want a society girl if she went and had sex with another guy first.
I’m rambling because I need to write proposals for my next two books and I don’t know who the heroines will be! My next Mills & Boon has a marquess for the hero and the next Hachette will be Wolfe’s story. I want to devise strong heroines for these two men, both of whom I know down to the birthmarks on their—
(nevermind)
So! What kind of Regency heroines do you all like the best? Which ones are you tired of? Do you want that sexy read or doesn’t it matter?
Cheers!
Diane
Diane here.
Today we welcome back Sally MacKenzie to talk about her latest Regency, Surprising Lord Jack. Sally just keeps giving us charming books. First the Naked series, now the Duchess of Love series. By giving, I also mean Sally is giving away a signed copy of Surprising Lord Jack to one lucky commenter chosen at random.
Here is what reviewers are saying about Surprising Lord Jack*Starred review* “MacKenzie has penned another humorous Regency-era gem that will get a collective thumbs-up from readers.”–Shelley Mosley, Booklist
Four stars. “MacKenzie delights her devoted fans once again with a quick-witted, steamy romp. Add a touch of mystery and another bright tale of love and laughter is born. An engaging, and meddlesome, cast whips this lusty tale into a perfect heart-holiday treat!”–Anne Black, RT Book Reviews
4.50 / 5 -Reviewer Top Pick. “I recommend this book to all my fellow historical romance fans.”–Debra Taylor, Night Owl Reviews
Welcome back, Sally!
Hello, Riskies! I’m so glad to be stopping by again. I had a chance to see Diane at the Washington Loves Romance gathering in February. She was apparently deep in deadline craziness, but she looked calm and composed as always– (Diane note: Most likely I was merely sleep-deprived…)
Tell us about Surprising Lord Jack.
Surprising Lord Jack is the second book in my Duchess of Love trilogy. (Well, it’s a trilogy plus a novella: “The Duchess of Love” is the prequel to the series and tells how the duchess met her duke.) It’s about the duchess’s youngest son, and it begins where Bedding Lord Ned, the first book in the series, ends.
Here’s the back cover copy:
Unladylike behavior…
Frances Hadley has managed her family’s estate for years. So why can’t she request her own dowry? She’ll have to go to London herself and knock some sense into the men interfering in her life. With the nonsense she’s dealt with lately, though, there’s no way she’s going as a woman. A pair of breeches and a quick chop of her red curls, and she’ll have much less to worry about…
Jack Valentine, third son of the famous Duchess of Love, is through being pursued by pushy young ladies. One particularly determined miss has run him out of his own house party. Luckily the inn has one bed left. Jack just has to share with a rather entertaining red-headed youth. Perhaps the two of them should ride to London together. It will make a pleasant escape from his mother’s matchmaking melodrama!
There a Jack the Ripper sort of plot thread as well: someone is slitting the throats of prostitutes and even society women with soiled reputations, a class into which Frances now falls.
I’m excited because ALA Booklist gave Jack a starred review!
What is risky about the book?
Well, three things come to mind, though they might be more tricky than risky.
First, I wanted to try my hand at a “chick-in-pants” book, where the heroine pretends to be a man–or, in this case, a boy. Sometimes in these stories, the hero begins to fall in love with the heroine even before he knows her true gender. However, I happened to be working on Jack’s book during the Jerry Sandusky scandal. I followed the news reports pretty closely, partly because I have sons who’ve competed in Division I varsity athletics (and I went to the University of Notre Dame), so I’m interested in the whole question of the power athletics has in a college’s culture. But mostly, of course, I was reading and listening to news reports because the story was so horrifying. And since I’m the mother of boys, these kinds of events make me start questioning my sons to see if any coach or scout leader or other male in their lives ever did anything inappropriate with them. (My questioning drives them crazy, by the way. None of the men I’m related to wanted to discuss the trial.)
So with that, there was no way I was going to have Jack feel any sexual attraction for Frances while she was pretending to be male. Frances, however, was free to fall in love with Jack, except she hates men. So making their relationship develop when she’s in disguise was tricky.
Second, Jack’s book is the middle of a trilogy, and, unlike the Naked series, I planned these books to fit together. The first book had the advantage of setting things up, and the last book gets to tie things together (I hope). But the middle book is, well, in the middle. It’s got the threads I planned to run through the series coming and going. It has to be able to handle that, but be a satisfying, complete story on its own. So it was a bit tricky keeping things balanced. I think I managed it, though. A reviewer who’s read only Jack’s book told me she didn’t feel the need to have read Ned’s story first, so that was a big relief!
Third, the books are set in a pretty tight timeframe. Jack’s book actually begins as Ned’s is ending. I haven’t tried that before.
Was it easy to write?
Argh!! No. Maybe because it was the middle book, it just about killed me. I finished the first draft and revised and polished, but the book wasn’t working. I had to do pretty much a complete rewrite–or at least it felt that way. And since my publisher had moved the release date up, I had a real honest-to-God, drop dead deadline. The icing on the cake was that the D.C. derecho roared through a few days before that deadline, leaving our house intact, thank God, but taking our electricity and internet. I had to write with an eye on my laptop battery’s charge indicator and be creative in finding places to recharge when it got low. I discovered the church’s “crying room” had an outlet that worked, so I sat through Sunday Mass plugged in. (No, I wasn’t working, and no, there weren’t any babies in the room with me at the time, and yes, I felt very good about going to church that week.) When we went out to eat, I asked for a table with an outlet. The upside was that I kept my nose to the grindstone–no internet to distract and no battery power to waste on endless games of computer solitaire. When I was done–the day I had to send the manuscript off–I went to Panera’s to use their internet.
Did you come across any interesting research?
Yes–and Janet has already told you all about it. Back on November 15, Janet posted about the Threads of Feeling exhibit*. I was so excited! No, I didn’t know about the exhibit (until Janet mentioned it), but I had been researching London’s Foundling Hospital, so I knew mothers used to leave scraps of fabric when they gave up their babies, sort of like a claims check, I guess…so they could come back and reclaim their children once they were able to care for them.
I knew Jack was going to have some sort of charity he was involved in, and it made sense to me that since Ned’s son died in childbirth, the charity would have something to do with children. Well Jack actually has two charities–one for prostitutes who want a way out of that life and one for abandoned children. I researched the Foundling Hospital to see if such a plan would work, though the children at Jack’s house are mostly the offspring of prostitutes, abandoned on the streets. He finds them, brings them to his “foundling hospital,” and educates them until they are old enough to find work.
Bedding Lord Ned had a thieving cat. There’s a dog on Surprising Lord Jack’s cover. Does he have a role in the story?
Of course! The dog’s name is Shakespeare; Jack and Frances discover him with an abandoned baby in the stews, and he can do all kinds of tricks.
I may have said before that I’m a bit of a pantser–the story develops as I write it. I realized that Shakespeare had belonged to a local actor who’d decamped for parts unknown, leaving his dog behind. I thought that was a bit odd, and I filed it away as a “possibly important but currently mystifying” detail. At the end of the story, I discovered that Shakespeare’s former owner had a role to play in resolving the Jack the Ripper thread.
And I’m sure any dedicated plotters reading this are now twitching.
I never thought I would be a pantser. If you ask any of my four sons, I’m sure they’d say I’m a control freak. I think I scored “possible army officer” on the career test I took in college. But, to quote Popeye, “I yam what I yam.”
What’s next for you?
I’ve finished the first draft of Loving Lord Ash, the last book in the trilogy which should be out in Spring 2014. Maybe because I’m a pantser, I can’t just type “the end” and send a manuscript off to my editor, though. I usually take several weeks to a month to revise and polish before I’m willing to part with a story. I’m just hoping Ash doesn’t give me the fits Jack did!
And now a question for your readers: Do you have a favorite book that features a cross-dressing heroine? Mine is Fool’s Masquerade by Joan Wolf. I have to say I’m a big fan of Joan Wolf’s Regencies–I have many of them on my keeper shelf. (Okay, really a keeper box.) Why do you like this kind of story–or if you don’t like “chick-in-pants” books, why not?
Thanks for being our guest, Sally. Readers, do not forget to comment for a chance to win Surprising Lord Jack.
*The Threads of Feeling exhibit comes to Williamsburg, VA, May 25, 2013.
I just returned from Long Island, after a weekend visiting first my daughter, then my cousin, topped off yesterday with a wonderful afternoon at Side Street Books in Patchogue, New York.
Side Street Books is a delightful Used and New Bookstore run by a warm and wonderful romance novel enthusiast, Diane Sander, who invited me to come speak to her customers and reading group. It seemed like a great excuse to visit my cousin Margie, who loves historical romance, but it also turned out to be a great afternoon meeting new friends.
There were about fifteen ladies who came to hear me speak, plus one token gentleman, Diane’s husband. My own personal rake, dh Jim put in an appearance, and Margie’s husband, as well. They didn’t last long, because there was a bar next door to the bookstore.
I told the story of “how I sold my first book” (see my interview in the archives) and I then just talked about lots of things. Like, how I almost got a cover model to come with me to the signing–Richard Cerqueira, the “hand” on The Wagering Widow and the very handsome fellow on the spine and inside cover. Unfortunately, he had a conflict. I also talked about how an author gets paid, how film rights work, and re-releases of books, what I did in England, how I developed my “Regency Voice.” All of the women there had read at least one of my books. A REPUTABLE RAKE was one of the reading group’s choices. I gave them each a set of bookmarks, Richard’s and mine, and a little rake of their own, a miniature garden tool. I gave away a Wagering Widow cover flat, signed by Richard, and a Marriage Bargain tote bag.
The ladies brought food. A tasty green salad, fresh fruit salad, and desserts. I had flan that was to die for! I truly felt as if I were talking to a group of friends.
I dropped names as much as I could, other romance authors I know, and did a fair amount of talking about Traditional Regencies, which Diane said are popular among some dedicated customers. These ladies attending the signing were more familiar with Regency Historicals, but I hope I encouraged some of them to try the trads. I saw Amanda’s books on the bookshelf, but I didn’t have a chance to search for my other Risky pals.
The ladies said nice things about my books, asked intelligent questions, and joked around, so that the time whizzed by. I’m hoping to return next year, after I have more books out.
Here’s a picture of some of the ladies and me in front of the store. Note my Marriage Bargain poster in the window.
And, naturally, somebody noticed my Phantom of the Opera watch, giving me the perfect opportunity to talk about Gerard Butler as Phantom. Alas, being so close to NYC, these ladies had all seen POTO on Broadway; some had even seen Michael Crawford in the role, so they were not really listening to me… But I at least planted the seed to go rent the DVD of POTO. Then they’ll know!
Cheers!
Diane (who is now going to unpack and do laundry)
PS I’ll add photos when Blogger lets me!