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Author Archives: Laurie Bishop

In the Way of Modest Observation…

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…I am now published in German. I learned this when a package of several of my book DECEIVING MISS DEARBORN” arrived with a new cover and title. The title in German is Ist Ihr Herz Noch Frei, Mylord?

I believe the title translates to “Is Your Heart Free, My Lord,” but I’m not staking my life on it. I don’t know German except for a few random words. If my first foreign-published book had been in French, I’d have a good shot at reading it, but German–unfortunately, not.

I have to say that the cover art is gorgeous! The binding, however, has a magazine-weight cover, rather like the Reader’s Digest.

I noticed many Regencies on the publisher’s site, www.cora.de. If you want to see the lovely covers (although they are small), select the button “My Lady.” There are four “my lady” imprints–Mine is under “My Lady.” There is also “My Lady Royal,” which I can only suppose might be “super regencies,” and then there is “My Lady Duett” and “My Lady Weihnachtsband,” which appears to be holiday Regencies. You will see some authors very familiar to English-language readers.

So…I happen to have two books out at once since WHEN HORSES FLY is out in the US as of October. Now, that’s a unique concept to me!

A final thought…the Regency is alive and well, although perhaps translated to a different language. I went to Amazon.fr and saw Zebra Regencies printed in French (although Signets appeared only to be available in English). I would like to know more foreign publishers of Regencies, so please contribute if you have information!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Laurie

Posted in Risky Book Talk | Tagged | 5 Replies

As the World Turns

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Speaking of Trafalgar, I can’t believe it has been 200 years. I haven’t really been thinking of the Regency as being so long ago–no idea why. But time does slip away. I’ve noticed more and more that events I lived through are being seen as old history by my younger friends. I am old enough to critique costumes and attitudes of the sixties if anyone wants to reenact the time. I even have a clue about the 5o’s, although from a very short perspective. 😉

I still have this thing about artificially faded jeans. They bug me. Worn jeans should be truly worn. I had pairs that were worn tissue thin in the knees, and when they ripped, I patched them. And wear patterns were very distinctive. Wear occurred in the knees primarily, to a lesser extent in the derriere. Men wore the imprint of their wallets in their rear pockets. Pronounced wear did not occur on the thighs and some other odd areas where mechanically faded and worn jeans make them (keeping in mind that I grew up in northern New York, not ranching country). And…worn jeans did not take on that brownish tinge unless the owner didn’t wash them regularly! Whenever I see worn jeans in stores with that “tea stained” look, I automatically think they look as though the owner wasn’t clean.

You tie-dyed your own T-shirts. You wore the same pair of Hurache sandals until they were falling apart. The Peace Symbol meant something. No one was trying to be a fashion statement unless you were square, and then you dressed like Jackie Kennedy or Twiggy (women!) or if you were male, your hair was very short and you wore glasses with the black plastic rims.

The idea that rock groups would age was funny. Remember that bar scene in Star Wars with the gray-haired rock band? That was hilarious when the movie was new.

I don’t know why I am saying all this–I’m just trying, I think, to show how we look through a distorted lens when we look back. We can’t truly know how people of a time looked or acted or felt or spoke. We can only do as much research as we can and be careful of our sources, especially if the source is another historian’s work or a movie of the time. Diaries, on the other hand, are more helpful…and not enough people write on paper these days! I worry that all the electronic evidence will be lost, and generations from now people will be struggling to understand what this time was all about.

Comments?

And by the way, back to the subject of Trafalgar, I thought I’d provide this link to Nelson’s Navy–Life in the 18th Century Royal Navy. Great Britain’s Channel 4 has some great history pages.
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/n-s/nelson.html

Be sure to check out the Georgian Underworld too, by the way…
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/G/georgian_underworld/index.html

Laurie

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GRAVE MATTERS

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An add from The Wooler’s British Gazette in 1822 (partial text)*:

 

“Many hundred dead bodies will be dragged from their wooden coffins this winter, for the anatomical lectures (which have just commenced)…the only safe coffin is Bridgman’s Patent Wrought-iron one… Those undertakers who have IRON COFFINS must divide the profits of the funeral with EDWARD LILLIE BRIDGMAN.”*

It seemed that the bodies of executed prisoners was in short supply, forcing surgeons and students to seek bodies by other means. This meant that if one were interred in an ordinary wooden coffin, there was a good chance that the churchyard would not be one’s final resting place.

Physicians were willing to pay a good price for dead bodies, and hence the growth of the business of the “Resurrection Men.” A body snatcher could deal his way to a higher price by threatening to sell his bodies elsewhere. On occasion, a particularly interesting specimen could bring a pretty penny…in 1783 a young Irish Giant named Charles Byrne, in the process of dying and having heard that his body was desired by a Scots surgeon named John Hunter, took every precaution to insure the safety of his body after death–but Hunter at last parted with the outrageous bribe of L500 to obtain Byrne’s body. If you would like an even more ghoulish note, so frightened was Hunter that his prize would be stolen from him in turn that he immediately boiled the flesh from Byrne’s body in the dead of night and preserved the skeleton.**

Obviously, moonlight was not the friend of the body snatcher. Complete darkness was needed to carry out the work. Additionally, it became necessary to have a scout at the gravesite, at the end of services, to spot any traps…then once it was dark, the robbers quickly dug down to the head-end of the coffin, broke through and pulled the body out head-first, disturbing the site as little as possible. One disposed of the grave-clothes also, as the punishment for being caught with a corpse wearing grave clothes was much greater than being caught with a naked body.***

But graveyards were not the only source of bodies, particularly as the demand grew and graveyards became more guarded. Bodies were obtained by subterfuge from workhouses and such places…and eventually, even by murder.

A murderous pair named John Bishop and James May worked London’s East End in 1831 until a suspicious surgeon called the police. They were tried and convicted, and their own executed bodies were delivered for dissection. **** Unfortunately for them, or perhaps because of them, the Anatomy Act passed short months later, doing away with the practice of giving the bodies of the executed to the executioner for disposal. Eventually, the practice of donating bodies for medical practice and research lost its negative connotation, and the “Resurrectionists” went out of business.

So there’s a spooky bit of history for the season…Happy Halloween!

Laurie

*Low, Donald A., The Regency Underworld (Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1999) p. 77
**Ibid p. 80
***Pool, Daniel. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993) p. 254
****Hughes, Kristine. Everyday LifeVictoriancy and vicCincinnatiand (Cincinnatti: Writer’s Digest Books, 1998) p. 65

 

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Cats!

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No, I haven’t lost my mind. I started pondering cats in the Regency when Megan asked if I had ever put a cat in a Regency romance. I haven’t, and I had to ask myself why. I love cats. I love all animals for that matter, but I adore cats. I realized that I am uncertain how cats were seen in the Regency period. I do know cats were kept as functional animals–as mouse and rat-catchers–in kitchens, in warehouses, and on ships. But were they commonly considered pets?

I have not encountered any contemporaneous writing mentioning cats in particular, and welcome hearing from anyone who has. There is some pictorial evidence, but little that I could find was specific to the Regency period. We can start with ancient Egypt, where it is commonly known that cats were admired and worshipped. We know that cats existed in ancient Rome, as evidenced by the fresco from Pompeii shown above.

We know that cats were kept as house pets in earlier periods in England as well. Here are two portraits, one of third Earl of Southampton with his cat Trixie in the Tower of London, c.1601-1603, and a portrait of the Graham Children by William Hogarth that depicts
the family cat in the background.

The third Earl of Southampton kept his cat with him throughout his imprisonment and commissioned John de Critz the Elder to paint the portrait of himself and his cat prior to his release. This certainly is evidence of cat love!

The portrait of the Graham children simply shows the cat’s presence in the household–hungrily eyeing the caged bird with a very predatory expression on his face.

(See the detail showing the cat and his prey).

So now I arrive at the Regency period. I found a portrait of a kitten by George Stubbs which must have been commissioned by a very adoring owner (a Miss Anne White):


Unfortunately, I did not find any other formal portraits containing cats in the Regency period, and I welcome information and links from anyone who knows more than I. But I did find two satirical prints that rather say it all!

The first is dated 1808…

And here we have a print by the same artist in 1815.

Actually, I suppose what I have learned is that there were “Catwomen” in the Regency! I think I have just discovered where I would have fit in if I had lived in that time…except I probably would have been a milkmaid with a furry following rather than a gracious lady as is depicted above. ::Sigh:: That would be my fantasy…having a servant to clean the litter pan!

So, does anyone else have any primary or secondary information on cats in the Regency? Did they even HAVE litter pans? Enquiring minds want to know!

Laurie

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