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Category: Regency

I’m late with my blog today, but I have a good excuse. I’m just back from a trip out of town for the First Birthday of THE CUTEST GRANDSON EVER. It was wonderful.

Last week I skipped out on a regular blog because I was finishing writing my Work In Progress. I’m happy to report Work Is Done and turned in. And, I discovered in my research that Wellington won the Battle of Waterloo and Napoleon lost.

Of course, I knew that beforehand. Who didn’t?

2012247I’ve researched the battle several times, having used it in other books, my Three Soldiers Series, for example. Even if I don’t use the battle in the story, I need to know things like what regiments fought at Waterloo, if I am writing about a Waterloo veteran.

For writing about Brussels before Waterloo, I relied heavily on two sources:

Waterloo Days by Charlotte Ann Eaton (free on Google Books) -This book is a memoir written by a traveler to Brussels who arrived the day of the Duchess of Richmond’s Ball

jpegNew Picture of Brussels by J.B. Romberg (also free on Google Books) – a travel guide, written in 1820

For details of the Duchess of Richmond’s Ball, I used two rather obvious sources:

The Duchess of Richmond’s Ball by David Miller
Dancing Into Battle by Nick Foulkes

For the battle itself:

MV5BNTc4MTk5NDk5Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMjk2NjQzMTE@._V1_SX214_AL_The Battle: A New History of Waterloo by Alessandro Barbero
Waterloo: Day of Battle by David Howarth – This book tells the story of the battle from the perspective of the soldiers fighting it, which makes it ideal. It is my favorite book about Waterloo.

But even before I delved into the books, I needed to get myself in the mindset of Waterloo. I did this by watching YouTube videos, which I first found on Number One London. Look HERE for bunches of Waterloo videos, including the Waterloo movie starring Rod Steiger as Napoleon and Christopher Plummer as Wellington.

You’ll have to wait until 2015 to find out how well I did with this research!

Hugh Westleigh, the hero of A Lady of Notoriety was a Waterloo veteran. You can get your copy of that book now.

Do you have a favorite research book? Or a favorite nonfiction history book?

dedicationI’m always interested in the keywords used to describe books. Having already talked about what “sweet” means with regard to Regencies, I’m moving on to “traditional”.

There are various explanations of how traditional Regencies differ from Regency-set historical romance.

Traditional Regencies are short. But some of the older ones were 80,000 words or more, especially those published as Super Regencies.

Traditional Regencies are “sweet.” There are many exceptions, including some books by the Riskies. Sweet historical romance also exists.

Traditional Regencies depict the world of the Regency as described by Jane Austen and/or Georgette Heyer. True to a degree, but neither of them ever included paranormal elements like vampires. Or time travel. Or Greek deities who take a mischievous role in the characters’ love lives.

vampireTraditional Regencies are historically accurate. Not always! I’ve heard there was a Zebra Regency that included photography as if it were in common use. I’ve also read traditional Regencies with errors in titles, fox hunting in the summer, etc…, and many that seem to rely almost entirely on Georgette Heyer for background information. Although we know she did meticulous work, the sensibility in her books is largely Victorian.

One other point is that many authors of Regency-set historical romance do extensive research (I do!) although they may incorporate aspects of the setting that were not seen in books by Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer.

Traditional Regencies are light and witty “comedies of manners”. There were some pretty angsty traditional Regencies, dealing with substance abuse, PTSD and other serious themes.

rakeSo even while some of these traits often describe traditional Regencies, it seems to me that the only simple definition is those books published in the traditional Regency lines. Of course, now there are indie authors and specialty lines who publish what are generally agreed to be “traditional” Regencies.

jewelThe only definition I’ve been able to come up with that makes sense is that in a traditional Regency, the Regency setting is more consistently emphasized, described in detail (even if the detail may be incorrect or copied from Georgette Heyer), and that the setting often takes on an importance almost as if it were a secondary character.

So what do you think? What makes a Regency “traditional”?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

1200px-The_Duchess_of_Richmond's_Ball_by_Robert_Alexander_HillingfordI am down to the last week before my current WIP will (hopefully!) be done and am getting close to the Battle of Waterloo. My hero and heroine are both in Brussels and are planning to attend the Duchess of Richmond’s Ball, that famous ball that took place the evening that Wellington learned that Napoleon was on the march in Belgium. So I’ve been immersing myself in Waterloo Youtube videos and reading about the ball.

Did you know for years the actual location of the ball was the subject of debate? It was long thought to have taken place in the Hotel de Ville in the Grand Place in Brussels, not because there was any evidence to that fact, though.

Other locations suggested were the Duke of Richmond’s coach house and stables. In the Illustrated London News in the mid-nineteenth century, the location of the ball was listed as being at the Maison du Roi, the king’s palace, a grand location, but, again, totally false.

Henry-Nelson-O'Neil_Before-Waterloo_1868

The true location is described by a very credible source–The Duchess’s daughter who was present at the ball.

She says:

My mother’s now famous ball took place in a large room on the ground floor, on the left of the entrance, connected with the rest of the house by an anteroom. It had been used by the coach builder, from whom the house was hired, to put carriages in, but it was papered before we came there; and I recollect the paper — a trellis pattern with roses. My sisters used the room as a schoolroom, and we used to play battledore and shuttlecock there on a wet day.*

The house the Richmonds rented was on the Rue de la Blanchisserie, so named because a laundry once existed on the site. Wellington used to refer to the residence as “the Wash House,” which he thought was pretty funny and the Duchess of Richmond, a prickly sort of woman, didn’t. In any event, her daughter’s description was pretty clear that it wasn’t any of those other places.

For a beautiful description of the ball, see Amanda’s 2008 Risky Regencies blog

By the way, in my YouTube viewing I discovered two other pretty blatant errors. In one video, they stated the date of the Battle of Waterloo to be July 18, 1815 instead of June 18 (who am I to remark upon that? My book Chivalrous Captain, Rebel Mistress contained the same mistake, a typo, in my case). Another video kept calling Wellington the “future Duke of Wellington,” but he received that title in 1814 after Napoleon’s first abdication.

And while we are on the subject, I am ALL ENVY at Susanna’s plans to attend the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo!!!

*from The Duchess of Richmond’s Ball 15 June 1815 by David Miller

Have you come across any grievous historical errors lately?

…I will be in Belgium for the events surrounding the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo! I bought my tickets for the reenactment yesterday, as soon as I heard they were available.

Waterloo reenactor

I’ve been planning this trip for over ten years, saving money and vacation time so I can take at least four weeks off work. The current plan is to fly into London so we can give our daughter, who’ll be 11 and just finished with 5th grade then, a soft, English-speaking landing for her first trip abroad. She’s such a huge Doctor Who fan that London should seem familiar to her.

Then it’s on to Belgium for the reenactment. From there our tentative itinerary is several days in Paris, followed by almost a week in the Dordogne River valley (for delicious food, prehistoric cave paintings, and some nice relaxation in the middle of what will surely be a hectic trip). After that I’ll put my Wellington fangirl hat back on as we go into Spain and Portugal, where we’ll visit at least a few Peninsular War sites.

Is anyone else going to be at the reenactment? And do you have a “trip of a lifetime,” either in your past or planned for your future?

wedding door2Today is my wedding anniversary! I’ve been married to my dear husband for a brazillion years–I won’t say how many, but he tells me that he’s supposed to get me dirt for our anniversary this year. Or maybe he meant land.

Like many of our fictional Regency heroes and heroines, we didn’t know each other for very long before deciding to get married. We dated about two months before becoming engaged and we were married a year later, a year I spent away at graduate school. When I think back on that, I wonder what we were thinking???? But, hey, many of our friends and almost half of American couples didn’t stick together, but we did!

Today we celebrate!

After I started writing Regency Historicals, I took a look at my wedding photos and got a surprise. I wore a Regency wedding dress!! Empire waist, leg-o-mutton sleeves, blue ribbon and lace trim. Regency, right?

Back then I’d never heard of Regency Historicals. I’d never read Georgette Heyer. Jane Austen had been a school assignment. I had never picked up a Signet or Zebra traditional regency book. I never, ever dreamed I would write Regency Historicals or fall in love with the history of the era.

But, somehow, I chose a Regency Wedding dress!
Maybe it was our good luck charm.