(Don’t forget! Today is the second to last day to enter to win an ARC of my first Laurel McKee book, Countess of Scandal! Visit my website to find out how. It makes a great holiday gift for–you!)

Okay, so now it is December 15! Close to zero hour for holiday gifts. Maybe you have a Janeite on your list you need a last-minute gift for? (Or even a non-Janeite who needs to be converted!). Never fear–there’s a plethora of choice out there for everybody. There’s always classics, like a beautiful copy of a favorite book or a DVD of a favorite movie (or a Jane Austen action figure! Mine is very useful–she sits on my desk and lectures me about getting to writing work when I’m wasting too much time, er, blogging). But there are some more unusual choices, as well:

A Pride and Prejudice board game! (Who gets to Pemberly first??)

A Jane doll from the fabulous Unemployed Philosophers Guild

This charm from the Jane Austen Centre in Bath! (I have a silver bracelet with charms from my travels–I would love to add this one)

A bracelet from the BBC website

If you have an infant and want to indoctrinate them into Janeite-ism early…

T-shirts! (Many to choose from–I just ordered one that says I am a “Headstrong, Obstinate Girl”)

Mugs (again, many to choose from! This one asks What Would Jane Do?)

A beautiful pendant from Tartx (I own a few of her pieces of jewelry and they are beautiful)

Happy birthday, Jane! (And happy birthday to my mom, too, who had the good luck to be born on the same day! Maybe I need to get her a Jane item for her present). What Jane present would you choose?

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Hope your holiday shopping is almost done, and your errands complete (I’m planning to take the dogs to have their Santa photo taken this week, but other than that I’m done. I think). My Undone story, The Maid’s Lover, is still on eHarlequin if you’re in the mood for a Christmas story, and I just found out I have a new title for my next Undone (out in March 2010!)–To Bed a Libertine. I think that about says it all.

When I was trying to find a topic for today’s post, I came across the fact that Eliza Poe (actress and mother of Edgar Allen) died on December 8, 1811, and I remembered a book I found once at a library sale, The Brief Career of Eliza Poe (by Geddeth Smith, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1988). I had to go and dig through my boxes in search of it, and found that aside from her famous (and famously weird!) son, Eliza had an interesting life of her own.

She was born Elizabeth Arnold in London in 1787. Her mother, also Elizabeth, was an actress in London until she married Henry Arnold and gave birth to her daughter. Henry died in 1789, and mother and child moved to Boston in search of a new life. Eliza made her debut at the age of 9, a character named Biddy Blair in a farce titled Miss In Her Teens by David Garrick, and received a good review in the Portland Herald, “Miss Arnold exceeded all praise. Although a miss of only nine years old, her powers as an actress will do credit to any of her sex of maturer age.” Later that year her mother married again, to a musician named Charles Tubbs, and they joined with a manager named Mr. Edgar to form their own troupe, the Charleston Comedians. Elizabeth senior died not long after this, probably as the company toured through North Carolina in 1798.

Eliza junior stayed with the troupe, traveling with them from city to city. She was a hit at the Chestnut Street Theater in Philadelphia, a large theater seating over 2000. Over the course of her career, she played over 300 roles, including her best-known parts of Juliet and Ophelia.

In the summer of 1802 she married Charles Hopkins, who died of yellow fever 3 years later, leaving her an 18-year-old widow. Six months after this untimely loss, Baltimore-born David Poe saw her performing in Norfolk, Virginia and fell deeply in love with her on sight. He abandoned his family’s plans for him to study law and joined her troupe. They married in 1806, and traveled throughout New England, playing to acclaim in Philadelphia and an outdoor summer theater in New York City before settling in Boston, where they stayed for 3 straight seasons in a theater of about 1000 seats. Besides her acting skills, reviews noted her “sweetly melodious voice” and “interesting figure.” Times were financially difficult, but they had 2 sons, William (born in 1807) and Edgar in 1809. (Eliza performed up until about 10 days before giving birth to him, in a boarding house near Boston Common). They moved to New York in summer 1809, where Eliza was praised for her talent while her husband was subject to harsh criticism (possibly suffering from crippling stage fright). He took to drinking heavily and became more and more hot-tempered. His exact fate is not known, but he’s thought to have died around December 1811. Eliza had one more child, a daughter Rosalie, born in 1810 (Rosalie is thought to have been mentally impaired in some way).

In autumn 1811, while staying at a boarding house in Richmond, Virginia for performances, Eliza began coughing blood, and by October she ceased performing altogether. Her last appearance was October 11, 1811, as Countess Wintersen in The Stranger. Other actors took care of the children while she was ill, and many in the theatrical community of Richmond took an interest in the family. On November 29, the Richmond Theater held a benefit performance on her behalf, announcing, “On this night, Mrs. Poe, lingering on a bed of disease and surrounded by her children, asks your assistance and asks it for perhaps the last time.” (Got that? The last time! Plus this theater burned down 3 weeks after Eliza died)

She died of tuberculosis on December 8 at the age of 24, her children at her side, and was buried at St. John’s Episcopal Church there in Richmond. The exact spot is unknown, though there’s now a memorial marker to her there. After this her 3 children were split up, William living with his paternal grandparents in Baltimore, Rosalie adopted by William and Jane Mackenzie in Richmond, and Edagr staying in that city also with adoptive parents John and Frances Allen. It’s speculated that this early loss of his mother (and also his young cousin/wife years later) inspired Poe’s favorite theme of dying women in Gothic circumstances.

Along with the Smith book (which has some great details of Regency-era theater life), there’s info about Eliza Poe in Jeffrey Meyers’ Edgar Allen Poe: His Life and Legacy.

Do you have any favorite Poe stories? When I was a kid, I found a copy of his complete works on my parents’ shelves and scared myself silly with them. (Until my parents took it away so I would quit waking them up in the middle of the night because I was sure someone who was un-dead was knocking on my wall…)

The winner of a free download of The Maid’s Lover is—Leona! Please contact us at riskies@yahoo.com…

Happy Tuesday, everyone! Hope you’re all ready for Thanksgiving (I’m going shopping for the ingredients for a chocolate-cherry cake later! Wish me luck, I haven’t tried this one before). I’ve been unpacking from my trip last week (the book signing was a big success!), and diving into a new book. I love them at this point, when they’re all shiny and new and the characters haven’t started acting all stubborn yet.

I also have a holiday contest! Visit my Laurel McKee website before December 16 and enter for a chance to win an ARC of Countess of Scandal (out in February 2010!!)

Speaking of stubborn characters, I found out today is the birthday of one of my favorite childhood authors, Frances Hodgson Burnett! I first encountered her work when I found a battered old copy of The Secret Garden at my grandmother’s house, and I love, love, loved that book. I wanted to go live at a crumbling, dark old manor house on the moors and work in the garden. I even loved cranky little Mary, who, unlike those horrible Elsie Dinsmore stories my grandmother tried to push on me, got to be unhappy and contrary (until nature saved her!). I also loved A Little Princess, with solemn, smart Sara and the gorgeous descriptions of her luscious wardrobe (until she was banished to the garret!). These stories created a world I adored and wanted to learn more about. I guess they were my first intro to the British historical.

Frances Hodgson was born in Manchester on November 24, 1849. When she was 4, her father died, leaving her mother with 5 children to raise on her own. Her mother tried to carry on with the family business, running a wholesale company that supplied art materials to manufacturers, but the company soon failed. Through these trials, little Frances was growing up precocious and observant. She wrote her first poem at age 7. In 1864, her family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee to join her mother’s brother, but their finances did not improve.

Following the death of her mother in 1867, 18-year-old Frances was left responsible for her 2 younger siblings, and she turned to writing to support them all. Her first story was published in Godey’s Lady’s Book (Hearts and Diamonds), and she was soon printed regularly in that magazine along with Scribner’s, Peterson’s Ladies’ Magazine, and Harper’s Bazaar. She became known for her ability to combine details of real, working-class life with romantic plots and sensibilities. She usually earned $10 apiece for these tales.

In 1873 she married Dr. Swan Burnett, a man she had known since she was 15, and had her first child, Lionel, the following year. Her second son, Vivian, was born soon after on an extended trip to Paris. Her first book, That Lass o’Lowrie’s, about a pit girl working in a coal mine, was published in 1877 to great praise. On their return to the US that year the family settled in Washington DC where she began moving in literary circles and entertained lavishly. She was also prolific–she wrote in quick succession Haworth’s (1879), Louisiana (1880), A Fair Barbarian (1881), and Through One Administration (1883), as well as a play Esmeralda (1881). But she often struggled with illness and depression despite her success.

In 1885 she published her “breakout book,” Little Lord Fauntleroy, said to be inspired by her son Vivian. This book earned her more than $100,000, with a hugely popular theatrical adaptation following. Velvet suits became worldwide craze, much to the lasting horror of little boys everywhere.

In 1887 she traveled to Europe with her sons, visiting London for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and then on to France and Italy. A Little Princess (originally published under the title Sara Crewe) was published at this time. But in 1890 her eldest son died, and she was consumed with grief. She became interested in spiritualism and Theosophy (she wrote about these beliefs in The White People). Her marriage ended in divorce in 1898 and she married her business manager, but this second marriage also ended in divorce less than 2 years later. Her best-known work, The Secret Garden was published in 1911, after she had been living at Great Maytham Hall in England for many years and actually found a hidden garden there.

She lived practically as a hermit, hounded by the gossip press, for the last 17 years of her life in Plandome, New York, and is buried next to her son Vivian in Roslyn Cemetery there.

Aside from the novels themselves, I have an excellent biography of Burnett, Frances Hodgson Burnett: Beyond the Secret Garden by Angelica Shirley Carpenter and Jean Shirley. And just as an example of the fashion porn in A Little Princess: Her dresses were silk and velvet and India cashmere, her hats and bonnets were covered with bows and plumes, her small undergarments were adorned with real lace, and she returned in the cab to Miss Minchin’s with a doll almost as large as herself, dressed quite as grandly as herself, too.

Did you love these books when you were a kid, too? What were some of your childhood favorites? And what are you cooking for the holiday???

I’m out of town for a few days and on a borrowed computer, so this week’s post is short and image-heavy! Enjoy…

After I finished the last deadline, and before I started the next one, I had the great luxury of reading not 1 but 2 romances from my TBR pile! One was Carolyn’s Indiscreet, which was wonderful–exotic locale, deep, dark emotion, complex characters. The other (which shall remain nameless, but was not by a Risky!) featured a hero who was such a man-slut (and probably an alcoholic, too; on top of which he was not very bright) I feared the heroine (who seemed like a nice girl) would catch some terrible disease from him. When they married at the end, I thought he would be faithful–until the next woman crossed his path.

To cleanse the palette, I went to my ultimate go-to “cheer up” writer–Jane Austen, of course! I do love nearly all her heroes (except Edmund Bertram, who let’s face it is something of a priss. But he does seem perfect for Fanny, and will probably never cheat on her or have his nose fall off from syphilis! And Knightley seems kinda bossy). Darcy, Wentworth, Tilney, etc–reliable, attractive guys all. It’s the Willoughbys and Wickhams who are trouble (and not the fun kind, either), and who get kicked to the curb in the end. Here are a few reasons to love an Austen man:

(I know he’s not an Austen man, but I couldn’t resist including him!)
Ditto this one…

Who is your favorite???