It occurs to me that I’ve never talked up the Huntington at Risky Regencies!

If you’re ever in the Los Angeles area, you need to visit the Huntington…which includes the Huntington Library, the Huntington Gardens, and the Huntington Art Collections.

I was there yesterday showing my sister around, and thinking how any Regency fan would love it.

To start with: imagine owning the library pictured above!

Not too shabby.

And as for art…
it has Gainsborough…
Lawrence…
Romney…
Reynolds…
Turner…
Constable…

The most famous of its holdings include Gainsborough’s Blue Boy, from 1770…

And the painting nicknamed “Pinkie,” painted by Lawrence in 1794.

Visitors, by the way, like to fancy that Blue Boy and Pinkie are a couple.

Certainly they stare at each other across the gallery with great fixity…

Walk around the art galleries for long enough,

and you will also stumble across people like Emma Hamilton,

and the great actress Sarah Siddons.

I also saw the Duchess of Devonshire today.

And if you like French art, you can find Boucher, Watteau, Fragonard, Greuze…

And as for the Huntington Library displays, there are first editions of Byron, Burns, and a bunch of other beautiful brilliant books…

Ah, to be a fabulously wealthy railroad magnate in the early 20th century! That’s the sort of luxury I could get used to.

So…have any of you ever visited the Huntington? (Do you all promise to, the next time you’re in the LA area?) Do you particularly like any of the artists mentioned here?

And speaking of the Duchess of Devonshire, has anyone here seen the movie THE DUCHESS yet, or plan to soon? (In other words, how long should we wait until we discuss it here at Risky Regencies?)

All answers welcome!

Cara
Cara King, who also loves the gardens

Megan’s post about Ridiculous Teenagers got me thinking about a related aspect of Regency heroines. Along with a trend toward somewhat older heroines, there’s also a trend toward more sexually experienced ones. For instance, I’m noticing more widow and courtesan stories. But even among unmarried heroines, there are fewer of the old-style naïve virgin.

Personally, I find the extremes—either the clueless heroine raised under a rock and the unmarried lady who somehow knows everything and even what it’s called—need some setup to make them believable.

Just because Regency misses were not supposed to know anything about sex doesn’t make me think that was always true. There probably were some who were so closely chaperoned and secluded that they had no opportunity to figure things out. I could buy that in a story, based on the author’s setup, and I wouldn’t despise a heroine just for being ignorant (we all were once). But I also don’t like to equate “ignorant” with “innocent”.

I think there were ways a girl might have learned things, intentionally or accidentally. She might have overheard servants’ gossip. Living in the country and observing animals might spark curiosity–though I think it could lead to some funny mistakes, too! Gentlemen often owned some pretty explicit materials: books, pictures, naughty snuffboxes and the like. Though they probably tried to keep these items out of sight of ladies of the house, there could have been the Regency equivalent of stumbling onto an older brother’s Playboy stash. Moreover, if the lady had many sisters, or a large circle of friends, and especially if she went to a girls’ boarding school, I’d bet that at some point she might hear something from someone who heard it from someone else. Of course, the knowledge a heroine gets some of these ways might still be incomplete or incorrect—which could be interesting story fodder!

I could also imagine that if the heroine were raised in an eccentric, bohemian, liberal sort of family, she might know things that most didn’t. We also don’t know what mothers (or older sisters, or married friends) might have told a young bride-to-be. They might have told her to “think of England” but what if the friend or relative was herself the heroine of an earlier romance? What kind of advice might she give?

I don’t want all heroines to be alike, so for me, as long as the author has set up her background appropriately, I’m willing to believe just about any degree of knowledge.

What about you? What do you think they might have known? What sorts of unmarried Regency heroines do you find believable?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

Turns out my local power company is about to turn out my electricity for two hours — the price of living right next to an electrical substation, I guess!!! (Or is “price” the wrong word? Because isn’t a price something you pay in exchange for something that might have worth? Ah, words…)

Anyway, due to prices or costs or random electron-associated proximities, this will be a quick post.

WORD SWORD: a metaphorical sword which one can use to divide the words (and phrases and usages and spellings) which one likes from those one does not.

So…my word sword chops down, and when the dust clears, I see:

ON THE GOOD SIDE…i.e. words and phrases I particularly like today:

iconography
happenstance
altruistic
minimalist
butterfly
miscellany
concatenation
paucity
surfeit
plethora
biscuit tin
And pretty much anything Oscar Wilde ever said.

ON THE BAD SIDE…i.e. words/phrases/spellings that I don’t much care for (or hate passionately) today:

atall
alot
alright
walla
impact (as a verb)
Left Coast
all intensive purposes
venerable
ichthyology
executive
chick flick
condominium rentals

So….what does your word sword show today?

All answers welcome!

And remember: the first Tuesday of October, our Jane Austen Movie Club will be discussing BRIDE AND PREJUDICE!

Cara
Cara King, who has a paucity of butterflies and a plethora of biscuit tins in her West Coast home, where ichthyologists dine with her (or come in the evening, at any rate)

The winner of Lost in You by Alix Rickloff is……..

CrystalGB!

Congratulations, CrystalGB. Email us at riskies@yahoo.com with your address and the faeries will deliver your book in person! (Well, through the post office, I mean)

And now…by popular demand…and against the express wishes of my cat…I bring you the almost complete Part the First of
THE RIME OF THE VULCAN MARINER:

(N.B: the beginning of this appeared in an earlier post.)

It is a space-age mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
“By thy verdant skin and too-sharp ears,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?

The star bar’s doors are opened wide,
And I’m expected in;
My skirt is small, my hair is tall,
And Kirk will buy me gin.”

He holds her with his skinny hand,
“The Enterprise–” quoth he.
“Hold off! unhand me, blue-shirt loon!”
But Spock cannot agree.

He holds her with his mental meld–
The busty babe stood still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The Vulcan hath her will.

With Captain Kirk forgotten now,
She listens full of fear;
And thus spake on with logic cool,
The man with pointy ear.

“The ship was cleared, no Klingon feared,
Steadily did we warp
Beyond the Earth, beyond the moon,
Beyond Tau Ceti Four.

“The ship that’s trapp’d in solar heft
Is quite a sight to see.
It shines so bright, that time’s not right
And muons all go free.

“Higher and higher every day,
Till every moment’s noon–“
The leggy babe then missed the rest,
For she heard a tribble croon.

“Jim Kirk hath paced into the bar,
Yellow his tunic’s sheen;
Quaffing a glass of Scotty’s best —
I know not, but it’s green.”

The guest-star fair, she tore her hair,
Yet she cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake that half-Vulcan man,
The space-age Mariner.

“And now the Klingons came, and they
Were tyrannous and strong:
They struck us from their ships with wings,
Which to Romulans once belonged.

With failing shields and flagging warp,
As who pursued with phasers sharp
Beholds the bridge dissolve to quarks
With wormholes straight ahead,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
Into the sun we fled.

And now there came the photon blow,
And it did wondrous hurt:
And tongues of fire made us a pyre
As red as Scotty’s shirt.

And while we stewed, the Klingon crew
Did fire unending blows:
They knocked out Rand and Sulu too–
And singed the captain’s clothes.

They hit us here, they hit us there,
Till only pain we felt:
Off chairs we fell, for, truth to tell,
We have not one seat belt.