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A Writing Desk Fit for Jane Austen, a Guest Post from Laurie Benson

Posted on November 30, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

A Writing Table Fit for Jane Austen

This post originally appeared on Austen Authors, but I wished to share it with you. Laurie Benson shows us how cramped was the desk upon which Jane Austen created some of the world’s finest literature. Enjoy!

Since I collect antiques, I thought I’d share one with your readers that might have appealed to Jane Austen. It’s my Georgian era writing desk. I confess, while it’s in my home and I adore it, the Georgian writing table is much too small for me to use as my primary desk. For Jane, however, it would have been ideal, since her desk was about the same size.

In 1809, Jane moved to Chawton Cottage in Hampshire with her mother, her sister Cassandra, and friend Martha Lloyd. If you visit Chawton Cottage today, you’ll see the small twelve-sided walnut table Jane sat in front of when she revised Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. It’s also from this table that she penned Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion.

Jane Austen’s Writing Table at Chawton Cottage, courtesy of the Jane Austen House Museum

As was the custom of the day, she would have used a writing slope on top of the table. Inside her slope she would have kept her quills, inkpots, and paper. Many slopes have hidden compartments. This Georgian era writing slope is one of mine.

According to A Memoir of Jane Austen by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh, Jane’s table was located in the general sitting room of the house. This room had little privacy but thankfully for Jane, it had a creaking door. She never wanted this door fixed since it warned her of any approaching visitors. Once she heard the door creak, she would hide her manuscript before anyone could see it. My writing table has a special feature that I think she would have appreciated and found quite useful.

When I stumbled across this mahogany table at my favorite antique shop, I fell in love with this little treasure dating from the Georgian era. It has one drawer, and a writing surface covered in felt that slides out of the front. While I was inspecting the piece, I discovered a silk brocade-covered panel on the lower back of the table that slides up and down. The owner of the shop was away at the time, and unfortunately his assistant couldn’t tell me anything about this feature.

Once I got the table home, I looked through Judith Miller’s book Furniture World Styles from Classical to Contemporary and was thrilled to find a picture of a writing table almost identical to mine. The description of the table in her book reads:

English Writing Table: This one-drawer mahogany table has a leather insert top. A silk-upholstered, adjustable face screen is fitted to the back. It has square tapering legs with brass canisters. circa 1790 W. 17 inches.

With additional research I discovered a face screen was a useful feature. If you were sitting too close to the hearth, you could raise the face screen to shield yourself from the heat of the fire. Keep in mind during the Georgian era, many women and men wore makeup. To prevent your face from melting, you could raise the face screen.

I also think Jane Austen would have liked the feature to prevent prying eyes from reading her writing.

Laurie Benson is an award-winning author of historical romances published by Harper Collins. When she’s not at her laptop avoiding laundry, she can be found browsing museums or heading for the summit on a ridiculously long hike. She’s loves to chat with readers and fans of the regency era. You can find her on Twitter at @LaurieBwrites or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LaurieBensonAuthor. To find out more about her books, visit her historical blog, or subscribe to her newsletter, visit her website at http://lauriebenson.net.

Her current release, An Unexpected Countess, is nominated for Harlequin’s 2017 Hero of the Year Award.

Sarah Forrester is an American diplomat’s daughter who must locate the fabled Sancy Diamond or her family will be ruined by a mysterious blackmailer. But the Earl of Hartwick has also been tasked by the Prince Regent with finding the diamond. Little does Hart know that the feisty woman he meets on a roof top is his competition. As they each follow the clues hidden in a bracelet, Sarah and Hart realize they will have to work as a team. Being together may be as dangerous to their hearts as the hunt is to their lives…and finding the jewel is only the beginning.

Amazon: getBook.at/UnexpectedAmzUni

Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/2kjGkIM

Google Play: http://bit.ly/2wEhmYm

iBooks: http://apple.co/2jUPGHq

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2jUOFiK

Also, check out these other titles from Ms. Benson…

Posted in Austen Authors, book release, British history, eBooks, Georgian England, Georgian Era, Guest Post, historical fiction, Jane Austen, Living in the Regency, Uncategorized, writing | Tagged Austen Authors, Chawton Cottage, Georgian Era, guest post, Jane Austen, Laurie Benson, Publishing, Regency Era, research, writing desk | 8 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on November 23, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

From my house to yours, I wish you a safe and restful Thanksgiving. I am spending the day with my favorite munchkins and their parents.

Posted in family, holidays, Uncategorized | Tagged family, food, friends, health, holidays, Thanksgiving | 4 Comments

Tory Daughters: Jane Austen and the Brontës (an Overview)

Posted on November 21, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

Recently, I was asked by a local teacher to speak to her English class after the students had read Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights. Below, you will find my notes for a comparison/contrast between the Brontës and Austen. As I have been out of the public classroom for several years, I did a bit of brushing up before opening myself up to lots of questions from these students.

(Many of the key points below come from “Tory Daughters: Jane Austen and the Brontës,” from Patrick Parrinder’s Nation and Novel, 512 pages, Oxford University Press, November 15, 2008. This book is a fabulous resource, which I would highly recommend to others.)

(These notes are in no particular order.)

Introduction to the early 1800s:
• Fictional romance requires that the young lovers defy social norms, but the novels of Austen’s contemporaries, such as Maria Edgeworth (I am currently reading “Castle Rackrent.”) reflect specific anxieties about marriage in the early 19th Century. For example, in “Castle Rackrent,” Edgeworth seems to be reconstructing an heir worthy of Irish legitimacy. As a female writer, Edgeworth appears to be fortifying the system of primogeniture, which separated women from access to property.
• The idea of a companionate marriage became increasingly dominant in the early 1800s. Austen’s novels did much to propagate this middle-class idea.
• Advocating love matches and companionate marriages in novels also held a symbolic element. Each new alliance represents a further weakening of the dynastic line.
• A common complaint of Austen’s novels is her heroines marry for love. What the critic is missing is that the marriage can also hold political and social significance. Women can be active agents of cultural change. (See my posts on endogamous and exogamous marriages.)
• In a time when divorce was expensive and required Parliamentary approval, selfish and short-sighted family interests being set against the wider social interests that the lovers embody demonstrates the novelist implicit or explicit prejudices.
• Up until the Victorian period, the politics of marriage in English fiction reflected the social norms of the aristocracy and gentry. The narrative often frames and marks as “foreign” the literary conventions of sensibility.
• The importance to the landed estate is England’s future is an element of the stories. The concept of primogeniture is reinforced.
• The English ‘Jacobin’ novelists of the 1790s (such as Charlotte Smith, Thomas Holcroft, and Robert Bage) produced parables of a reformed aristocracy rather than visions of an aristocracy overthrown by the people. Their novels tend to suggest that an enlightened aristocracy could still form the backbone of the English nation. Rarely do these narratives endorse any single, self-identical political future.
• The Church was a vocation open to the younger sons of the landed gentry. Members of the clergy were Oxford or Cambridge graduates.
• A clergyman’s life was associated with genteel poverty and a lack of ruling-class privilege.
• A clergyman’s daughters were so pressed to marry. Austen remained unmarried, while Charlotte Brontë eventually married the Reverend Arthur Nicholls.
• The English “courtship novel” appealed to female writers and readers.They reflected the tension between the traditional definition of womanhood in terms of the marriage mart, and women’s demand for moral independence and self-respect. Female-authored novels of the period made an attempt to frame sentiment as an outmoded, if still dangerously attractive structure of feeling.
• The heroines of courtship novels are outside the charmed circle from which aristocratic brides are chosen. They have no obvious dynastic responsibilities, and the marital expectations that have been formed about them are the vaguest.
• These heroines are relatively free and are conscious of their freedom; and coming from staunch Protestant backgrounds, they possess a moral conscience and a desire to take personal responsibility for their own lives. The movement between literature and history forms a transition between private and public meanings.
• The aim of the fictional plot in the courtship novel is not simply to portray the heroine’s growth towards self-fulfillment and a settled happiness. The happy ending translates her moral assets into material ones, suggesting that – in fiction, at least – virtue has its earthly reward.
• The Happily Ever After of the courtship plot rewards the most morally deserving pair of lovers while thwarting all rival claimants. The allegories of love and marriage are not only subject to particular forms of narrative inscription that ultimately determine their meanings but also deeply embedded with a political moment that demands closer attention.
• The politics of the HEA ending depends upon its relationship to the conventional hierarchy of wealth and breeding. Most often, the established social power is unexpectedly reaffirmed while the aristocracy is revitalized by an infusion of social responsibility and Christian virtue (the typical dowry of clergyman’s daughter).
• The courtship novels lead us through romantic complications, intricate false alarms, and delicate misunderstandings to an endorsement of Tory England.

images Jane Austen:
• Resided at Steventon Rectory
• She came from a solidly genteel background and was strongly anti-Jacobin.
• Her characters are far more ill at ease in fashionable society than those of the Jacobin novelists, whose politics she so disliked.
• The Jacobins remembered the anti-Royalist origins of the Whig party and dreamed of an alliance between radicals and reformed Whig aristocrats.
• For Austen, however, the 18th Century diversion between the Tory country gentry and the ruling Whig aristocracy was a deeply personal matter.
• Austen has been described as the “Tory daughter of a quiet Tory parson” and her novels as “Tory pastorals.”
• Although party names never appear in Austen’s fiction, the stinging portrayal of an aristocratic grande dame, such as Lady Catherine de Bourgh, implicitly involves party politics.
• Austen’s outspokenly Royalist teenage History of England, admittedly a burlesque, reveals the strong political opinions, which later mellowed into her family’s moderate Toryism.
• A Church of England parson held a duty to support the monarchy and the ruling class and to preach patriotism and social obedience to his flock.
• Patriotism accompanied paternalism. The parson also held the role of “spiritual father” to his flock.
• In Austen’s novels, it can be argued “the significance of marriage as a relationship between individuals…is always subordinate to its significance as a relationship between families.
• Austen’s characters are strongly individualized and are not carried away by the anarchy of romantic love.
• There is an important variation in Austen’s marriage plots, some of which are endogamous – as in Edmund Bertram’s union with his cousin Fanny – and some exogamous. Endogamous marriage implies the purification and consolidation of a house, a dynasty, or a community. It is a defensive, protective measure. Exogamous marriage is a union of opposites – political, social, and temperamental – injecting new blood into one of the nation’s old or ruling families.
• The culminating marriages in Austen’s fictions are socially and economically far more advantageous to the heroine than the hero. Moreover, exogamous marriage is fraught with danger in her novels.
• To marry openly for economic advantage (as with Charlotte Lucas in Pride and Prejudice) is to invite the novelist’s scorn.
• Those who marry beneath them in essentials are set for misery (such as Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice and Sir Thomas Bertram in Mansfield Park).
• Austen’s heroines must resist easy captivation and must appear to disregard material considerations so their ability to contract a wealthy marriage becomes a tribute to their integrity alone. The heroine who rejects the handsome cavalier or bounder in favor of the unbending man of virtue (or prig) is set to fulfill her destiny.
• Her “cavaliers” are characterized by vacillation, self-contradiction, and inconsistency. They are all “Beta” males.
• Ironically, Austen uses many “Whig” names in her stories: Wentworth, Woodhouse, Watson, Bertram, Brandon, Churchill, Dashwood, D’Arcy, Fitzwilliam, Russell, and Steele.
• A self-imposed limitation of Austen’s novels is she only “hints” at social change.

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Charlotte Brontë:
• Resided at Haworth Parsonage
• The Brontë sisters were daughters of an Irish father and a Cornish mother, who idolized the Anglo-Irish Duke of Wellington, the victor of Waterloo and, eventually, a Tory prime minister.
• Wellington and his brothers are the central figures of the fantasy world of the Class Town (later Angria) created by Charlotte and her brother Bramwell in their youth.
• At the age of 13, Charlotte copied out Walter Scott’s tribute to Wellington in his Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, adding the following exclamation: “If he saved England in that hour of tremendous perils, shall he not save her again?”
• The Victorian critic Leslie Stephen saw Charlotte Brontë as a typical example of the ‘patriotism of the steeple.’
• Charlotte thought of herself as the antithesis of Austen.
• Charlotte, for all her sympathy with oppressed woman, was a political conservative and an ardent admirer of Walter Scott.
• Her novels are “a marriage of identifiably bourgeois values with the values of the gentry or aristocracy – a figurative political marriage.”
• Jane Eyre’s whole life is determined, as we gradually realize, by a series of rash and impolitic marriages in preceding generations.
• At every stage of the novel, the young Jane is the chosen pilgrim following a predestined path, while her imagination continues to construct fictional versions of herself; her true identity is gradually revealed.
• In Jane Eyre, we see a Victorian “English-ist” in the characters. Those outside of England (Rochester’s French mistress, the Francophile Whig aristocracy represented by Blanche Ingram, etc.) set against the superiority of the English (Jane Eyre).
• The deepening love between Jane and Rochester is one of the English novel’s crowning examples of an exogamous sexual romance based on the attraction of social and historical opposites.
• Jane Eyre escapes from Rochester only to find herself being endogamously courted by St John Rivers, the country vicar and Puritan saint, who is her cousin.
• Where Rochester would have lured her into a bigamous marriage, Rivers proposes a mere marriage of convenience, not a love match or a union likely to lead to offspring.
• Rochester’s marriage to Bertha Mason was intended to carry colonial wealth back to England, while Rivers plans to export evangelical spirituality to India and tells Jane it is her duty to assist him.
• What Jane detects in Rivers is the self-mortifying patriotism of the new breed of British imperialists.
• Their life at Ferndean is one of repatriation and restoration.
• Rochester’s blindness is the blindness of Samson, but Jane’s arrival at Ferndean puts him back into familiar English hands.

Emily Brontë:
• Wuthering Heights is understood as a provincial novel, portraying violent and brutal extremes of behavior and set in a wildly romantic landscape.
• The primitiveness of the Yorkshire moors is registered through the eyes of the southern-bred Lockwood.
• The novel’s confined topography is in sharp contrast to the cosmopolitan settings and incessant journeyings of the Gothic and Jacobin fiction to which it is indebted.
• Brontë balances the Gothic material in WH against a tale of courtship and domestic passion.
• The striking two-part structure, with bitter conflict in the first generation and gradual reconciliation in the second, had been anticipated in at least one earlier courtship novel, A Simple Story (1791) by Elizabeth Inchbald, the author of the English version of Kotzebue’s Lovers’ Vows, which was performed as part of the story of Austen’s Mansfield Park.
• In Wuthering Heights, provincial Puritanism to some extent takes the place of A Simple Story’s high bred Catholic spirituality.
• The Puritanical sermons of Joseph and Jabes Branderham set a devotional context for the love story.
• Catherine’s admitting her love for Heathcliff is a kind of neo-paganism or romantic nature worship. Her words are a poetic metaphor rather than inspired truths, and are deeply false.
• Catherine is portrayed as cruel and self-destructive as is her brother Hindley.
• Heathcliff is the Holy Ghost whom Joseph and Branderham wished to see excommunicated. This means the romantic passion of Catherine and Heathcliff is not a bond between external soul-mates, but a union of opposites, a Puritan-Cavalier love tragedy in which the vengeful Puritan outcast attempts to drag his former lover down to destruction.
• The more Catherine accepts the namby-pamby lifestyle into which she has married, the more Heathcliff accepts his demonic role of eternal excommunication.
• Heathcliff’s elaborate plan of revenge cannot prevent a growing alliance between the Earnshaws (remnants of the old yeoman class of independent farmers) and the Lintons (genteel land owners).
• Heathcliff’s death sums up the novel’s themes of dynastic succession, sin and punishment, excommunication, and devil-worship. He has made arrangements for an un-Christian burial.

Similarities/Differences:
• Their novels reflect their authors’ rural and Anglican backgrounds and their concern with patriotism, paternalism, pastoralism, and the moral accountability of the individual.
• Patriotism is a stronger emotion in Austen and Brontë than in most English women novelists before or since.

Jane Austen Film Adaptations:

* Unleashing Mr. Darcy (2016) – TV

* Love and Friendship (2016) – Film

* Austentatious (2015) – TV Series
* Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2015) – Film

* Northbound II (2015) – TV Series (modern Northanger Abbey)
* A Modern Persuasion (2014) – Film

* Pride and Prejudice (2014) – TV mini-series
* Sense and Sensibility (2014) – Film

* Lady Susan, Missing Masterpiece (2013) Short Film
* Death Comes to Pemberley (2013) – TV mini-series

* Emma Approved (2013) – TV Series
* Austenland (2013) – Film
* Pride and Prejudice: Having a Ball (2013) – TV Movie/Documentary

* The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (2012) – TV Series

* Scents and Sensibility (2011) – Film
* The Many Lovers of Miss Jane Austen – TV Movie/Documentary
* Pride and Prejudice: A Modern Day Tale of First Impressions (2011) – Film
* Prada to Nada (2011) – Film – modern day Sense and Sensibility with a Spanish “flavor”
*Aisha (2010) – an Indie film version of Emma
*Jane Austen Handheld (2010) – Film – told through a documentary-style film format
* Emma (2009) a BBC TV mini-series
* Sense and Sensibilidad (2008) – Film
*Lost in Austen (2008) – TV mini-series that takes the main character into the novel’s pages
* Sense and Sensibility (2008) – TV mini-series
* Jane Austen Trilogy (2008) – a documentary with bibliographic intentions
* Miss Austen Regrets (2008) – a made-for-TV show based on Austen’s letters
* The Jane Austen Book Club (2007) – film based on the popular best-selling book
* Mansfield Park (2007) – TV movie
* Northanger Abbey (2007) – TV movie
* Persuasion (2007) – TV movie
* Becoming Jane (2007) – popular film based on Austen’s letters
* Pride and Prejudice (2005) – Film
* Bride and Prejudice (2004) – Indie film
* Pride and Prejudice (2003) -modern adaptation film
* The Real Jane Austen (2002) TV movie/documentary based on Jane Austen’s letters
* Kandukondain, Kandukondain (2000) Film based on Sense and Sensibility
* Mansfield Park (1998) – Film
* “Wishbone”- “Pup Fiction” (1998) -an episode of the popular TV show
* “Wishbone”- “Furst Impressions” (1997) – an episode of the popular TV show
* Emma (1996) – TV movie  Emma (1996) – Film
* Sense and Sensibility (1995) – Film
* Persuasion (1995) – TV movie
* Pride and Prejudice (1995) – TV mini-series
* Sensibility and Sense (1990) – TV movie
* Northanger Abbey (1987) -TV movie
* Mansfield Park (1983) – TV mini-series
* Sense and Sensibility (1981) – TV movie
* Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980) – Film
* Pride and Prejudice (1980) – TV mini-series
* Emma (1972) – TV mini-series novel
* “Novela” – “Persuasión” (1972) -TV series episode
* Sense and Sensibility (1971) – TV movie
* Persuasion (1971) -TV mini-series
* “Novela” – “La abadía de Northanger” (1968) -TV series episode
* Pride and Prejudice (1967) – TV series
* “Novela” – “Emma” (1967) – TV series episode
* “Novela” – “Orgullo y prejuicio” (1966) -TV series episode
* “Vier dochters Bennet, De” (1961) – TV mini-series based on Pride and Prejudice
* Emma (1960) – TV movie
* Camera Three (1960) – TV series based on Emma
* Persuasion (1960) – TV mini-series
* Pride and Prejudice (1958) – TV series
* Pride and Prejudice (1958) – TV film
* “General Motors Presents: Pride and Prejudice” (1958) – TV series episode
* “Orgoglio e pregiudizio” (1957) – TV mini-series
* “Matinee Theater: Pride and Prejudice” (1956) – TV series episode
* “Kraft Television Theatre: Emma” (1954) – TV series episode
* Pride and Prejudice (1952) – TV mini-series
* “The Philco Television Playhouse: Sense and Sensibility” (1950) – TV series episode
* “The Philco Television Playhouse: Pride and Prejudice” (1949) – TV series episode
* Emma (1948) -TV film
* Pride and Prejudice (1940) – Film
* Pride and Prejudice (1938) -TV

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

The 1832 Cholera Outbreak in England

Posted on November 17, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

Lieutenant-General Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, known as Lord William Bentinck, was a British soldier and statesman. He served as Governor-General of India from 1828 to 1835. In 1831, he wrote a letter to his brother, the Duke of Portland, in which William described the spread of cholera in India. (Read the Transcript of Pw H 287/1-3: Letter from Lord W.H. Cavendish Bentinck, Camp Bahadaghur [Bahadurpur], India, to [W.H.C. Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck] 4th Duke of Portland, Cavendish Square, London; 4 Dec. 1831 (Pw H 287/1-3) HERE)

Earlier than the descriptions Lord William Bentinck, cholera was noted in Jessore, India, in 1817. It spread quickly to Russia by 1823, to Hamburg, Germany, by 1831, and the first case in London was documented on 12 February 1832. Thankfully, only about 800 victims were named in the East London slums. “In 1832 more people died of tuberculosis than cholera, and a child born of a labourer in Bethnal Green had a life expectancy of only 16 years. However, cholera evoked a response in social terms, and a contribution to the development of public health, of far more significance that its effect on mortality at the time.

“Although the ‘Cholera Morbus’ is what we now call just cholera, the terms ‘Asiatic’, ‘spasmodic’, ‘malignant’, ‘contagious’ and ‘blue’ were also used to describe this new disease, generally thought to be a more serious form of the contagious cholera already well known. It was confused with, or thought to be the same as, ‘common’ or ‘English’ cholera, dysentery and food poisoning frequent in this country during the summer months. What actually caused the disease or how it was spread, was not understood until well after 1832 but it is now clear that the bacterium Vibrio comma, if drunk in water contaminated with infected sewage, causes a mild fever that usually gets better within a week. A poison produced by the bacterium however stimulates a profuse diarrhoea that may prove fatal if the vast quantities of water and salts lost are not replaced. Thus it is not a serious disease if treated correctly, but doctors in the 1830’s generally tried to restrict fluid intake, to prescribe emetics and purgatives, and even to bleed their patients, trying to ‘equalize the circulation’.

“The disease was first noticed among British troops in India, and vivid accounts appeared in the press of the effects of cholera in St. Petersburg, Russia. This first hand knowledge of the disease, and reports of the mortality it could cause in large cities, led the Privy Council to put all ships for Russia arriving in England under quarantine in January 1831. The Privy Council had set up a Central Board of Health in 1805, after concern about yellow fever arriving in Britain. This was reconstituted, and met daily from June 1831 to May 1832. It issued circulars and gave advice to parochial Vestry Committees, who were responsible for the precautionary measures taken within their own parishes.” (Mernick THHOL)

European cities attempted to contain the disease by placing all ships under quarantine. The London docks held ships in Standgate Creek, near Deptford, for ten days. A physician had to pronounce the ship disease free before it could proceed to unload and before men were allowed to enter the country. Unfortunately, this method was not completely effective in stymieing the disease’s slow march across London.

the last three days of this period to be bona fide employed under proper supervision in opening hatches …. and ventilating the spaces between decks by Windsails, and opening, airing and washing the Sailors’ clothes and bedding. [CBH Letter-book PC 1/93, 17 November 1831.]

London_Board_of_Health_searching_the_city_for_cholera_Wellcome_V0010896.jpg Merrick THHOL also tells us (along more on specific cases), “During December and January there were a large number of cases of suspected cholera in London, and the prospect of an epidemic received a lot of attention. Even a play was produced, called ‘Cholera Morbus, or Love and Fright’, in which a man dispersed a crowd in terror by shouting ‘collar her’ after a girl who had picked his pocket, allowing her to run free. The Times thought this an outrage and an indecency.

“Of the 48 cases investigated by the Central Board before February, probably only one or two on the river were the Asiatic cholera; the illness of John Potts received the most attention, although it was only dysentery. He was a sailor recently arrived from Sunderland on the collier Mould, and waiting to work north on the Dirt. Taken ill with vomiting and cramps, he was removed to Shadwell Workhouse, where he soon died, on 18th January. A postmortem examination was performed, and a twenty-inch length of his intestines carried to the Central Board at Whitehall by the parish beadle. The inquest was held in the George and Dragon public house on Shadwell High Street, and was attended by representatives from all the neighbouring parishes, but the verdict was that ‘the deceased had died by the visitation of God, from natural causes, and not from the Cholera Morbus’.”

By 1832, the disease reached Britain for the first time. Reports from Nottingham say that the first victim was a Mr T. Farnsworth of Lees’ Yard, Narrow Marsh. The disease spread mainly through the poorer districts, until it affected some 1,000 people and caused nearly 300 deaths.

Very unusual remedies against cholera were advertised in the press. The University of Nottingham website quotes: “In the absence of proper understanding of the medical causes of cholera, people were persuaded to try a variety of preventatives and cures which were advertised regularly in the press. Cures ranged from mixtures of tincture of rhubarb, salvolatile and essence of peppermint, to Dr. Norris’s Fever Drops (described as ‘Most efficacious’) and concentrated Ilkeston water, the latter being credited with the cure of Mr. Hollingworth’s son.” (see Extracts from Nottingham Journal 4 and 25 August 1832 HERE) Nevertheless, according to an 1849 report of the Sanitary Committee of the Borough of Nottingham, ‘this terrible scourge the Cholera fixed itself in 1832 in Streets and Courts filthy, ill ventilated and crowded with inhabitants too poor, dirty or dissipated to procure necessary food or use the most common means to secure health’. [source: Records of The Borough of Nottingham, Vol. IX, 1849, p. 71]

From the East Midlands Collection Not 3.D14 FIE: Extracts from Henry Field, The date-book of remarkable and memorable events connected with Nottingham and its neighbourhood, from authentic records. Part 2, 1750-1884. (Nottingham: H. Field, 1884), we learn something of the spread of the outbreak.

For more information, you might also explore History Home

or London and the Thames

or Cholera in Sunderland

or for a look at the same epidemic in America, try ThoughtCo

Posted in American History, British history, herbs, history, Living in the UK, medicine | Tagged cholera, disease, epidemic, London, medicine | 2 Comments

The Theatre-Loving Fore-Runners of Shakespeare ~ Part I

Posted on November 3, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

Nicholas Treveth c. 1328 ~ Public Domain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Trivet

With the rediscovery of the works of Seneca, Plautus, and Terence, the renaissance of 16th Century England began. First edited in 1308 by an Nicholas Treveth, the tragedian Seneca remained unnoticed for some time by those in England, for Treveth resided in France at the time. Treveth was an Anglo-Norman chronicler, who was the author of a large number of theological and historical works and commentaries on the classics, more especially the works of Seneca. Many of these exist in MS form. in various libraries, but only two appear to have been printed, one being the work by which he is chiefly remembered, the chronicle of the Angevin kings of England; the other was the last twelve books of his commentary on St. Augustine’s treatise De civitate dei. The full title of the former work is Annales sex regum Angliae qui a comitibus Andegavensibus originem traxerunt, an important historical source for the period between 1135 and 1307, containing a specially valuable account of the reign of Edward I, who was his contemporary. (Nicholas Trivet)

Albertino, an Italian, had written an original verse play, using the Senecan model, in 1310. Albertino had been crowned with the laurel wreath for his efforts. This was followed by numerous rhymed dramas, with the most important of the time arriving in 1541 with the performance of Cinthio’s Orbecche, termed to be “the first regular tragedy in the vernacular produced on a modern European stage.” Orbecche is a tragedy written by Giovanni Battista Giraldi in 1541. It was the first modern tragedy written on classical principles, and along with Sperone Speroni‘s Canace, was responsible for a sixteenth-century theoretical debate on theater, especially with regards to decorum. It was produced in Ferrara in 1541, with incidental music composed by Alfonso della Vivuola and sets by the painter Girolamo da Carpi. Ercole II d’Este was present at the premiere, which took place at the playwright’s house. The play was printed in 1543, with several additions for the reader’s benefit. Though the play followed Aristotelian principles in terms of structure, thematically it was Senecan, featuring vengeance, rage, hate, and the depiction of violence. (Orbecche) [Note: Shakespeareʹs primary source for Othello and for Measure for Measure was a story in Giraldi Cinthioʹs Gil Hecatommithi, which was published in 1565. ~ For more on the similarities, please go to this piece from the British Library. For an 1855 translation, please go HERE.]

France was also writing classical plays before the English, but their insistence upon unity of action and upon long choral lyrics did not appeal to the English.

250px-Portrait_of_Thomas_Legge_LLD_by_Sylvester_Harding

Portrait of Thomas Legge by Sylvester Harding ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Legge

The Italians were also the first to explore Comedy. Petrarch wrote Philologia in 1331. He based it upon the work of Terence. The period of neo-Latin imitations began in seriousness in 1427 with the recovery of 12 lost plays by Plautus. By 1521, Henry VIII provided his guests with a Plautus comedy. Even English themes were turned into performances in Latin. Thomas Legge‘s Richard Tertius Tragedia, a play based on the life of Richard III, was performed at Cambridge around 1580.

Before the time of Shakespeare, the English drama was either a comedy, a tragedy, or a chronicle/historical play. In truth, the three types overlapped. A tragedy might have historical elements and might use comedy as a relief of tension in the action. There were also equally arbitrary subdivisions of romance, classics, satire, etc.

John Bale via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bale

The historical chronicle play was the most distinctive of the early English plays in form and subject matter. The comedy found within this early attempts was based on the comedy of the old sacred scripts. They presented both real and mythical national heroes. The chronicle and the morality plays were often blended together. For example, “Bishop John Bale in 1538 vigorously distorted history to defy the Pope of Rome in his King John. In a a sense this play is not a chronicle, for its purpose was decidedly more polemical than historical. Yet Bale presents actual historical figures on the stage, although in peculiar fashion. Only King John is a person throughout. The others begin as abstractions, but near the end of the first of the two acts Sedition assumes the name of Stephen Langton, Usurped Power becomes the Pope and other abstractions take historical names.” [Parks, Edd Winfield and Richmond Croom Beatty, The English Drama 900 – 1642, New York, W. W. Norton, 1963, 99.] As one can easily observe, Bale was an English clergyman, historian, and controversialist, and Bishop of Ossory. He wrote the oldest historical verse drama [King John] and developed and published a very extensive list of the works of English authors down to his own time, just as monastic libraries were being dispersed. His unhappy disposition and habit of quarreling with authorities earned him the nickname of “bilious Bale.” (John Bale)

Over 150 chronicle-style plays were produced between the late 1500s and the first decade of the 1600s. These were plays of national pride, ones designed to appeal to the audience, but not ones of historical accuracy. To Elizabethans, this was a cause to know shame at the general populace. Dramatists employed such resources as Stowe‘s Chronicles of England (1585) and Holinshed‘s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1577). Shakespeare is thought to have used Holinshed’s Chronicles as the source for the majority of history plays, most notably for Macbeth, King Lear, and Cymbeline. Christopher Marlowe is also credited with the use of Chronicles from Holinshed.

According to Winfield and Beatty (p99-100), “The first important chronicle play was The Famous Victories of Henry V, first acted about 1580. The play may have been written by the actor Richard Tarlton; certainly, as Derick the clown, he made the play almost entirely his own until his death in 1588. The Famous Victories has no Falstaff, but it has many comic incidents which Shakespeare used to advantage in Henry IV. Soon after 1585 the stage became crowded with these plays: only John Lyly, of all the prominent playwrights who preceded Shakespeare, escaped association with them. In the hands of these diverse dramatists, the chronicle broke up into several forms: strictly historical, legendary, pseudo-historical, etc. They might be tragic or comic. Thus Marlowe’s Edward II or Shakespeare’s Henry V is reasonably authentic, with the first tragic and the second a comedy; but Shakespeare’s King Lear is so little historical that it is commonly regarded as a tragedy rather than a chronicle. Good examples of pseudo-historical are Robert Greene‘s Scottish History of James IV and Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, in which the author employs historical figures without the slightest regard for historical accuracy.

Established dramatists without hesitation reworked the older and cruder plays, as Shakespeare did the Famous Victories and the anonymous King Lear (usually assigned to the early 1580s). Many other plays which have survived seem possible re-workings of old plays by several different men, with the authors so completely confused that to unravel the tangle seemed hopeless. The classic example of this is the Henry VI trilogy usually reprinted in Shakespeare’s works. There was an earlier play; either in this earlier form or in the final version of Thomas Lodge, Robert Greene, George Peele, Henry Chettle, Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and some others; and very plausible reasons can be given for each man named. The historic play was a medium which was new and fluid, with few rules or few examples to follow. As a rule, the best plays are by single dramatists who imposed upon this loose form a certain unity of personality, if not of action. The history borrowed many of the characteristics of the epic. In this form it held an amazing popularity throughout the reign of Elizabeth I. Even Ben Jonson wrote a romantic tragedy of this type, his lost Richard Crookback, before he turned to classical tragedy, and he experimented with an English subject cast in the strictest classical mold in the fragmentary Mortimer His Fall (1602). Shakespeare’s successors were less attracted by the chronicle, although Fletcher, Webster, Heywood, Rowley, and many another wrote such plays. Only John Ford‘s Perkin Warbeck was outstandingly successful. Apparently, soon after the accession of James I, the national spirit lost its high and unified nature; as it ebbed and broke into diverse streams, the chronicle play, of great national deeds and heroes gradually became less popular. Long before the close of the theatres in 1642, it had practically been abandoned by the playwrights.

Posted in Anglo-Normans, British history, drama, England, kings and queens, medieval, playwrights, theatre | Tagged Albertino, chronicle, comedy, drama, Elizabethan Theatre, historical play, Nicholas Treveth, Orbecche, Petrarch, Plautus, plays, pre-Shakespeare, Seneca, Terence, theatre, Thomas Legg, tragedy | Comments Off

Austen and Autism, a Guest Post from Elaine Owen

Posted on November 2, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

This post originally appeared on Austen Authors in June 2016 as Elaine Owen’s first post with our group. I thought it worthy to share it here.

These days it seems like you hear about autism everywhere, and that includes in the world of Jane Austen. Some people say that Fitzwilliam Darcy, our aloof and haughty hero, typifies the isolation and lack of social graces that are the hallmarks of autism. In this, my first blog post on Austen Authors, I thought it would be interesting to take a deeper look at this question.

My own interest in the topic stems from having a child firmly on the autism spectrum, and from having several other close family members with Asperger’s syndrome (a milder form of autism). I live, eat and breathe autism every day. In fact, my writing career started in part as a response to the stress of having to deal with securing services for our daughter as she makes her transition from a school setting to an adult with autism. If it weren’t for autism and the therapeutic escape of writing Jane Austen fan fiction, I wouldn’t be posting on this blog today.

Darcy, we are told, is insensitive to the feelings of others, especially those who are his social inferiors. He’s haughty. He’s arrogant and more than a little proud of himself. He sits out dances if the mood takes him, rejecting the social requirements of the day. He feels free to meddle in the lives of others. More than that, he seems utterly oblivious to the effect he has on other people. Few men, for instance, would dream of insulting the woman they love even while they ask for their hand in marriage. In short, Darcy seems to live in his own insulated, hyper-rich, snobby world, unable to properly relate to those around him. In fact, he’s not all that different from the character of Sheldon (often described as autistic) on The Big Bang Theory.

But take a closer look. Darcy’s actions are all about choices. He doesn’t sit out dances because he doesn’t understand the social rules; he sits them out because he does understand them, and he prefers not to interact with those he views as inferiors. He readily comprehends the various kinds of social gaffes committed by Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Bennet, the younger Bennet daughters, and even Caroline Bingley, and he has no problem using both verbal and non-verbal means to communicate his own feelings about them. His interactions with Elizabeth, on and off the dance floor, are both sophisticated and subtle. None of these are characteristics of somebody on the autism spectrum.

Most importantly, Darcy is able to overcome his character flaws because of his love for Elizabeth, not because he suddenly overcomes a disability. He doesn’t need help to understand how badly he has treated those around him—he needs someone in his life who makes him want to try to do better, and that person is the one woman who will not accept him until he does. Elizabeth (and we readers) fall in love with Darcy not because he can’t help himself, but precisely because he can.

So no, I don’t think you can make a strong case for Darcy having autism.

But if you want to make a case for this guy having a social and communication disability…

I won’t argue with you.

Here are a couple of links in case you want to read more about the debate over Darcy being on the autism spectrum:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1547881/Why-Mr-Darcy-was-the-strong-but-silent-type.html

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/apr/04/dontdiagnosefictionalcharac

Meet Elaine Owen: Elaine Owen was born in Seattle, Washington and was a precocious reader from a young age. She read Pride and Prejudice for the first time in ninth grade, causing speechless delight for her English teacher when she used it for an oral book report. She practiced writing in various forms throughout her teen years, writing stories with her friends and being chief editor of the high school yearbook. She moved to Delaware when she married.

In 1996 she won a one year contract to write guest editorials in the Sunday edition of The News Journal in Wilmington, Delaware, and she continued her writing habit in political discussion groups and occasional forays into fiction.

In 2014 she began to write Pride and Prejudice fan fiction and decided to publish her works herself to see if she might possibly sell a few copies. Thousands of books later, the results have been beyond her wildest hopes, and she plans to continue writing fiction for the foreseeable future.

When she’s not writing her next great novel, Elaine relaxes by working full time, raising two children, volunteering in her church, and practicing martial arts. She can be contacted at elaineowen@writeme.com. Look for her on Facebook!

Posted in Austen Authors, Georgian England, Georgian Era, Guest Post, Jane Austen | Tagged Austen Authors, autism, Elaine Owen, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Jane Austen, social disorders | 2 Comments

Goin’ Courtin’ Regency Style

Posted on November 1, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

One of my MOST favorite movies is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I always dearly loved Howard Keel, and Jane Powell was the perfect foil for his Alpha male persona in the film. There is one song sequence in which Jane Powell, as Milly, teaches the six younger brothers the protocol of “Goin’ Courtin’.”

Goin’ courtin’, goin’ courtin’
Oh it sets your senses in a whirl.
Goin’ courtin’, goin’ courtin’
Dudin’ up to go and see your gal.
Oh, it’s fun to hunt and shoot a gun,
Or to catch a rabbit on the run
But you’ll find it’s twice as sportin’ goin’ courtin’.
Now there’s lots o’ things you gotta know
Be sure the parlor light is low
Y’ sidle up and squeeze her hand
Let me tell you fella’s that is grand.
You hem and haw a little while
She gives you kinda half a smile.
You cuddle up she moves away
Then the strategy comes into play.

But what of “courting” in the Regency Period?

Society during the Regency era expected strict propriety from its young people. Sometimes the rules were strict and unreasonable, but somehow the youth of Jane Austen’s time managed to come together.

Young men of the time were often older than the women they courted. Men were expected to establish themselves before seeking a wife. They were expected to have sound financial prospects, especially if they were not the eldest son and expected to inherit the family property. Men often sought wives straight from the schoolroom, meaning ages 16 and 17 because childbirth was difficult for a woman of the era. (One must remember that the average was eight pregnancy during the woman’s lifetime. Naturally, not all were births because of the poor medical conditions.) It was thought that a younger wife could withstand those difficulties more easily than a “woman on the shelf” (women of 25+ years of age). An heir and a spare was expected of the marriage. In addition, the women of the gentry and the aristocracy were expected to secure her financial future with her marriage, for she had few other options than to marry. Control of their lives were transferred from their fathers/guardians to their husbands.

It is the standard belief, especially in romance novel set in the Regency, that at age 16 a girl of the gentry made her Come Out, which was a formal introduction of the girl to Society. In truth, it was customarily between age 16 and 18. Depending on the number of sisters waiting to be presented in their own turn, the timing of the girl’s appearance in Society could vary. The “Come Out” was the “signal” that she was prepared to become a bride. New dresses and jewelry and riding habits, etc., were required for the young lady’s debut. She would be “on display” at all times, and people would be evaluating her elegance and manners. The Season in London involved balls, soirees, the theatre, assemblies, trips to the museum, and a long list of places to see and be seen. During this period, the young lady could finally participate in conversation with adults and her suitors. I often wonder of the thrusting of young ladies into a world in which they had little experience. The men were permitted their sowing of the their oats, but women were held in check.

In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Lady Catherine De Bourgh is flabbergasted by the news that all five Bennet sisters are Out at the same time “The younger ones out before the elder are married!” Of course, Elizabeth Bennet defends her mother’s lax sense of propriety by saying, “I think it would be very hard upon younger sisters, that they shouldn’t have their share of society and amusement because the elder may not have the means or inclination to marry early.” It was not impossible to have more than one daughter Out at the same time, but the expense of doing so was an issue. The expense of multiple daughters out at the same time could have been staggering to a man such as Mr. Bennet. When Charlotte Lucas finally marries at age 27, her sisters her happy because “hopes of coming out a year or two sooner than they might otherwise have done” arise. Younger sisters often had to wait for the older to become engaged or married before they would be permitted an appearance in Society.

A young lady making her debut not only required a financial outlay, but a strategic plan, so to speak. A bevy of connections were necessary in order to receive the proper invitations to the most Town-worthy events. It was quite a coup to be seen at the best events, and a girl required numerous relations and acquaintances aiding her success, not to mention fashionable clothes, subscriptions to balls, tickets to the theatre, a carriage, etc.

1805-court-dress_pub-tabart-co-bond-street

1805 Court Dress https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2015/10/24/awkward-the-regency-court-gown-regency-fashion/

Girls of the aristocracy would likely come to London during the Season (which varied somewhat depending upon when Parliament was in session). A ball in her honor would be on the agenda, as well as a Presentation at Court, which required a sponsor and expensive gown, which was regulated by Queen Charlotte. “Female gowns worn at court during the Regency era looked ungainly. Instead of the lovely columnar silhouette of the Grecian-inspired draped gown, court gowns at this time made their wearers resemble the upper half of an extravagantly decorated apple or a pregnant cake topper. These custom creations, made with sumptuously expensive materials, adhered to the rules laid down by Queen Charlotte, who presided over the royal drawing rooms until her death.Earlier Georgian gowns flattered a lady’s waist, with corsets that made the waist seem miniscule. As waists rose, the silhouette of the gowns became grotesque, swallowing a lady’s figure in a ball of fabric.” (Awkward! The Regency Court Gown)

After receiving the Queen’s notice, the young woman’s could receive a proper gentleman caller. Society would welcome them into their outstretched arms. This would include girls like Miss Georgiana Darcy and Miss Anne de Bourgh (had her health allowed of course.)

Girls of the gentry, who did not expect a Season in London, could perhaps lay claim to a ball or an evening of entertainment dedicated to her Come Out. In Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, Fanny Price’s uncle held a ball in her honor marking her coming out. These events were designed to show off the girl to potential suitors. Aunt Phillips likely had the idea of her invitation to supper for Mr. Wickham and Captain Denney being a stepping stone in placing the Bennet sisters before the gentlemen. Sometimes the event was more of a public nature as was the Meryton Assembly in Pride and Prejudice. Mrs. Bennet was determined to place Jane before Mr. Bingley, for the man was said to be wealthy. If Jane could be place thusly, then her eldest daughter’s marriage could place the other four girls in the path of equally rich gentlemen.

A proper young lady was to have a chaperone in tow at all times. Often, a chaperone traveled with the husband and his new bride on their “honeymoon.” Eligible gentlemen were only to give their attentions to the young ladies who had made their Society debut. A young woman who was Out could engage in conversation with eligible gentlemen, could attend formal dances and social outings, and could walk out with a gentleman, if she was properly chaperoned. Girls, who were not Out, could not engage in conversation until a parent or other familial adult asked her a question. She could only walk out with a male relative (again with a chaperone). Many girls wore what is known as a “close bonnet.” This was a hat with a deep brim, which hid most of the girl’s countenance from view. She was not to be “seen” until the proper time of her Come Out.
Tom Bertram in Austen’s Mansfield Park relates a story of a young lady who did not practice decorum. The girl approached Tom at a party, claiming him an acquaintance and “talked and laughed till [he] did not know which way to look.” In sharp contrast is the novel’s heroine, Fanny Price. At Fanny’s Come Out, the guests note that Fanny is “attractive…modest…Sir Thomas’s niece…and soon to be admired by Mr. Crawford. It was enough to give her general favour.”

You will notice I have said nothing about “LOVE.” That was not part of the equation. A match that would benefit both the male and the female was all that mattered. If affection became part of the arrangement, then the situation was blessed. Those of the lower gentry and the working class would have more options revolving romance in the marriage.

Posted in Austen Authors, estates, family, film, George Wickham, Georgian England, Georgian Era, historical fiction, Jane Austen, kings and queens, literature, Living in the Regency, marriage, marriage customs, Pride and Prejudice, romance | Tagged Come Out, courting, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, marriage, Pride and Prejudice, Regency Era, the Season | 2 Comments

Proving Lines of Succession + Release of “The Earl Claims His Comfort”

Posted on October 27, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

Succession for a Peerage

What happens to a peerage if the peer cannot be found or is presumed dead? What becomes of his wife? His children? This is a familiar plot in many Regency novels. I used it in the first book of my Twins’ trilogy, Angel Comes to the Devil’s Keep. Angelica Lovelace’s father is the third son in the family, but when his eldest brother goes missing and the second son is dispatched with in an unusual plot twist, Horace Lovelace becomes the heir presumptive to the title. However, no one can be certain of the eldest’s death. People saw the Peer go overboard on his “honeymoon,” but there is always the possibility of his still being alive. [No “Gilligan’s Island” plot, but anything is possible.] Obviously, the authorities must wait to see if the Peer’s wife is pregnant and if she delivers forth a son, who would then be the heir apparent and displace Horace in the line of succession, but then what?

Such a search could take forever if there is no child to become the heir. We customarily think that after a person is missing for seven years, that he is declared dead, but that is not so in the case of a peerage. The search could take several lifetimes, though the Committee on Privilege of the House of Lords and the College of Arms may choose to set a time limit. Until the Peer is officially declared dead, his “widow” cannot remarry.

It could be possible for the heir apparent or the heir presumptive to act in the Peer’s place to oversee the property and the business of the peerage, but he cannot officially claim the title until a decision on the Peer’s death has been made.

Another incidence of inheritance plagues book 2 of the Twins’ trilogy, The Earl Claims His Comfort. In it, a doppelgänger attempts to unseat Levison Davids, 17th Earl of Remmington, by claiming the earldom is his rightful heritage. So what really occurs when there is a question as to the line of succession?

First, let us clear up some misconceptions. The most confusing of those, for some, is the difference between an heir apparent and an heir presumptive. The heir apparent can only be the peer’s oldest living son or the oldest of his grandsons ( son of the oldest son), if the peer’s oldest son is deceased. What’s most important to remember is that “if a man inherits a peerage, it is because he is the eldest surviving legitimate male who can trace a direct (father to son) lineage back to an earlier holder of the peerage. In other words, he doesn’t inherit because he was the brother or the cousin or the uncle of his predecessor, but because his own father, or grandfather, or great-grandfather, or great-great-grandfather, etc., was an earlier holder of the peerage. [“Eldest” in this context doesn’t mean that he happens to be the oldest of several different living men who can trace a direct line back to an earlier holder of the peerage, but rather that his line is the eldest, i.e., eldest son of eldest son; and all other lines senior to his have died out.]” (“Hereditary Peerages”)

Although it has taken various forms, the Peerage Roll has existed since the Roll kept by Garter Principal King of Arms in 1514. The early ones still in the custody of the House of Lords are those from 1621, 1628, and 1661. Garter’s Roll was the official roll of the House until 1827. From 1827 to 1999, a sessional Roll became a part of Parliament’s history. After the passing of the House of Lords Act in 1999, the Clerk of the Parliaments ceased to preserve the Roll. Since the enactment of this parliamentary law, the Crown Office issues the Writ of Summons to those 92 hereditary peers remaining in the House of Lords. There is no longer an automatic entitlement to a Writ of Summons to the HOL, but this was not so during the Regency.

To claim a peerage during the Regency (and even now), certain statutory declaration evidence must be supplied by the claimant. For a son, this would include evidence of his birth, his parents’ marriage (and that they were married BEFORE his birth, not necessarily before his conception), the previous Peer’s death, and evidence that the late Peer had no legitimate surviving male issue before the birth of the claimant (meaning he had no elder legitimate surviving brothers). For a brother to succeed, the claimant would need all of the above plus evidence that the late Peer had no legitimate male issue and there was no surviving male issue between the birth of the Peer and that of the claimant (meaning the late Peer had no surviving sons). For a nephew to succeed, the person needed proof of his birth, his parents’ marriage, the birth of his father, the death of his father, the death of the deceased Peer, evidence that the late Peer had no surviving legitimate male issue, that there was no surviving legitimate male issue between the birth of the late Peer and that of the claimant’s father, and the claimant’s father had no surviving male issue before the birth of the claimant.

To make such a claim from a position of collateral succession, meaning those who stand to receive a portion, or all, of a deceased individual estate, but who are not direct descendants of the deceased person, the claimant needed to provide evidence of his birth, evidence to show the claimant is descended from the collateral relations of the Peerage/grantee, and evidence to show that all male lines from the very first Peer are senior to that of the claimant are extinct, and that no male senior to the claimant in. his. own line is still living.

Resource for parts of this piece come from the Ministry of Justice, Crown Office, House of Lords “Guidance Notes on Succession to a Peerage…” http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/GuidanceNotes2.pdf

Jeremy Turcotte has a lengthy list of extinct British peerages that was compiled in September 2013. I thought it might be of interest to some of you. Find it at https://jeremyturcotte.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/a-listing-of-extinct-british-peerages/

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Introducing The Earl Claims His Comfort: Book 2 in the Twins’ Trilogy, releasing September 16, 2017, from Black Opal Books

– a 2016 Hot Prospects finalist in Romantic Suspense

Hurrying home to Tegen Castle from the Continent to assume guardianship of a child not his, but one who holds his countenance, Levison Davids, Earl of Remmington, is shot and left to die upon the road leading to his manor house. The incident has Remmington chasing after a man who remains one step ahead and who claims a distinct similarity—a man who wishes to replace Remmington as the rightful earl. Rem must solve the mystery of how a stranger’s life parallels his, while protecting his title, the child, and the woman he loves.

Comfort Neville has escorted Deirdre Kavanaugh from Ireland to England, in hopes that the Earl of Remmington will prove a better guardian for the girl than did the child’s father. When she discovers the earl’s body upon a road backing the castle, it is she who nurses him to health. As the daughter of a minor son of an Irish baron, Comfort is impossibly removed from the earl’s sphere, but the man claims her affections. She will do anything for him, including confronting his enemies. When she is kidnapped as part of a plot for revenge against the earl, she must protect Rem’s life, while guarding her heart.

Purchase Links:

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Barnes and Noble

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-earl-claims-his-comfort-regina-jeffers/1127101127?ean=9781626947450

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Excerpt…

“Cannot recall the last time I slept in my own bed,” he murmured to no one in particular as he stood to gain his bearings. The room swirled before his eyes, but Rem shook off the feeling. Of late, it was common for him to know a dull vibrating sound marring his thinking.

Levison Davids, the 17th Earl of Remmington, set the glass down harder than he intended. He had consumed more alcohol than he should on this evening, but as his home shire often brought on a case of maudlin, he had drowned his memories. He turned toward the door, attempting to walk with the confidence his late father always demanded of his sons. Lev was not trained to be the earl. His father had groomed Rem’s older brother Robinson for the role, but Fate had a way of spitting in a man’s eye when he least expected it.

Outside, the chilly air removed the edge from the numbness the heavy drink provided him, and for a brief moment Rem thought to return to the common room to reinforce the black mood the drink had induced. A special form of “regret” plagued his days and nights since receiving word of his ascension to the earldom some four years prior, and he did not think he would ever to be comfortable again.

“Storm comin’,” the groom warned when he brought Rem’s horse around.

“We’re in Yorkshire,” Remmington replied. “We are known for the unpredictable.”

Customarily, he would not permit the groom to offer him a leg up, but Rem’s resolve to reach his country estate had waned. He had received a note via Sir Alexander Chandler that Rem’s presence was required at the Remmington home seat, and so he had set out from France, where he had spent the last year, to answer a different call of duty.

Sir Alexander offered little information on why someone summoned Rem home, only that the message had come from the estate’s housekeeper. Not that it mattered who had sent for him. Tegen Castle was his responsibility. The journey from France had required that Rem leave an ongoing investigation behind, a fact that did not please him, even though he knew the others in service to Sir Alexander were excellent at their occupations. Moreover, the baronet had assured Rem that several missions on English shores required Remmington’s “special” skills, and he could return to service as quickly as his business knew an end.

He caught the reins to turn the stallion in a tight circle. Tossing the groom a coin, Rem kicked Draco’s sides to set the horse into a gallop.

As the dark swallowed them up, Rem enjoyed the feel of power the rhythm of the horse’s gait provided. He raced across the valley before emerging onto the craggy moors. At length, he skirted the rocky headland.

He slowed Draco as the cliff tops came into view. When he reached Davids’ Point, he urged the stallion into a trot. Rem could no longer see the trail, but his body knew it as well as it knew the sun would rise on the morrow. After some time, he jerked Draco’s reins hard to the left, and, as a pair, they plunged onto the long-forgotten trail. He leaned low over the stallion’s neck to avoid the tree limbs before he directed Draco to an adjacent path that led upward toward the family estate, which sat high upon a hill overlooking the breakwaters.

When he reached the main road again, he pulled up on the reins to bring the animal to a halt. Rem patted Draco’s neck and stared through the night at his childhood home, which was framed against the rising moonlight. It often made him sad to realize how much he once loved the estate as a child and how much he now despised it.

“No love left in the bricks,” he said through a thick throat. “Even the dowager countess no longer wishes to reside here. How can I?”

It was not always so. Although he was a minor son, Rem always thought to share Tegen Castle with his wife and children—to live nearby and to relate tales of happier days.

“But after Miss Phillips’s betrayal and then, likewise, that of Miss Lovelace, I possess no heart to begin again.”

In truth, of the two ladies, Rem had only loved Miss Delia Phillips.

“Fell in love with the girl when I was but fourteen and she, ten.”

He crossed his arms over the rise of the saddle to study the distant manor house.

“Perhaps Delia could find no solace here,” he murmured aloud.

Even today, it bothered him that Delia had not cared enough for him to send him a letter denying their understanding. He had learned of Delia’s marrying Baron Kavanagh from Sir Alexander, with whom Rem had served upon the Spanish front. Sir Alexander’s younger brother delivered the news in a cheeky letter.

“I suppose Delia thought being a baroness was superior to being Mrs. Davids. Little did she know I would claim the earldom. More is the pity for her.” A large raindrop plopped upon the back of his hand. “If we do not speed our return to the castle, my friend, we will arrive with a wet seat.”

He caught up the loose reins, but before he could set his heels into Draco’s sides, a shot rang out. By instinct, Rem thought to dive for the nearby ditch. Yet, the heavy drink slowed his response, and before he could act, Remmington knew the sharp sting of the bullet in his thigh.

Draco bolted forward before Rem had control of the stallion’s reins. He felt himself slipping from the saddle, but there was little he could do to prevent the impact. He slammed hard into the packed earth just as the heavens opened with a drenching rain. The back of his head bounced against a paving stone, and a shooting pain claimed his forehead. Even so Rem thought to sit up so he might take cover, but the effort was short coming. The piercing pain in his leg and the sharp sting claiming his vision fought for control. The blow to his head won, and Rem screwed his eyes closed to welcome the darkness.

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Angel Comes to the Devil’s Keep: Book 1 of the Twins’ Trilogy

– a 2017 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense finalist

-a SOLA’s Eighth Annual Dixie Kane Memorial Award finalist for Historical Romance

Huntington McLaughlin, the Marquess of Malvern, wakes in a farmhouse, after a head injury, being tended by an ethereal “angel,” who claims to be his wife. However, reality is often deceptive, and Angelica Lovelace is far from innocent in Hunt’s difficulties. Yet, there is something about the woman that calls to him as no other ever has. When she attends his mother’s annual summer house party, their lives are intertwined in a series of mistaken identities, assaults, kidnappings, overlapping relations, and murders, which will either bring them together forever or tear them irretrievably apart. As Hunt attempts to right his world from problems caused by the head injury that has robbed him of parts of his memory, his best friend, the Earl of Remmington, makes it clear that he intends to claim Angelica as his wife. Hunt must decide whether to permit her to align herself with the earldom or claim the only woman who stirs his heart–and if he does the latter, can he still serve the dukedom with a hoydenish American heiress at his side?

Posted in Act of Parliament, Black Opal Books, blog hop, book excerpts, book release, British history, eBooks, estates, excerpt, family, Georgian England, historical fiction, Inheritance, primogenture, Regency era, Regency romance, research, romance, suspense | Tagged Act of Parliament, Angel Comes to the Devil's Keep, Black Opal Books, book release, British history, except, House of Lords, inheritance, Regency, romantic, succession, suspense, The Earl Claims His Comfort, the Twins' trilogy | Comments Off

Setting and Social Status in Austen’s Novels

Posted on October 26, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

I am currently writing a JAFF (Jane Austen Fan Fiction) Pride and Prejudice vagary novel that includes LOTS of references to Shakespeare, for in it, Mr. Bennet is a renown Shakespeare scholar. The relationship between Darcy and Elizabeth in this piece is a mixture of Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew, When I was still teaching high school English, I often chose these two comedic plays for my students to read (along with either Othello or Macbeth).

This process has me thinking on Austen and her life. We all are aware that Austen wrote what she knew. Most authors do, except perchance those who write paranormal or science fiction or fantasy (although I would argue that these made-up worlds have similarities to the present day) and to an extent, historical fiction, but even with historical fiction, I often include something that occurred in my personal life. For example, in Christmas at Pemberley, I have Elizabeth grieving for the babies she had yet to carry to term. She goes so far as not to permit anyone even to mention the child or to present her with clothing for it. This came from my life. I experienced an ectopic pregnancy and two miscarriages before my son Joshua made it into the world. I refused all baby showers, talking of the pregnancy, speculating on the child’s sex, etc., until I was six months along. I thought if I could carry to six months, that he would make it. [Incidentally, my Josh was anxious for the world. He came at 7 and a half months.]

Like it or not, our dear Jane wrote about the economics and the restrictions upon her life. She spoke of status and social class. Although Henry Austen attempted to mold Jane’s image when his sister died in 1817, the fact is Jane’s every day life also held questions of her future. Should she marry to secure a home? We know what happens to her and her mother and sister when her father dies unexpectedly. Henry tells us in a biographical note as part of the preface of the posthumous edition of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion that his sister Jane was not interested in financial matters. In Henry’s words, Jane Austen knew amazement at having earned £150 from the publication of Sense and Sensibility. “Few so gifted were so truly unpretending,” Henry assures us. “She regarded the above sum as a prodigious recompense for that which cost her nothing.” That being said, have you not seen the letter from Jane to a friend where she complained about a lack of a larger advance that the £110 she received for Pride and Prejudice.

In Austen, we view parts of the Regency culture through a microcosm of a handful of families in each village Austen creates. Women married for security (and hopefully, for love). But if there was no love in equation, these women would likely still marry the man (for example, Charlotte Lucas in Pride and Prejudice). They sought out someone of their social class. Remember Elizabeth Bennet’s retort to Lady Catherine De Bourgh: He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.” (Ch. 56) Those who were obsessed with high rank are satirized by Austen. The few members of the aristocracy that she includes in her tales are dunderheads, who are consumed with their own consequence. They range from the all-knowing Lady Catherine de Bourgh to the amiable, but dense, Sir John Middleton in Sense and Sensibility to the calculating Sir Thomas Bertram in Mansfield Park and the conceited Sir Walter Elliot in Persuasion.

Speaking of the gentlemen in Austen’s novels, they are usually wealthy and landed. Even most men “in trade” are treated well in her novels. Look at Mr. Gardiner and Mr. Bingley in Pride and Prejudice.

Austen uses the setting as part of her story. There are a multitude of highly intelligent women and successful men as the main characters of a story. But by making the setting as important as the characters, Austen changes the story. Those who write contemporary versions of Pride and Prejudice hit a roadblock when we think of Lydia Bennet’s loss of reputation when she runs off with Mr. Wickham, but nowadays, no such stigma exists because if the family truly objects, a quickie divorce is as accessible as a quickie marriage. But during the Regency, a divorce was not possible for the average person, for they were very public, very expensive, and took a parliamentary decree. Once the couple said “I do,” they were joined for LIFE. Austen’s depiction of the rural country life of the early 1800s is so precise that it becomes part of the plot line. The expectations of society control the characters as surely as the laws of the land controlled society. All of Austen’s stories revolve around a relationship of equals—in intelligence, social standing, compassion, confidence, wit, etc.

Note: You might find John Mullan’s piece on “Status, Rank, and Class in Jane Austen’s Novels,” May 2014 interesting.

Posted in Austen Authors, Georgian England, historical fiction, Jane Austen, literature, Living in the Regency, marriage, political stance, Pride and Prejudice, publishing, reading, Regency era, Regency romance, romance | Tagged Emma, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, Publishing, Sense and Sensibility, setting, social status, writing | 4 Comments

The Lady’s Companion in Life and in Literature, a Guest Post by Jude Knight + the Release of “Never Too Late”

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Regina Jeffers

The Lady’s Companion in Life and in Literature

Pleasant letter, by Alfred Stevens, 1860.jpg

As we know from reading historical fiction, women born to the aristocracy or gentry in the United Kingdom in the eighteenth or nineteenth century had few options for employment. If she needed to earn her own living, and wanted to retain at least some vestiges of the social status to which she was born, she could become a teacher at a girl’s school, a governess in a private home, or a lady’s companion.

Women of rank or wealth had always surrounded themselves with ladies of an equal or slightly lesser rank. In medieval times, every noble lady had her ladies-in-waiting, whose job was to attend and entertain their mistress. By the nineteenth century, only royalty called the women they retained ladies-in-waiting. However, widows and unmarried women, in particular, found it useful to employ someone to keep them company, help them entertain guests, and accompany them when they attended social events.

I say ‘employ’, but the companions would perhaps have objected to the term. They received an allowance (never wages), and their board and keep, and occupied a grey area in the household. Never a servant, but by no means an equal.

The position of companion was comparable to the position of governess, although socially it was a slightly higher position. Whereas the status of a governess could be questionable, a companion would always eat with the mistress and so forth. However, companions were similarly constrained in their positions, as they required the position for financial support. [Dr Kaston Tange, on Victorian Contexts]

Advertisements from women looking for a position emphasised their feminine skills, their gentility, and their moral fibre. A woman with a reputation for immoral behaviour was no lady, and contaminated all connected with her. The three roles open to a lady were closed to her.

The heroine in my novella Forged in Fire is a lady’s companion: one with a past that her employer uses to keep her subservient.

Forged in Fire excerpt…

Mrs. Bletherow was castigating her poor companion again, oblivious to her audience.

Every group was different, and most groups had someone who was troublesome. Tad Berry had been escorting tour groups from Auckland for years. He could cheerfully handle the drunkards, the would-be Casanovas, the know-it-alls. But he hated bullies. His muscles burned with the effort it took to keep from rescuing the Bletherow hag’s drab shadow. Not his place. She was a free, adult woman, and if she chose to stay with an employer who treated her so poorly, it was nothing to do with him.

His partner, Atame, nudged him. “She don’t run out of steam, that one, eh?”

Tad clenched his fists. “Miss Thompson should tell her to go soak her head. Old crow.”

Tad and Atame had met this particular group in Auckland two days ago, eight tourists seeking to view what the locals billed as the eighth wonder of the world. Tomorrow, they’d sample the delights of the Rotorua bath houses, and later in the day, they’d make their way to Te Wairoa. The day after, the locals would convey them across Rotomohana to the Pink and White Terraces, dimpled with hot pools and cascading down their respective hillsides to a peaceful lake.

All through the boat trip to Tauranga and the coach journey to this Ohinemutu guest house, Mrs. Bletherow had found fault with everything Miss Thompson did or failed to do. She had brought her employer the wrong book, failed to block out the sun, been too slow in the queue for food, put too much milk in Mrs. Bletherow’s tea. Tad wouldn’t have blamed Miss Thompson for adding arsenic.

Mrs. Bletherow’s withered, wiry maid was as sour as her mistress and attracted none of the old harridan’s contempt. She stood now at Mrs. Bletherow’s elbow, nodding along with the woman’s complaints. “You knew we would be dining properly this evening. You deliberately packed the green gown in the large trunk. You must go and find it this instant, do you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Miss Thompson said.

“See that you are quick. Parrish shall attend me in my room, and I want my gown by the time I am washed.” Mrs. Bletherow sailed up the stairs, Parrish scurrying along in her wake.

Tad unfolded himself from the wall as Miss Thompson approached, her rather fine hazel eyes downcast. She began apologising while she was still several paces away. “I am very sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. Berry, but I need to ask you to offload another of Mrs. Bletherow’s trunks.”

“Of course, Miss Thompson. If you tell me which one, I shall bring it up to her room.”

She looked up at that, her brows drawing slightly together. “I am not sure, Mr. Berry. I know which one it should be in, but Parrish finished the packing. May I come with you?”

He nodded, though the stables were no place for a lady. And Miss Thompson was a lady, and of better birth than the Bletherow woman, unless he missed his guess. Which, come to think of it, might be part of the reason for her ill-treatment. Not that a bully needed a reason, beyond opportunity and a suitable victim.

He and Atame unloaded half the luggage before uncovering the trunk Miss Thompson wanted, and then it proved to be the wrong one.

Tad brushed off Miss Thompson’s apologies. “No matter. We shall just try the others.” But the gown was not in the smaller trunk, any of the leather bags, or even the hat boxes. They offloaded all Mrs. Bletherow’s baggage and even the single trunk holding Miss Thompson’s spare wardrobe and a second belonging to Parish, and Miss Thompson unlocked and hunted through them all.

Several of Atame’s cousins from the nearby Māori village found them, and Atame wandered out into the stableyard for a rapid conversation in Māori, leaving Tad to finish the reloading once Miss Thompson finished. “If this is everything,” he told her, “I fear the garment has been left behind at a previous stop.”

“Do you, Mr. Berry?” Tad’s hands on the straps he was rebuckling stilled at the bitter undertones in the lady’s voice, and he looked up. They were working by lamplight, but he could see well enough. Blazing eyes, thinned lips, skin drained white but for two hectic spots of colour high on her cheeks. Miss Thompson was quietly furious. “Perhaps you are right. I apologise for putting you to all this trouble.”

“You don’t think it has been left behind?”

“Given we are returning to the same hotel in Auckland, it is possible. It would be a new variation on an old theme. In Milan, Cairo and in Singapore, I found what she sent me for, though not where she told me to look. In Madras, I turned out the luggage then demanded the train station and all the trains be searched for a necklace, which turned up in the pocket of the coat she was wearing for the tour she took while I was hunting. In Sydney, it was her favourite shawl, which she was wearing when I returned to the hotel dining room.”

“And you still stay with her? Are you mad?” Had he said that out loud? He didn’t need the echo of his own voice to know he had. Her sharp look, the hurt she quickly masked as she once again donned her accustomed calm, witnessed against him. “I beg your pardon, Miss Thompson. It is none of my business what choices you make.”

***

Forged in Fire is a novella in Never Too Late, the 2017 box set of the Bluestocking Belles.

Eight authors and eight different takes on four dramatic elements selected by our readers—an older heroine, a wise man, a Bible, and a compromising situation that isn’t.

Set in a variety of locations around the world over eight centuries, welcome to the romance of the Bluestocking Belles’ 2017 Holiday and More Anthology.

It’s Never Too Late to find love.

25% of proceeds benefit the Malala Fund.

***************************************************

Story #1 set in 1181

The Piper’s Lady by Sherry Ewing

True love binds them. Deceit divides them. Will they choose love?

Story #2 set in 1354

Her Wounded Heart by Nicole Zoltack

A solitary widow, a landless knight, and a crumbling castle.

Story #3 set in 1645

A Year Without Christmas by Jessica Cale

An earl and his housekeeper face their feelings for one another in the midst of the English Civil War.

Story #4 set in 1795

The Night of the Feast by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

One night to risk it all in the midst of the French Revolution.

Story #5 set in 1814

The Umbrella Chronicles: George & Dorothea’s Story by Amy Quinton

The Umbrella Strikes Again: St. Vincent’s downfall (aka betrothal) is assured.

Story #6 set in 1814

A Malicious Rumor by Susana Ellis

A harmonious duo is better than two lonely solos for a violinist and a lady gardener.

Story #7 set in 1886

Forged in Fire by Jude Knight

Forged in volcanic fire, their love will create them anew.

Story # 8 set in 1916

Roses in Picardy by Caroline Warfield

In the darkness of war, hope flickers. In the gardens of Picardy, love catches fire.

Purchase Links

US: http:amzn.to/2y6oBg7
AU: http://amzn.to/2fycyAx
BR: http://amzn.to/2wjyWkm
CA: http://amzn.to/2yFvxxS
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ES: http://amzn.to/2yFIgk4
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JP: http://amzn.to/2xK5yqS
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NL: http://amzn.to/2hvRYkV
UK: http://amzn.to/2fyBesx

iBooks: http://apple.co/2yY4gXC

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2fK7vJR

Smashwords: http://bit.ly/2xDMQkb

Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/2y53vyf

Meet Jude Knight…

Jude Knight’s writing goal is to transport readers to another time, another place, where they can enjoy adventure and romance, thrill to trials and challenges, uncover secrets and solve mysteries, delight in a happy ending, and return from their virtual holiday refreshed and ready for anything. She writes historical novels, novellas, and short stories, mostly set in the early 19^th Century. She writes strong determined heroines, heroes who can appreciate a clever capable woman, villains you’ll love to loathe, and all with a leavening of humour.

Website: http://judeknightauthor.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JudeKnightAuthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JudeKnightBooks

Newsletter: http://judeknightauthor.com/newsletter/

Pinterest: https://nz.pinterest.com/jknight1033/

Other Books from Jude Knight:

A Raging Madness: Book 2 of The Golden Redepennings

Their marriage is a fiction. Their enemies are all too real.

Ella survived an abusive and philandering husband, in-laws who hate her, and public scorn. But she’s not sure she will survive love. It is too late to guard her heart from the man forced to pretend he has married such a disreputable widow, but at least she will not burden him with feelings he can never return.

Alex understands his supposed wife never wishes to remarry. And if she had chosen to wed, it would not have been to him. He should have wooed her when he was whole, when he could have had her love, not her pity. But it is too late now. She looks at him and sees a broken man. Perhaps she will learn to bear him.

In their masquerade of a marriage, Ella and Alex soon discover they are more well-matched than they expected. But then the couple’s blossoming trust is ripped apart by a malicious enemy. Two lost souls must together face the demons of their past to save their lives and give their love a future.

Candle’s Christmas Chair

When Viscount Avery comes to see an invalid chair maker, he does not expect to find Min Bradshaw, the woman who rejected him 3 years earlier. Or did she? He wonders if there is more to the story. For 3 years, Min Bradshaw has remembered the handsome guardsman who courted her for her fortune. She didn’t expect to see him in her workshop, and she certainly doesn’t intend to let him fool her again.

Gingerbread Bride

Lieutenant Rick Redepenning has been saving his admiral’s intrepid daughter from danger since their formative years, but today, he faces the gravest of threats–the damage she might do to his heart. How can he convince her to see him as a suitor, not just a childhood friend?

Travelling with her father’s fleet has left Mary Pritchard ill-prepared for London Society, and prey to the machinations of false friends. When she strikes out on her own to find a more suitable locale to take up her solitary spinsterhood, she finds adventure, trouble, and her girlhood hero, riding once more to her rescue.

This novella first appeared in the Bluestocking Belles box set Mistletoe, Marriage, and Mayhem.

Farewell to Kindness

Rede, the Earl of Chirbury wants the beautiful widow, Anne Forsythe, from the moment he first sees her. Not that he has time for dalliance, or that the virtuous widow would be available if he did. Or perhaps not so virtuous? She lives rent-free in a cottage belonging to the estate, courtesy of his predecessor and cousin, George. And her daughter’s distinctive eyes mark the little girl as George’s child. But it isn’t just the mystery that surrounds her that keeps drawing him to her side.

Anne Forsythe has good cause to be wary of men, peers and members of the Redepenning family. The Earl of Chirbury is all three, and a distraction she does not need. If she can hide her sisters until the youngest turns 21, they will be safe from her uncle’s sinister plans. And she is a virtuous woman, her reputation in the village built through years of impeccable behaviour. The Earl of Chirbury is not for her, and she will not fall to his fascinating smile, gentle teasing, and tragic past. Let him continue to pursue the villains who ordered the deaths of his family three years ago, and leave her and her family alone.

But good intentions fly in the face of their strong attraction, until several accidents make Rede believe his enemies are determined to kill him, and Anne wonder whether her uncle has found her. To build a future together, they must be prepared to face their pasts—something their deadly enemies have no intention of allowing.

Posted in book excerpts, book release, books, British history, eBooks, historical fiction, publishing, romance, Victorian era | Tagged English civil war, French Revolution, Historical Romance, medieval romance, Never Too Late, New Zealand, older heroine, Regency romance, righting a wrong, Vauxhall Gardens | 2 Comments

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Tory Daughters: Jane Austen and the Brontës (an Overview)

The 1832 Cholera Outbreak in England

The Theatre-Loving Fore-Runners of Shakespeare ~ Part I

Goin’ Courtin’ Regency Style

Proving Lines of Succession + Release of “The Earl Claims His Comfort”

The Lady’s Companion in Life and in Literature, a Guest Post by Jude Knight + the Release of “Never Too Late”

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