The Winner is:
Shelley B
Shelley, please email me so we can get in touch about your winnings….
carolyn AT carolynjewel DOT com
And a big thank you to everyone who wished me wonderful things!
Carolyn
The Winner is:
Shelley B
Shelley, please email me so we can get in touch about your winnings….
carolyn AT carolynjewel DOT com
And a big thank you to everyone who wished me wonderful things!
Carolyn
From Hark, A Vagrant |
You should be able to click on the images to enlarge them.
From Kate Beaton’s Hark, A Vagrant |
Guest Week: Zach Weiner (SMBC) via xkcd
Why do you love history?
The next midnight beheld Ruth Tudor in the cave, seated upon a point of rock, at the head of the corpse, her chin resting upon her hands, gazing earnestly upon the distorted face. Decay had already begun its work; and Ruth sat there watching the progress of mortality, as if she intended that her stern gaze should quicken and facilitate its operation. The next night also beheld her there, but the current of her thoughts had changed, and the dismal interval which had passed appeared to be forgotten. She stood with her basket of food: ” Wilt thou not eat!” she demanded; ” arise, strengthen thee for thy journey; eat, eat, thou sleeper; wilt thou never awaken? Look, here the meat thou lovest;” and as she raised his head, and put the food to his lips, the frail remnant of mortality shattered at her touch, and again she knew at he was dead.
Published in 1826.
Check the contents:
This is the BEST BOOK EVER! I mean that.
Karl and his horse Nikolaus, a Mysterious Tale !
Oh, Karl, you naughty boy!
Sir Guy the Seeker?
Ulric the Bold?
I love a bold fellow. Ulric is awesome and you all know it.
The Black Rainbow or the Death of Charles the Bad.
I did some poking around:
From British Short Fiction in the Early Nineteenth Century, Tim Killick, Ashgate, 2008, page 160
Legends of Terror ! was clearly aimed at a general readership.
(I added the big font. Because it needs it.)
To which I say, booh-yah.
I’m writing a heroine who loves scary stories, I swear.
How do you feel about LEGENDS OF TERROR !
Photo by Bradford Timeline
1. What’s your favorite historical romance ever in the whole world?
2. Which historical romance hero do you love the best?
3. Favorite historical heroine?
4. If you were a jelly bean what flavor would you be?
5. What are some of your favorite romance plots/tropes?
6. Clinch or No-Clinch?
7. [What question do YOU want to have answered? Ask and the Riskies shall answer.]
1. A Summer to Remember by Mary Balogh. No, wait, I mean yes, but also The Wild Baron by Catherine Coulter. No, wait, I also love Ravished by Amanda Quick. Also Unlocked by Courtney Milan. I loved that, hard.
2. Kit in a Summer to Remember.
3. Harriet in Ravished by Amanda Quick.
4. Licorice because right now I am wearing black.
5. Marriage of Convenience. We Got Caught, oops.
6. No clinch outside. Total nekkid clinch inside step-back.
Your thoughts on these questions in the comments!
FYI: I am still compiling the Risky Answers To Your Questions. Look for that next week.
In the meantime, in my usual roundabout and convoluted way, I came across a truly fascinating book: The Journal of a Georgian Gentleman, The Life and Times of Richard Hall, 1729 – 1801, by Mike Rendell.
Rendell is a direct descendent of Richard Hall, and Hall, it seems, not only extensively journaled his life, he was what we might call a highly organized hoarder. And because of this Rendell found himself in possession of an amazingly well documented life. Not just in journals but in collected ephemera. Hall saved just about every bit of paper he encountered. Pamphlets, broadsides, you name it, he seems to have saved and documented it.
He’s published this book (it’s a beautiful hardcover) and though I’ve only just started it, it’s wonderful. There are insights into daily life that I just don’t think exist anywhere else.
I’m going to pimp his book hard. It’s about $20 US, and I think any hard-core historical researcher would get a lot of use from this book. It’s worth having. Amazon
Anyway, what I want to mention today is this:
Richard recalled in his later retrospective jottings that his father had told him that when his father, Thomas, was a young man and required a bride, he had no choice but to go out on horseback and ride to the various villages within a journey of one day, visiting the homes of suitable persons and introducing himself to those with daughters of marriageable age. His whole world consisted of those parts of Berkshire, Oxford and Wiltshire as extended for a distance of perhaps thirty miles from his home. ‘Amazing then,’ Richard wrote, ‘to consider that in my lifetime we have seen horizons extend so markedly that a man may catch the express stage from Oxford and be in London later that same day!’ Journal, p 6
The passage about how Richard’s grandfather introduced himself to families with marriageable daughters is, to me, a reminder of how important calls were. Not just fun or polite, but serious business. Young men and women needed to meet a diversity of potential partners (church would NOT have been socially and geographically diverse enough) and without carriages or the express stage, you walked or rode within the limitations of your legs or your horse.
But it’s that last quote:
Amazing then to consider that in my lifetime we have seen horizons extend so markedly that a man may catch the express stage from Oxford and be in London later that same day!
that reinforces, for me, how much we have in common with the people who lived during the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason. They experienced the same technology driven transformation of their lives, and they, too, were fully capable of feeling and appreciating the changes wrought.
I can just imagine them saying things like, why, in my father’s day, it was two days travel from Oxford to London and it was uphill both ways! I don’t know why anyone would want to go to London anyway. Nothing but thieves and cutpurses and men as like to rob you as tell you how to find the White Horse Inn.
It’s why this idea among some people that the men and women of the Regency were in some fundamentally inscrutable and unknowable way DIFFERENT drives me nuts. They weren’t.
Just like today, not everyone followed the rules. There were liars and cheaters and people who were honest, good and caring. There were bad girls and good boys and sex felt as good then as it does now.
There will always be people who reflect on the past and how immensely things have changed since those days.
Just for kicks, according to Google Maps, it’s about 60 miles from Oxford to London. If you drive, it’s an hour and 20 minutes. If you take the train, it’s an hour and 11 minutes. 400 years from now, I suppose it will take 10 minutes.