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Monthly Archives: December 2016

One of the questions I get a lot when giving clothing workshops is “How did people store their clothes”? The answers are obviously very different across the classes, but in general my audience wants to know about the gentry and nobility.

Let’s start with closets. Yes, closets existed. Both in the modern sense of a large cupboard in which you store things and in the more historical sense of “a smaller room off a main living space, where you also stored things”. You see modern-type built in closets in many period homes, though they’re often hidden. They usually flank fireplaces, doorways, or built-in nooks for beds. The period idea of a closet was part of a suite of rooms that made up a person’s private chambers. There would be a bedroom, a study or boudoir, and often a closet or dressing room. This all varied widely so there’s no hard and fast rule as to what set-up your characters might have (and don’t forget to take in the era in which the house was built).

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Mahogany clothes press, c. 1730-1760. Interior contains both drawers and shelves. Victoria and Albert Museum.

Regardless of what rooms your house has, the clothing storage will be of three types: chests (the classic flip-top large box), chest of drawers (just like today) and the clothes press/wardrobe (not like the big one that leads to Narnia). Clothes presses are most similar to what Americans now call “high boys” (which are a form of raised clothes press).

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Clothes Press, c.1775-1778, Chippendale. Interior contains both shelves and drawers. Victoria and Albert Museum.

Clothes presses have drawers at the bottom and then an open space with pull-out shelves at the top behind doors. Later on (late 19thC) you get the kind with half the space given over to hanging garments and half to shelves). So your clothing would be carefully folded and organized among these various options, but in general it would not be hung as it often is today (I’ve heard their might have been pegs or a line for awkward items like false rumps, hoops, etc., but I’ve never seen this in practice outside of satirical drawings of how the poor lived).

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Japaned Clothes Press, c. 1815, Crace (likely made for Brighton Pavilion). Victorian and Albert Museum.

It’s also likely that clothes were cycled, so you didn’t have everything in your room at once, just the things you needed for the season you were in. Clothing for other seasons would be packed away and stored in the attics (hence the treasure troves occasionally unearthed   ). At the end of each season, you would decide what was worth packing away for use the next year and what you would get rid of (this retired clothing was generally a perq of the lady’s maid, who could refashion it for her own use or sell it).

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English Clothes Press, c. 1750.

For more insight into period homes, I highly recommend Georgian & Regency Houses Explained by Trevor Yorke.

Wow, here it is the beginning of December –is anyone else wondering where November went? Sometimes, as the days fly by, I wonder if time seemed to go by this fast to people who lived during the Regency –or pick any given historical time period. With all our modern time-saving conveniences, how is it that we seem to live at a frenetic pace? (I know this isn’t only me!!) Is it because we try to cram more activity into our days, simply because we can? Has time actually sped up (a theory I read somewhere…)?? What do you think?

The reason I am ruminating on all of this today is because, even though I knew today was my day to blog here, I never did have time this week to choose a topic or prepare a post. So that’s the apology –I’m sorry I don’t have an actual post for today!! I did consider asking among my sister Riskies if anyone wanted to swap dates, but I never even got a chance to send out that appeal. This is the first time I’ve ever just completely missed posting here.

The promise is that in January I should have some real news to share! I’m looking forward to that. In the meantime, I want to wish all of you the most wonderful holidays –whatever you celebrate. It’s the season of light and love, that we should try to hold in our hearts and share with each other all year long. I think our world needs it more than ever!!!

In place of my post, here are two pictures of what has eaten up my extra time this week –things I’ve made for my church bazaar which is tomorrow. I am the coordinator for vendors and have been fielding phone calls and emails from them all week, while measuring and re-measuring the church hall and tweaking the floor lay-out to make sure there’s room for everyone besides all the tables full of church-made items.  We set up today, so we’ll see! In the meantime, sending you love and best wishes. And an early “Happy New Year”!!

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Bound by a Scandalous SecretBound By A Scandalous Secret, available in paperback and ebook, begins and ends in the Christmas season. I’ve written about Christmas before in A Twelfth Night Tale (my only Christmas novella, still available in the Governess Brides Bundle), but I had to go back and do the research about Christmas in the Regency all over again.

Many familiar Christmas traditions–decorating Christmas trees, singing Silent Night, waiting for Santa Claus–did not emerge until the later Victorian times, but a Regency Christmas did have other traditions still celebrated today.

Regency families decorated their houses with holly and ivy and evergreens of fir and pine. Mistletoe was hung and the tradition of a gentleman and lady kissing beneath it would have been part of a Regency Christmas. With each kiss the gentleman plucked a berry from the mistletoe. When the berries were gone, so were the kisses. In the book I’m working on now (more on that in later months) the hero and heroine decorate his house. I’m writing those scenes today!

Christmas was mainly a religious holiday during the Regency. Gifts were exchanged, church attended, and guests might be invited to Christmas dinner, like Ross and Dell were invited to Lord Tinmore’s for Christmas dinner in Bound By A Scandalous Night.

cruikshank-christmas-pudding-served-at-dinner-party-life-magazine-imageAt Christmas dinner a goose or turkey would be served. A Regency household would also serve a Christmas pudding that was made on Stir Up Sunday, the Sunday before Advent, and served on Christmas day. The pudding was a porridge of sugar, raisins, currants, prunes, and wine that was “stirred up” and boiled together in a pudding cloth.

Some of the traditions of the Regency holiday season had their origins in ancient winter celebrations. First-Footing customs of New Year’s Day may have originated in ancient Greece. In order to have good fortune all the year, an uninvited stranger–a dark man in some areas of the UK but the hair color could vary by region–should be the first to cross the threshold on New Years Day. He might carry symbolic gifts- salt (or a coin) for wealth; coal for warmth, a match for kindling, and bread for food. The householder might offer him food and drink. In some villages one tall, dark, and handsome fellow was selected to visit all the houses, receiving food and drink at each one. I mentioned this custom in A Twelfth Night Tale.

Twelfth Night, the eve of the Epiphany, was even more of a time for revelry than Christmas day during the Regency. It was a time to drink wassail (ale or wine spiced with roasted apples and sugar) and play games. A bean was buried in a cake and whoever found it was designated the Lord of Misrule who presided over all the Twelfth Night festivities, which might include theatricals or singing, although many of our most popular Christmas Carols were translated from German later in Victorian times. When Twelfth Night was over, the house decorations were removed and the season is over.

Christmas cards were invented by Sir Henry Cole, who, as an Assistant Keeper of what is now the Post Office in the UK, started the Penny Post, the first postal service that ordinary people could afford. He and an artist friend designed a Christmas card that would encourage people to use the Penny Post. Here’s an example of a Victorian Christmas Card.
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It is rather fun to be writing Christmas scenes in this Christmas season. And to have a book out at this time of year where Christmas plays a part. Of course, though my characters are decorating at this very moment. I’ve not done anything yet!

Have you decorated for the holidays yet? Have you sent any Christmas cards?

Hello. Last week fellow Risky Gail posted about being busy with church lady activities. I’m in the same situation right now, getting ready for my congregation’s annual Holiday Art and Gift Sale. If I’d had time, I would have looked up what Regency ladies did for charity but frankly I don’t have the time. I’m sure some of them did get involved. I don’t imagine them creating crafts for sale, but I do remember reading about things like embroidering altar cloths and delivering baskets to the poor.

This year I am particularly glad to be helping. My Unitarian Universalist congregation has seen an influx of new members recently, not surprising as we strive to create a welcoming, nurturing space for all people and all sorts of families. So my work with the Children & Youth Programs committee and fundraising feels like a small but positive way to help.

Here are a few of the beaded snowflakes and other ornaments that I bring to the sale.
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Over the last few years, I’ve also been invited to bring my paperbacks. This year, I’m also running a Flash e-book sale. All my ebooks will be priced at 99 cents through Monday, at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, and All Romance Ebooks. So if you haven’t tried one of them, you can get them at a bargain price and know that I will be donating my author share to my congregation. You can find links to all my books on my website, www.elenagreene.com or just go to your favorite online bookstore and type in my name.

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I’m also looking forward to seeing what the other vendors are bringing. Last year I bought a lovely pendant made out of vintage buttons. This year I’m looking forward to getting some artisan soaps made by friends. Do you enjoy holiday bazaars like this and what are your favorite things to shop for?

Elena

A picture of the new print edition of Castle of the Wolf
Today I come to you with all kinds of bookish news: I’m currently knee-deep into the production of new print editions of all of my books. (It kind of hit me when I was preparing  Eagle’s Honor: Ravished, which I have entered into the RITAs, for print that very few of my novels were actually available as paperbacks. So it was definitely beyond time to remedy that situation.) Moreover, a few weeks ago, I also discovered how to create drop caps in MS Word and since then I’ve been on a roll. As you can see from the picture above. 🙂

For the print edition of Castle of the Wolf, my Beauty & the Beast story, in which a young woman inherits a mysterious castle in the Black Forest, I chose a set of initial letters that reminded me of old fairy tale books. I thought that was quite fitting since fairy tales play a very important role in the story.

So this is the good part. However, overall Sandra’s Adventures in Print Publishing didn’t go quite that smoothly. The grumpy dude on the cover? He’s orange. “But, Sandy,” you might say, “he is not orange in that picture above.” Yeah. I know. I applied a number of filters to that picture above because I didn’t want to inflict his glow-in-the-dark color on anyone. So if you’d like to get a nice new edition of Castle, please wait a few days. I’m currently fixing it. (I just hope he doesn’t turn out to look like a zombie this time around.) (That’s what living in a run-down castle does to you: turns you into a zombie!)

But what *did* turn out really nicely is the frontispiece (see? I’m really on a roll here! hehe!): I did include a sketch of the Kastelburg in Waldkirch, upon which the castle in my novel is (partly) based. Here is a picture of the frontispiece in the making:

A sketch of the Kastelburg in Waldkirch Annnnnnd in other bookish news, my grumpy centurion, whom I mentioned in my last post about doing portraits, is going to hit bookshelves this Friday. I so enjoyed telling Caius & Lucius’ story. I fell in love with these two when I first wrote them as secondary characters into Eagle’s Honor: Ravished, which is set ten years after The Centurion’s Choice, and I knew from almost the start that I very much wanted to tell their story as well.

Teaser image for The Centurion's Choice by Sandra SchwabFor me, one of the great joys of writing the Eagle’s Honor series is that has expanded into an exploration of family relations across several generations as well as an exploration of family stories. Family stories formed an important part of my growing up – my paternal grandmother in particular liked telling me stories about the time when my father and his sisters were little, and sometimes also about the time when she was a young woman. And above my parents’ dining table there’s a huge collage of family pictures going back as far as the 1890s. So my own experiences of how people in my family talked about their past and about people from past generations I’ve never met, very much informed the way I have been approaching the stories the Florius family share.

I love imagining what kind of stories members of the Florius family would share about past generations and what kind of things would be passed from one generation to the next. And also imagine what sort of circumstances would interrupt this chain of oral traditions; in how far memories might change over time. For me, it’s a really nice way to link these stories that set apart several decades. (And of course, I hope readers will enjoy these links, too!)

Teaser image for The Centurion's Choice, by Sandra SchwabBut, of course, these family stories just form a tiny part of the background for The Centurion’s Choice, which at its heart is a enemies-to-friends-to-lovers story. With a very grumpy centurion. 🙂 (Watching those grumpy guys fall in love is always such great fun, isn’t it?) So without further ado, here’s the blurb for the novella. I will add buy links on Friday, when the book comes out.

It’s 178 AD, and barbarian tribes once again threaten the borders of the Roman Empire. To make matters worse, Lucius’ promotion in his auxiliary cohort has been denied, and instead the governor has appointed a moody, mean-tempered Roman to become the new centurion of the Septem Gallorum. And, incidentally, to trample all over Lucius’ ambitions.

Tall and burly, Centurion Caius Florius Corvus might be way too good-looking for Lucius’ peace of mind, but the man has also made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t trust Lucius as his second-in-command. Yet as they are swept into war and each has to shoulder his responsibilities, a reluctant respect begins to grow between them, which soon grows into friendship — and, perhaps, more?

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