Filed under Regency Literature …

Regency Literature: The Novel

Oh the novel. We might guess at its pulp status from the very lips of Jane, herself, speaking about her heroine in Northanger Abbey: “Yes, novels; – for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom, so common with novel writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of … Continue reading →

Regency Culture and Society: Graffiti

Don’t you hate it when media gives the modern age credit for all the black eyes on humanity?!  As if violence, crime, and other social ills were proprietary to contemporary culture. On one of my many year abroad late night tramps across the Midland country side, one of our favorite haunts was Kenilworth Castle. What … Continue reading →

Nightmare Abbey: Thomas Love Peacock

Not being able to resist such a title and promise of gothic romance satire, I found a freebie copy of Thomas Love Peacock’s Nightmare Abbey to download. Originally published in 1818, Peacock was a notable satirist and member of the Shelley set.  Nightmare Abbey takes direct aim at many of his friends, making light of … Continue reading →

Jane Austen’s Contemporaries

Janeites and hist-ro fans undoubtedly have wished at least once (if not many, many times) that there were more Austens to read and absorb, to soak in during a long hot soak, to curl up to at bedtime. And almost having exhausted Heyer’s most excellent body of hist-ro works, I began to seriously wish this … Continue reading →

Regency Literature: Gothic

Ok, I will admit it.  I went through a half-hearted goth phase in the mid-90s.  A few things have still stayed with me, too: My love of ghosts and hauntings.  (What a fun way to learn about history!) Gothic architecture.  I am pretty much an architecture buff anyway, but Gothic Architecture is so fantastical and … Continue reading →