Word Wenches

Printing Presses and Dinosaurs

 Pat here:

Mary Jo, our resident astrologer, tells me I have a Uranian nature and that I enjoy change. I have no idea what Uranus has to do with it, but she’s right. I have a restless nature and I’m forever exploring new things. It’s probably the reason we’ve lived in three cities and are planning another move. And even when we stay in one place for a while, we move from house to house. Like Goldilocks, I want to try them all!

 

As I’ve mentioned  before , I’ve about had more than enough change. The book industry is dragging us all through a lot of major upheavals, and we’re all digging in our heels and looking for steady ground. I doubt that our current upheavals can compare to the social, cultural, and literary changes created by Gutenberg’s printing press in medieval Europe, however. 

From a single press in 1436, printing presses spread to 110 cities by 1480 and by 1500, they could be found all over Central and Western Europe. That’s pretty fast work in a time when just traveling from city to city could take weeks, and putting together a single press took huge amounts of time, money, and expertise. (press show here is a streamlined 1811 edition) The learning process with all those fiddly bits of type and ink had to have been enormous, but the demand for printed documents was so high that printers couldn’t work fast enough. They not only killed the careers of a lot of people who sold their services as scribes, the presses allowed laymen and heretics to produce pamphlets that hitherto had been in the almost complete control of the Catholic church and their monks .This wasn’t just industrial revolution, it became a religious and cultural revolution.

 

Those enormous old printing presses with their rag paper process started cottage industries selling old  clothes-- and cheap paper was plentiful when the price of rags plummeted after the plague dumped a surplus of old clothes on the market. How's that for a transition? That early press also created the world’s first bestsellers--Erasmus sold three-quarters of a million copies of his work during his lifetime alone. And suddenly, scientists could communicate and share their discoveries in meticulous detail over vast distances and there we were—the early internet.

 

Printing presses also made it possible to create documents in the local language, so church Latin disappeared as the standard language of text. Spelling and grammar in these languages had to be standardized so everyone could read and understand the books produced—which actually reduced the variety of words and syntax. Saying “Yo, mama” didn’t always have the same meaning to the person saying it as the person reading it, so regulation was probably necessary to prevent duels. Alas that we can’t say the same today!

 But reaching that point of regulation took centuries. We’ve all seen the old documents with half a dozen different spellings of the same word—and even their own names—on the same page. Change begets change. I’m pretty sure there’s a physics rule in there.

 Change makes some aspects of life easier, but it also adds new levels of confusion and upheaval. That’s the nature of the beast. And that’s what’s happening in the book industry today. We no longer need printing presses! We’re throwing out six centuries of tradition. Just think about the trees saved—and the timber industry killed. No environmentally damaging ink—no bookstores. We’d need a crystal ball to see the wide-spreading effect on our futures.

Right now, we’re in that period of transition where chaos reigns and standardization hasn’t developed. Will Amazon’s mobi format become the formal language of e-books? Or will the e-pub format’s ease of use kill the Kindle? Will bookstores find a way to work directly with authors so we can sell both print and e-books without the expense of the middle man? Surely this wild, wild west of heaving every page ever written onto the market has to end, but when? And how?

Even though change excites me, and I’m riding the wave with great glee, I’m aware that we could all crash on the rocks tomorrow. But slowly, we should see improvement.

For now, I’m enjoying the opportunity to reissue old books that haven’t seen the light of day in years because storage of print books is too costly. On June 12, Book View Café will reissue my 1997 Regency romance THE MARQUESS   with a stunning new cover, in anticipation of the July release of the never-before printed sequel, THE ENGLISH HEIRESS, Michael’s book.(click for sample pages)

 And in the interest of change, BVC has completely updated their website and bookstore. If you go over and find a book you’d like to have, and come back here and tell me which one, you could win a free coupon for that book. Here are the official rules:

Book View Café is celebrating the opening of our new, completely-redesigned bookstore by giving readers a chance to get the book of their choice free. Just take a look around the store anytime up until midnight, June 8, and choose the book you'd like—all the books that are eligible for the giveaway are plainly marked. Then come back here and leave a comment with the name and author of the book and why you want it (BVC may use that comment for publicity purposes).

 When the promotion ends, Sherrie will pull a name from your comments out of the hat, and I'll send you a coupon for the book of your choice. If you're interested, you can go to all the blogs listed in the link above and comment for more chances to win a coupon. What's the point of new technology if we can't play with it?

How would you put the brakes on technology? Or improve it?

Diaries and Journals

Anne here. Do you keep a diary or a journal?

As a child, I regularly resolved each new year that this year I would keep one, but  every year my enthusiasm for the diary had more or less petered out by the end of January. Partly it was because I was too busy living my life — New Year in Australia is the beginning of the long summer holidays, which meant for me, many happy hours at the beach and no thoughts of writing. But also, I thought to do it properly, I had to write in it every day, so once I missed a day, a backlog immediately started to mount up. (Yes, the dark side of perfectionism was in evidence even then.)

The other thing was, I was never quite sure who I was writing it for. Was it for myself? And if so, why bother writing it all down? I had a memory for that, didn't I? (Remember, I was a child.) Or was I aiming to write something that would be of interest to future generations, like Samuel Pepys, or Anne Frank?Yes, the Anne Frank of my small country town, sitting in the box room, reflecting on my everyday world in a way that might be of interest to historians of the future. I knew quite a bit about dogs. What else?

It was a fairly daunting prospect — what did I have to say? How did I know what might be interesting? What sort of detail should I include?

A friend of mine's grandfather kept a diary every day of his life for years. He never shared it, and for years the family speculated on what he noted in it so diligently every night at the kitchen table.

After his death they read it; it contained a detailed description of everything he ate— this kind of thing, for instance. "Breakfast, porridge, scorched through Ada's inattention. Dinner, mutton chops a little tough, beans, mashed potatoes, roly poly pudding and custard." Riveting stuff. Well, the roly poly pudding might be — it's yummy. Here's a pic on the left. 

 The only variation was Sunday, which included a tally of the numbers of people who attended the service, and bizarrely, the number of women wearing hats. I say bizarrely, because my own grandfather used to tell us how many hats there were in church as well. It's either a generational thing — a Grandfatherly Habit — or else a standard way of whiling away a boring service. 

Anyway, the diary was a huge disappointment to his grandchildren, who were hoping for something a bit more juicy than the Sunday roast. And hats.

So I wondered whether my diary should be something incredibly personal and meaningful to me. I remember when I was about thirteen starting a journal that was chock-full of teenage angst — heartfelt and dramatic outpourings of all sorts. After about three weeks it was such an embarrassing and incriminating document —what if someone read it? I'd simply die of agony!—that I had no alternative but to burn it. Destroy the evidence.

I don't really know why I persisted so long as a serial failed diarist. But I felt I ought to be able to do it. Other friends kept diaries from one end of the year to the next, so why couldn't I?

(I wish someone back then had suggested to me I write stories instead, but no-one ever did, and the idea — as far as I can remember— never occurred to me. Stories came from books or were told by old people about when they were young. I dreamed them up all the time, but they were just for me, and I never wrote them down. Or if I did, I've forgotten. Because we moved a lot, most of my things were thrown out — only Teddy and a few beloved books survived all the moves. Nothing so flimsy as a story on paper.)

Then in 2007, I listened to Eric Maisel speak at the NINC (Novelists Inc) conference, and he suggested it was A Very Good Thing for a writer to keep a writing diary, so they could look back on their process and reflect on it. That way you could a) understand your process better and b) improve it.  

Now that was a purpose I could see the sense of, and so from then on I started keeping a journal. I don't write in it every day, just whenever I feel like it.

In this journal, I reflect on my writing — though rarely, I have to say, when it's going well. In fact there are some bits where I'm reminded of those teenage outpourings of angst. And often it's not about the writing but about various aspects of my life. But I'm talking to me, working things out, and not thinking of any audience other than myself. And the extraordinary thing to me is, is I've kept this journal, more or less continuously since March, 2007.

Has it helped me in the process of writing? I have to say it has. There are times when I'm in a dark place with the current book and I'm totally convinced it's never going to work, that I'll have to give the advance back and what was I ever doing, thinking I could make this idea work? Or even be a writer.

So I read back over some old entries, and I find parts where I've felt much the same for every book I've written since I started keeping the journal.  Ok, so this is part of my process. And I read over how I felt then, and what I did then, and I come away reassured that I can make this book work, that if I keep working and thinking, the solution will come to me. And though so many of the entries verge on teenage angst revisited, they end up reassuring me. In fact, I love my journals. But they're nothing I would ever share. Ever!

And that thought got me thinking about the various diaries and letters that have been burned over the years — Byron's memoirs, burned after his death, and in opposition of his will, by his friend and publisher, John Murray, who presumably thought the public would be so scandalized by the memoirs that it would irretrievably damage Byron's reputation — and John Murray's sales.
On the left is a painting of Byron in Albanian costume; on the right is a photo of John Murray's descendant, also called John Murray, standing in front of the fireplace where the memoirs were burned, over which hangs a portrait of Byron.

What the world lost that day.

And the letters of Jane Austen that her sister Cassandra burned and censored, and those her great-niece also destroyed. I'm ambivalent about those decisions — the reader and historian in me is appalled at the wanton destruction of those priceless letters. The person who keeps a very personal journal (see admission of embarrassing and incriminating outpourings of angst, above) heartily sympathizes with the protection of a person's privacy. 

As a writer, I love reading old diaries and journals and collections of letters. In fact when I started writing this, I was going to write about some I've used in the research for my books, but I'm looking down the barrel of a deadline and don't have the time to look up the references I want to quote from, so I'll save that topic for another day.

So, what about you — do you keep a journal or diary? If so, for how long?  And do you Count Hats, List Vegetables or something more interesting? And if not, are you a failed serial diarist like I was, or have you never been interested? What do you think of the burning of Byron's memoirs and Jane Austen's letters? Would it make a difference to you what the person's wishes were? Do you like reading other people's journals? Have you ever sneaked a peek at someone's diary? What happened?

Island Magic!

Nicola here. Today I am talking about the appeal of islands. I’ve just returned from a research trip to Scotland for the book I’m currently writing. It’s called The Lady and the Laird and it’s the first in a new Regency Scottish-set trilogy I have coming out next year. I’ve got to say I’m enjoying the research very much! I’m lucky – I go to Scotland as often as I can, usually once a year, but this trip was even more wonderful than usual. This time I was visiting The Northern Isles, and staying on Fair Isle, the most remote inhabited island in the UK.

Islands are special. In an article here, Nicholas Crane, sums up their appeal. They feel far away from the rush and hurry of modern life. They cast a spell. Fair Isle is extra special. Known as Ultima Thule to the Romans, and Fridarey, the Truce Isle, to the Vikings, it is located between the Shetland and the Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland. This ancient map is roughly the right shape and there are still whales and porpoises in the waters around the isle today.

Fair Isle is a tiny jewel of a place, three miles long and one mile wide, with soaring cliffs, a white sand beach and a scattering of crofts. These days Fair Isle is known for wildlife tourism, stunning views and of course, the world famous Fair Isle knitting! It’s also a place that gives visitors a very warm welcome, which is lucky because when the weather turns and the Atlantic storms blow in you sometimes find, as we did, that you are marooned and have to stay longer than you intended! Then the islanders throw a ceilidh - a party with traditional music - and you wish you could stay forever.

 Vikings

The history of inhabitation on Fair Isle goes back to the Bronze Age. There is a dramatic Iron Age promontory fort on one of the cliffs commanding views over the harbour, which is known as the North Haven. The Vikings were quick to see the potential of the island. It is mentioned in the Norse Sagas and their legacy lives on in that many of the place names on the island are Norse in origin. One of my favourite archaeological sites was the Viking “nausts” at the South harbour here in my photo. These are the cuts in the bank above the waterline where the ships were pulled up out of the sea. The winter nausts were higher up the bank than the summer ones to protect the boats against the stronger winter storms. These cuts are still in use today, over a thousand years later. That historical continuity had my mind exploding with excitement!

Shipwrecks

The sea is a force to be recognised in a place like Fair Isle, all the more so because it is surrounded by a “roost” a place where currents meet and create particularly turbulent sea conditions. Shipwrecks were common up until the 20^th century. The first recorded wreck was in AD 900 when a Viking longship ran aground. One of the reasons for the number of wrecks was that the British Government was very slow in establishing lighthouses on Fair Isle despite the dangerous waters that surrounded it. It took the combined petitions of many organisations that had lost shipping in wrecks finally to persuade the Northern Lighthouse Board to act. It was not until 1890 that Tom Stevenson, father of Robert Louis Stevenson, erected two lighthouses, the North and South light. Robert’s description of the island was romantic: “The coast of Fair Isle is the wildest and most unpitying that we have ever seen. Continuous cliffs tower over huge voes and echoing caverns… The rains and winds beat upon the towering rocks and the mists rise up and conceal it… it bids all defiance and stands there as a fortress…” The spectacular arches, caves and blowholes are absolutely stunning.

We visited the tiny churchyard where there is a monument to the most famous shipwreck of them all, that of El Gran Griffon in 1588. The 650 ton flagship of the transport division of the Spanish Armada had been damaged in battle and was battered by storms when it was driven onto the cliffs of the island. The men escaped by climbing the foremast, which was wedged against the cliff. Seven died in the attempt. At that time Fair Isle had a population of 17 households. Despite the fact that the Spaniards were their enemy they took them into their homes and fed them as best they could. Conditions on the island were dire and food scarce; fifty of the sailors died of starvation but the Spanish paid for everything they took and there was no fighting between them and the islanders. Eventually they were rescued and taken to Shetland and from there to mainland Scotland.

By 1728 there were rumours of treasure on board the wreck and these persisted until a team of divers explored it in 1970, raising the cannon, still loaded for battle, and finding lead ingots and just one silver 4-real coin of King Philip II!

Falcons for a King

In the 17^th century the best peregrine falcons in the Royal Mews in London came from Fair Isle and the Royal Falconer to both James I and Charles II was recorded as travelling to Fair Isle specifically to take the birds back to London for sport.

Birds, mainly seabirds, have always been a part of the Fair Isle economy. In the 19^th century the island produced six stones of feathers a year and paid some of its rent to the laird in feathers at three shillings per stone!

War, Smuggling, Piracy and the Press Gang

From the mid eighteenth century, smuggling was rife in the Shetlands and around Fair Isle. Many lairds and merchants became involved in smuggling tea, tobacco and gin from Holland and timber from Norway. A ship with a legitimate trade in timber might make a dash for Holland, return and drop off the contraband on one of the remote islands and then set sail for Norway on its official voyage, blaming the delay on the weather when questioned by the Excisemen! There is a cave on Fair Isle called the “Thieves Hole” which was used for smuggling in the 18^th and into the 19^th centuries. A very disapproving report of 1816 referred to the islanders as all being “professional smugglers.”

The cave also came in useful when the press gangs arrived to force men to join the Navy. The press gangs were ruthless, carrying off almost 60% of the adult male population of Shetland to serve in the Dutch, American and French wars. Fair Isle was too small an island economy to be able to afford to lose its young and able-bodied sailors and so when the word went round that the press gang was in its way the men would hide in the Thieves’ Hole until the danger was past.

Whenever there was a war on the seas around Fair Isle became a hunting ground for privateers. These privately owned warships were licensed by governments to capture enemy merchant vessels. On one occasion during the Revolutionary War with America the men of Fair Isle spotted an American privateer approaching and outran it to pass word to the regiment on Mainland Shetland that the enemy was on the way. On another occasion a French privateer was damaged and towed into harbour. The Captain requested provisions for his crew, saying that he would pay a fair price for them but that if he were refused they would “furnish themselves according to the rules of war.” Faced with this polite threat the laird handed over the provisions!

On one of the days we climbed to the top of a cliff called Malcolm’s Head to visit the ruins of the Napoleonic watch tower that was built to look out for enemy ships. There isn’t a lot of building material on Fair Isle as there are few trees because of the climate – and any wood that was found there formerly came from wrecks and driftwood. As a result they turned to unusual building materials for the watchtower, constructing the first tower from peat stuck together by eggs! It must have been extremely lonely as well as very stormy for the watchmen living on the top of the cliffs manning the beacon fires to warn of the enemy’s approach. On the day we were up there the wind was so strong you could barely stand up!

My favourite house on the island was the Auld Haa, built in the 18^th century in the Orkney style with crow-stepped gables. In the 19^th century this was the laird’s residence although he seldom visited and it was his factor who lived permanently on the island and oversaw the day to day business of the estate. As you can see, it's solid rather than grand. In 1814 Sir Walter Scott paid a visit to Fair Isle and dined with the factor, James Strong at the Auld Haa. Sir Walter didn’t think much of Fair Isle, referring to the inhabitants as “wild people.” He took a trip up Ward Hill, the highest point on the island. In his day the remains of the Viking beacon station could still be seen on the top. Sir Walter then retired to his yacht and sailed away, happy to leave Fair Isle behind!

Today Fair Isle still feels wild and remote and you can taste the history of the past centuries. You have to be fairly intrepid to get there as the final leg of the journey from Mainland Shetland involves either a rough sea crossing or an exciting flight in a tiny seven seater aircraft. It's worth it, though, for the stunning scenery and the inspiring history! When The Lady and the Laird comes out there will be a number of elements of Fair Isle history featuring in the story!

Do you think you would like to live on an island or would you find it too remote? Do you have a favourite island, one whose history you particularly enjoy, or one that you would like to visit?

JO'S MUSE TELLS ALL

Greetings, dear souls. This is Jo's muse, supplanting her this week, for who can better relate the story of her ascent into the glories of publication than the entity solely responsible for that and for all her subsequent literary achievements.

And if there have been dips, take heed all ye who have artistic aspirations, they happened when she pissed me off.  *g*

But I came to her like a guardian angel at birth or even before. We do get some input into the pre-conception planning committee, you know. I couldn't swing a literary family, and I fought against the dysfunctional one so beloved of literary muses. All I requested was a book loving family, and that I achieved.

The Muse (Susan Walker Morse, 1836) The Metropolitan Museum of Art www.metmuseum.org

Read to in the crib and taken to the library in the push chair; surrounded every evening by older siblings and parents with their attention on books, she was soon a fluent reader and not long after that began her first simple attempts at story telling.

And thus we progressed. We encountered a few stumbling blocks, not least the teachers who attempted to suppress imagination, trying instead to force their classes to write what they knew. What did you do in your summer holiday and such twaddle. Teachers who would tell children not to make things up. But we survived.

Jo passed the 11 plus exam and went to an excellent grammar school as a boarder, and at sixteen, she finally responded to my gentle prods and put pen to paper -- or to be precise, pen to exercise book -- to write a novel. A short novel, but a novel, and it is to my credit, I think, that she felt no trepidation and that she finished it. It helped that she could pass her medieval romance around to her friends, page by page, for acclamation and "what happens next?" Rich fuel for the literary fire. It was clear her chosen genre was historical romance and so I set my mind to that and firmly steered her, despite some wayward impulses on her part -- Art? How dare an art muse try to intervene? -- toward a history degree.

Through carelessness, I almost stumbled. Keele University insisted on a joint honors. Jo turned, naturally enough, toward the English department. I soon put a stop to that! We were destined for the popular arts. The lure of the different led her to American Studies, which has turned out to be useful even though Henry James was a sad trial.

University provided distractions and Jo ceased to write fiction, but she continued to read, especially her prime comfort and relaxation author, Georgette Heyer. She was conscious at the time of enjoying experiences that could be of great use if she ever achieved her ambition -- to give others the same reading pleasure that she had received from Heyer and from other similar authors.

My choice of Keele University was not, of course, accidental. It is a campus university, some way from urban distractions and built around a stately home, Keele Hall, which is still standing and used for teaching and social events. In a community of less than 2,000 she lived many aspects of the ton life of the Regency.

Like a ton season, this was a circumscribed world, both in dimensions and population. Like a ton season, business -- education -- blended with a continuous round of social activity. It was the flamboyant sixties and Keele was on the cutting edge. There were Brummels and Byrons, Lady Cowpers and Mary Shelleys, and some incidents distinctly reminiscent of Lady Caroline Lamb and Mad Jack Mytton!

Once Jo graduated, I inspired her once more to attempt stories but I could not drive her toward learning the business with any seriousness. So I sent her a mentor -- an older fellow student of youth employment who was also a writer. This lady had sold a number of articles and other sorts of writing. She understood the world of publishing. After some more prodding by me, Jo agreed to do a project on writing as a career.

I sat back with satisfaction to watch events unfold.

They remained resolutely folded.

Did Jo join a writer's circle, as recommended? Did she write to publishers for advice? No, she put aside writing again, married and started a job.

I realized it was time for sterner measures, but this was when I realized that Jo perceived a complete inability to type as a block. Perhaps she was correct. When I provided a typewriter, any attempt to produce one page of reasonable work was torture for her.

There was nothing for it but to retreat and work with the muses of technology to speed the development of the word processor. Mr. Gates and many others who profited by my labor have never thanked me.

When I turned my attention back to Jo, I realized with horror that she was rising extremely fast in her career. She had abandoned her writing aspirations. This would not do. A tempting offer for her husband, a spirit of adventure, and soon they were off to Canada, where Jo's qualifications didn't translate. After a prod from me, Jo's husband said, "Why don't you write that novel you've always been talking about?"

So Jo did. Typing was still a struggle -- my work with technology had not quite come to fruition -- and so she abandoned the typewriter part way through and hand wrote the rest. But it was a novel, a Regency romance, and she now had the sense of being a writer.

But when she wrote to a publisher asking how to submit a book, she received a letter saying they only accepted agented submissions. She translated this to mean that there were some arcane qualifications needed, or membership of some select group. This might not have daunted her entirely if nature hadn't taken a hand and made her pregnant.

I was content with that, for a life of varied experience is beneficial to a writer and I was still rather busy with the personal computer. Jo's household soon had one of the earliest versions, and I was sure that as soon as she'd survived the earliest years of her son's life she would make full use of it.

I should have known Jo would develop a new enthusiasm. This time, it was woman-centered childbirth. Soon she was teaching classes, teaching teachers, and president of the local association. The alarm shrieked, however, when she began to write and sell articles on the subject.

I am not a muse of non-fiction! Another job move put an end to her involvement with the childbirth group, and I decided the time for subtlety was over. I arranged for a talk at a nearby library on "How To Write A Romance." Two talks, in fact, on two Saturday afternoons.

Now, at last, someone laid out the facts -- not so much a formula of romance writing for we know there isn't one, but the processes of publishing. And the speaker offered to read a short piece of people's work for comment the next week.

Despite the many bits and pieces scribbled in notebooks over the years, Jo didn't have anything solid to offer. So she went home and wrote the beginning of a Regency romance. Having read all-too many regencies that started with peculiar beginnings, from snow storms to heroines leaping out of windows into men's arms she, contrary as always, decided to write about two people who had placidly agreed to a very suitable engagement to be married.

It began: "It was the most talked-about and most tedious betrothal of the season." Though many parts of the book were rewritten over the next three years, that first short chapter remained almost entirely untouched.

The novel went out to publishers. Like all writers, Jo was sure the publishing world would fall on its knees in gratitude for such a wonder. Of course, it was rejected. She still needed to hone her fiction writing skills.

I created a writers' group in Montreal -- the Writers Association for Romance and Mainstream, WARM -- and a short story writing contest which Jo won, but the group wasn't completely satisfactory. It met only quarterly and was not particularly focused.

So I moved the family on to Ottawa and started a romance writers group there. Jo's arrival coincided with the first true meeting of the group, attended by twenty-five unpublished writers and two local romance authors. There would be monthly meetings with speakers on craft. I planted the idea of a working group of five who would critique one another's work. I finally felt all was in place.

Jo tried her hand at contemporary romance because everyone else in the group was writing those, but it wasn't for her. In a sign of the future, her completed contemporary novel was judged to be excellent but too different for publication. She joined an SF&F writers group and continued an interest in that. She entered a contest called Writers of the Future. I stood back and merely provided a little luck now and then.

As long as she wrote fiction, I was content.

The stars moved into alignment in 1988. Jo sent her reworked regency romance to Walker Publications in New York, simply because they produced nice hardcovers that she borrowed from the library. She didn't know that this meant print runs of about 1,000, and I didn't care. I'm a muse, not a banker.

She received a long letter from the editor explaining all the reasons why the novel was not quite suitable for publication, and entirely missed the yets and buts. Fortunately the editor was impressed enough by the work to phone and ask if she was going to see it again. This cannot be depended upon.

Jo got to it, and Lord Wraybourne's Betrothed was purchased for publication. Within days she heard that she was a finalist in the Writers of the Future contest, and that her prize was paid publication in an annual anthology and a week-long writing workshop in California.

My work, of course. The process of publishing her first novel was an excellent learning experience, but I knew she would benefit from the intense focus of the writing workshop led by Algis Budrys and taught by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Orson Scott Card.

"The sky's the limit for this extraordinary talent," wrote Melinda Helfer, the wonderful regency reviewer for Romantic Times. The novel was a finalist for the RWA Golden Medallion (now the RITA.) We were on our way.

Now Jo has returned to England, her birthplace, and I continue my work, of course. We have over 40 novels to our credit. And Jo knows she would have achieved nothing without her word-processer and me.  Now that our newest book, A Scandalous Countess, is in bookstores, Jo is quite content to let me advise her on her next novel, so I am currently whispering in her ear . . .
 
~ Jo's muse

Now We Are Six—and a Surprise Announcement!

Mary Jo here, hosting the sixth anniversary celebration for the Word Wenches!  This is a long time for a blog to survive and flourish.  But we’re still having fun, still finding new topics to chat about, and new people to have as guests. 

Today, the Wenches reminisce about how they came to Wenchdom.  The announcement will be at the end.  (And no, it isn’t that we’re shutting down!) So here are the Wenches, and covers of books they published the year that they joined the blog.

Susan King
 
I remember, six years ago, having an email discussion with Mary Jo and Pat about starting up a group blog, followed soon after by a lunch with our shared website guru, Eileen, who brought more ideas quite literally to the table - and the fledgling concept of Word Wenches was born.

At the time, I was writing Scottish historical romances for Avon as Sarah Gabriel, having already written several historicals as Susan King. When I moved to Avon as Sarah, I was secretly hoping to write bigger mainstream novels someday as Susan. Sarah G. wrote two more historical romances, To Wed a Highland Bride  and Highland Groom -- and then Susan K. got the chance to research and write Lady Macbeth followed a couple of years later (these research-heavy books take time!) by Queen Hereafter.

Exploring the differences in writing for hardcover/trade over mass market genre has been exciting and challenging, and I hope I've grown as a writer and historian (certainly I've learned more patience...) . Currently I'm balancing several writing projects at once, so life is a bit crazy at the moment. I'm researching historical novels while converting my old Susan King backlist to ebook (Black Thorne's Rose, Laird of the Wind, and others are now available, with more soon). I'm also writing some nonfiction history, a refreshing change, as it needs a different focus and voice.

Yet one of the brightest highlights of these past six years is the Word Wenches. When I was first published, a very well-known author (I was so in awe!!) told me that the most valuable thing I would find as a published writer would be the friendships. She was right. I feel very blessed and fortunate to be a Wench -- and to be able to call each Wench a true friend. That's part of what makes our little blog so special, I think  -- we truly care about the blog, our readers, our books, and each other.

Patricia Rice:

2006 seems a millennia ago in book terms! I was still writing contemps, Magic Man and Small Town Girl were on the shelves, and my husband had just taken a new job and we'd moved to St Louis. These days, my contemporary romances are on the e-book backlist shelves, the MAGIC series is being reissued, I'm writing about the contemporary descendants of the Magic characters, and producing original e-books and writing urban fantasy. What a long, strange trip it's been!

 

Jo Beverley:

I knew I should blog and started to, but really couldn't keep up with it. Maybe some people love to journal, and others don't, so the Wenches was a great way to do my bit.  When I got Mary Jo’s e-mail inviting me to join the Word Wenches, I said yes immediately.  I really like what we’ve built here, and that we've created a flexible, dynamic group that can adapt to the ever-changing blogosphere.

 

Mary Jo Putney

Like Jo, I thought blogging would be A Good Thing, both for promotion and as a way to interact directly with readers.  I knew darned well I'd never manage one on my own, but with friends?  All of a sudden, an exciting idea took shape. 

Since I knew how busy we all are, I suggested that we enlist Sherrie Holmes, whom I knew from the Regency loops, to keep us organized, a job she's done beautifully ever since, while keeping us wildly entertained behind the scenes. <G> 

Over the last six years, I've changed publishers and added a new genre, YA historical fantasy, and it's all good.  I like blogging, even though it takes time away other things, like writing books.  It's fun to delve into random topics, and it's fun not to have to worry about every word the way I do on my novels.  I also like the chance to interview other authors whose work I admire, like <BLARE OF TRUMPETS!!!>:

Anne Gracie

In May 2006 I was probably working on the last of my "perfect-in-the-title" series, The Perfect Kiss. I was already a big fan of the Word Wenches as writers, but I can't remember exactly when I first started reading the blog. It was pretty soon after they started blogging I think, but in those days I was a bit shy about leaving comments. It was my regular morning ritual — to read the wench blog and all the comments — I loved the level of interesting discussion in the comment stream.

I do remember when I met Mary Jo and Jo and Pat at my first NINC (Novelists Inc) conference in March 2007 and I made some comment about them changing the blog from a post every day to only 3 times a week —  that was a word wench addict speaking. I do remember their expressions  when I said how I missed the daily dose of word wenchery.  I have to  laugh now, when as a word wench, I look at my calendar and exclaim,  "Another blog? Already?" because it's quite hard to come up with something fresh every fortnight. I don't know how they each blogged  once a week and still managed to write books.

I joined the word wenches in October 2008 and I remember how thrilled  I was when I read the email from Mary Jo inviting me to become a word wench. It's a wonderful group and I'm still very proud to be a word wench.  (His Captive Lady was published that year.)

Cara Elliott/Andrea Penrose

Now We Are Six . . . I love that I get a chance to trumpet A. A. Milne’s classic title, as it reminds me that from a very early age on, books were such an important part of my life. And they still are! Six years ago I wasn’t yet a Wench—and I wasn’t yet Cara Elliott or Andrea Penrose! So, much has changed for me personally as well as for publishing in general since 2006. E-readers were still just a flickering diode, bricks-and-mortar stores were still dominating the reading landscape, and I was just transitioning into mass market historical romance.

Things keep moving at cyber-speed, and there are a lot of crazy ups and downs in the book world, but for me, a constant has been the sense of camaraderie and community that comes from being part of this amazing group. I remember very well getting the call from Mary Jo asking if I’d be interested in joining the Wenches . . . and I nearly fell off my chair. Me? Needless to say, I was speechless with shock. And with excitement at the chance to rub cyber-shoulders with such wonderful authors. We’ve all become great friends, and have a wonderful time together, sharing laughter and our love of good books, as well as hugs when there’s a bump in the road.

It’s a very special part of my writing life, made even more so by the fact that we get to interact with such a wonderful group of readers.

Nicola Cornick

2006 was an exciting year! It was the year that my first book for HQN, Deceived, was published. I was working on the follow up, Lord of Scandal, that spring. At the same time I was in the second year of my MA in Public History at Ruskin College in Oxford and was working very hard on my dissertation on heroes and hero myths. There was a lot of writing of one sort or another going on! I also remember wonderful holidays in Norfolk and Wales that year and a memorable trip to Atlanta for the RWA Conference.

I heard of the Word Wenches early on and was over-awed by their combined star power, their fabulous books and their historical knowledge. I dropped into the blog regularly but I never imagined I would ever become a Wench. When Anne Gracie emailed me to invite me to join I almost fell off my chair with shock and excitement. My husband says I didn’t speak for half an hour! I learn a lot from reading the blog and I love that. I also enjoy the fact that the blog has an international feel with Wenches on several continents and I love the discussions with the other Wenches and our readers. It’s wonderful!

Joanna Bourne

Six years ago I'd just come back to the States after many years overseas.  I did all the settling down things you do.  Picked out a dog and cat from the animal shelter.  Put the kid in school.  Bought a house.  Planted peonies.  I was on a roll.

I'd been agented for a couple of months at that point, and we'd begun what would turn out to be a year-long quest to sell that The Spymaster's Lady.  I was working away on Lord and Spymaster, figuring if I couldn't sell a historical set in Napoleonic France, by golly, I'd sell one set in Regency England.

When Word Wenches showed up on the internet, I read them regularly.  Pretty soon, the Wenches were bookmarked because they kept popping up whenever I went searching for some interesting historical material. 

Zip forward a few years.  I met Anne Gracie in person at the RWA National Conference.  What a lovely, funny woman.  Through her, I meet the other Wenches.  I was delighted and very surprised to be asked join Word Wenches.  Leapt at the possibility, though.  Snap.

So here I am, the most recent, baby Word Wench, with a bare two years tenure.  Still, as they say, wet behind the ears.

Mary Jo again. 

As you can see, the theme of fellowship is an important thread here.  It doesn't matter that we haven't all met in person, or that we're scattered across three continents.  (The latter is part of the fun!)

Writing is a solitary profession, and while we’re mostly introverts, we need to spend time interacting with out tribe.  And the Word Wenches—and our readers—are a tribe.

Surprise!

Now for the announcement: we’re publishing a Word Wenches Christmas anthology this year!  MISCHIEF AND MISTLETOE will be released by Kensington on September 25th in a trade sized edition. (The larger size of paperback.) 

It contains eight Christmas novelettes, one by each current Wench, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.  After reading the proposals, I was struck by how characteristic they are.  Whatever themes Wench a writes in her full length novels is right there in short form. <G> 

The anthology came about rather like the blog itself.  I think it was our web goddess Eileen Buckholtz who first suggested the possibility.  (She's a born marketing genius.)

We kicked the idea around for quite some time until we agreed on what we wanted to do.  Susan organized our short synopses into a proposal, we sent it off—and lo!  Multiple offers!  I was amazed.  But delighted. <G>

Win a copy!

So—come October, a copy of Mischief and Mistletoe will be sent to one commenter on this blog between now and midnight Thursday.

In addition, last summer regular Wench reader Jane Irish Nelson suggested that we should do an anthology.  We didn’t say anything then, but we think she deserves a book for figuring out what we were up to. <G>  Jane, remind us in October if we forget!

So there we are: six years of Wenchdom.  Of history and humor, learning and laughter, philosophy and fellowship.  Nothing is forever, but we're still going strong.  We hope you'll continue to enjoy the journey with us.

Do you like anthologies?  Holiday anthologies?  Any comments on our six years of blogging?  Please share!

Mary Jo, Susan, Pat, Jo, Anne, Andrea, Nicola, Joanna, & Sherrie the Cat-Herder

 PS: It's been suggested that links to Barnes and Noble and Amazon would be useful for those of you who want to preorder.  So here you go!

 

A Soliloquy for Sendak

Cara/Andrea here, As you may have noticed, the Wenches have been talking a lot about books lately—those we remember from childhood, those “classic musts” we haven’t read, those we loved, those we loathed. Which in turn got us talking among ourselves about  those authors who struck a special chord within us that resonates to this day. Last week Anne did a beautiful piece on A.A. Milne.

And today I’m going to talk about Maurice Sendak, who passed away on May 8.

“Let the wild rumpus begin!”

Among the myriad of glowing tributes to this remarkable man was a column in the New York Times calling him “the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche.” Powerful words indeed. But then, Sendak’s word and pictures have had a powerful and profound influence on countless people around the world, both young and old. Including me.

"There must be more to life than having everything!”

The essence of his genius was his honesty. He wrote and drew about the things we all knew were true—that childhood is not an idyllic time of warm and fuzzy happiness. Kids have terrible fears and anxieties. (Did you worry about monsters under the bed? For several years after a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I was seven, I was terrified that a mummy was going to come strangle me in the middle of the night. There were times I made my father check the playroom to make sure it wasn’t lurking there before I could go to sleep.)

"I'm in the milk and the milk's in me."

Sendak captured those fears and anxieties brilliantly, with a wit and wonderfully evocative drawings. Max and Mickey are so appealing because they embody a little of all of us. They’re not goody-two-shoes. They’re brash, defiant  and “bad” (weren’t we all as kids?)  And they are adventurous, despite being just a little bit afraid of the unknown. Sendak showed that it’s fun—and okay—to be angry and to want to blow off steam. He also showed that ultimately it’s also fun to come back to a safe place. Simple stuff, really. But he opened up a whole new world of children’s literature by pushing into the dark side.

I’m now going to wax a little personal here, because I was fortunate enough to study with Sendak at Yale. An English professor had arranged to have him come teach for a semester through a special seminar program designed to bring professionals in a variety of fields, rather than traditional academics, to come share their expertise with the students. (It’s the same program that brought Lauren Willig and me to New Haven to teach a course on Regency romance.) There were eighteen spots available and I got one of them.

Lucky me.

I’m not sure who was more nervous at the first class meeting—us or Sendak. We were all, of course, in awe of this amazing genius. Well, it turns out he was intimidated by the idea of being at Yale.  At first he sat there, silent and solemn while the English professor went over the “housekeeping” details of how the class would meet and what the work requirements would be. Dark hair, dark beard, dark-framed glasses, dark brooding eyes—he looked, well, grim . . . or perhaps Grimm is a better description, as the famous German fairy tales were a passion of his. (His illustrated version is not to be missed.)

When it came time for him to say something, he regarded us for a moment more with his penetrating gaze and then his mouth slowly curled into the wryly impish signature Sendak smile. I wish I could quote exactly what he said to us, but it went something along the lines of that all he could think of was the absurdity of a Jewish kid from Brooklyn who had never gone to college coming to teach at Yale . . . and that he was so terrified he could hardly speak.

We all let out nervous little laughs.

His smile grew a touch wider, his voice a little louder, as he went on to say that he try to muddle through it and hoped that we would all have some fun in the coming months.

Fun doesn’t begin to describe the experience. Sendak couldn’t have been a kinder, more encouraging teacher. He spent a lot of time one-on-one with us, looking at our paltry efforts at storytelling and drawing, offering gentle suggestions on how to dig deeper and let the emotion within ourselves come out on the page. It was incredibly inspiring.


From Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or There Must Be More To Life

    “You have everything . . .” The plant continued. “Two pillows, two bowls, a red wool sweater, eyedrops, eardrops, two different bottles of pills. A thermometer and your master even loves you.”
    “That is true," said Jennie, chewing more leaves.
    “You have everything,” repeated the plant.
    Jennie only nodded, her mouth full of leaves.
    “Then why are you leaving?”
    “Because,” said Jennie snapping off the stem and blossom, “I am discontented. I want something I do not have. There must be more to life than having everything!”
    The plant had s nothing to say.
    It had nothing left to say it with.

Just as inspiring was listening to him talk about his own work, his own influences, his own aspirations. Sendak felt very good about his two most well-known books, “Where The Wild Things Are” and “In the Night Kitchen” (he was still perplexed on why a naked Mickey had stirred such visceral reactions. But when pressed, he said considered “Higglety Pigglety Pop! Or, There Must Be More To Life” his most satisfying work. (It was written in homage to his beloved Sealyham Terrier, Jennie.) He told us that he would  have loved to write the Great American Novel, but when he sat down to do it, it came out as “a dog talking to a pig about swallowing a mop.” That was his typical self-deprecating sense of humor. But within that wryness was a profound message. All through the semester he challenged us to be true to our own individual voices and tell our stories and draw our pictures from the heart.  That message has stuck with me, and when I’m struggling with a story, it’s one of the first things I think of  to help me find my way.

“Oh please don’t go! We’ll eat you up we love you so.”

Maurice Sendak may be gone from this world , but he’s left an extraordinary gift for children (of all ages) to enjoy for generations to come.

So what about you? Do you like his books, and do you have a favorite? Mine are “Where The Wild Things Are” for the sheer, exuberant fun of the drawings, and “Higglety Pigglety Pop!” for the universal truths embodied in the short, simple prose.

The Unread

The Wenches have been talking about books lately -- no surprise there -- and while we were discussing our favorite children's books, we mentioned some famous classics and significant books we've actually never read -- even if everyone else was reading it and raving. Even if we should have read it, or it was assigned in school and we squirmed out of it, or we felt for one reason or another that this must-read was a no-thank-you. Some books are collecting dust on our bookshelves, never opened (and some well=known books are not on our bookshelves). And now we're willing to admit -- yeah, I never read that. 

So here you go: The Wenches Admit to The Unread.

Mary Jo Putney has never read: 

I've never read A. A. Milne or Paddington Bear or even Maurice Sendak.  Nor The Secret Garden or the Wizard of Oz, among many others.  A lot of the kid classics simply didn't come my way.  If they had, I'd have read them, because I went through books like locusts through a field! 

For adult books, I've read Jane Eyre and other Charlotte Bronte novels, but forget Wuthering Heights.  Those people sounded like they all need a good therapist!

There are MASSES of Great Twentieth Century White Male Authors I've never read.  F. Scott Fitzgerald.  William Faulkner.  Tried Hemingway, didn't like him.  Was tempted to ship him a cartload of adjectives and adverbs. <G>  I read ETHAN FROME and by the end I wanted to slit my wrists.  I've never touched Edith Wharton again.  I had to read some Henry James, too.  Ditto Thomas Hardy.  I've never touched any of them voluntarily.  There's a reason why my English degree was in 18th Century British literature--guys like Henry Fielding and Oliver Goldsmith and Alexander Pope were FUN!

Joanna Bourne has never read:

I’m another one who has never read A.A. Milne.  <blush>
And I've never read King Lear. I have no idea why I haven't read it.  I've read Titus Andronicus.  I've read Troilus and Cressida.  But somehow I missed King Lear.  It's like this weird empty space in the universe of books.  

Cara Elliott/Andrea Penrose has never read:

Okay, I've never read C. S. Lewis, and I'm not sure how that happened. But there it is. I have never read The Chronicles of Narnia. Can't explain why—I loved Tolkien, and I know it's a classic, with the sort of complex themes that I like in a book. So what's holding me back? Shrug. Dunno. Now that I'm thinking about it, will try to remember to pick one up on my next trip to the library.

And I've never gotten into the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. I started the first one, and for some reason put it down and didn't pick it up again. A good friend has been pestering me about it ever since, promising me that I will adore it once I get past the first 100 pages. Will try again soon.

Anne Gracie has never read:

So many people have told me I must, must MUST read Dorothy Dunnet, and yet, for some reason I haven't. I don't know why. Several times I've gone to buy the first in her famous series, and then couldn't remember what the first was. But partly, it's having a legion of people out there telling me I must read her because I will love her. They're probably right—these are friends, with similar tastes to mine— but there's a level of that kind of encouragement that tips over into discouragement once it reaches a certain pitch. 

That said, writing this had made me bite the bullet, and I've just ordered her Game of Kings.

Patricia Rice has never read:

I had no school library until fourth grade, where I remember starting on one end and working my way around, but I never read A. A. Milne in those days. When I finally ordered books from Scholastic, I started with Pride and Prejudice. So while my childhood reading material might have covered everything from Walter Farley to Dostoevsky (I found a classic literature reading list), I missed out on all the favorites. 

Susan King has never read:

While I read Jane Eyre more than once, I couldn't drag myself through Wuthering Heights - wanted to throttle Heathcliff early on, that was that. I've never read The Secret Garden or Velveteen Rabbit, don't know how I missed those - just never was interested. I've avoided Steinbeck, Sinclair, others for being just so depressing, despite their social worth. And I confess, I've never read Georgette Heyer, or very little of her work ... I did try, but it didn't click with me - not in my field of interest when I was steeping myself in Robin Hood and King Arthur and medieval history at the same time that friends were tracking from Austen to Heyer, I think.   

Jo Beverley has never read:

I don't do guilt!

Wuthering Heights -- never, because it's a tragedy.

War and Peace - always felt like an "ought to," so  -- no.

As I don't do much Victorian, scratch Dickens, Trollope, etc (apart from at school).

 Your turn! What are you willing to admit you've never read? And what would you be willing to try that you've avoided reading until now?

 

 

The Wenches' Favorite Children's Books!

. . . Imagine eight little Wenches as small girls, each curled up in a big comfy chair, lost in the pages of some wonderful book . . . Anne's recent post about A. A. Milne and our beloved bear-pal, Winnie the Pooh, inspired us Wenches to think about our own favorite books when we were just small.

Here are our lists and thoughts on the subject -- as you read through, think about your own favorite children's books -- we'll be asking about your favorite reads when you were kids!  

 

Jo Beverley:

1. The Blue Fairy Book, Red Fairy Book, Pink Fairy Book, Green…and so on. There were lots of different colours!  
2. Various "horsey" books by Christine Pullein-Johnson and her sisters, Diana and Josephine
3. Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield 
4. Slim Tales, a series about anthropomorphic mice

... Though most of the time I just grazed the library shelves!

Joanna Bourne:

I loved Tom Corbett.  And Lucky Starr.  And all of Heinlein's YAs.  I guess I was ten or twelve ...

This is going back a ways.  I know I read about anything I could get my hands on.   I loved the Narnia books.  They're magical.  I read all kinds of traditional fairy stories and legends.  The Once and Future King.  Oh.  One book I remember enjoying when I was very young was Kingsley's Water Babies.

And I indulge myself with this, from Milne (it is better read aloud):
The King asked
The Queen, and
The Queen asked
The Dairymaid:
"Could we have some butter for
The Royal slice of bread?"

Pat Rice:

I grew up in a house with only four books--classic plays like Ibsen that no one read but me. I can remember as a toddler grabbing Little Golden Books at the grocery so I got The Little Engine That Could and The Poky Little Puppy. I had no school library until fourth grade, where I remember starting on one end and working my way around, but if they had A. A. Milne, I was too old to consider it by the time I reached “M.”  When I was able to order from Scholastic, I started with Pride and Prejudice. No one read to me, so I was completely on my own in my choices. When it came time to read to my own children, I had no background to call on. I started them on Seuss and Berenstains and they were reading on their own before age four. Dr. Seuss books are the ones my family quotes. Want to hear Red Fish, Blue Fish? My kids did eventually get Winnie the Pooh, but they read those books to themselves. So while my childhood reading material might have covered everything from Walter Farley to Dostoevsky (because I found a classic literature reading list), I missed out on all the favorites. 

Mary Jo Putney: 

Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids, yessss!!!!  That was Asimov in YA mode!  The school library had only that one Lucky Starr book, but did have all the Heinlein YAs.  And I read and reread and RE-read them. And I read all the Tom Corbett, Space Cadet books.

I've never read A. A. Milne or Paddington Bear or even Maurice Sendak.  Nor The Secret Garden or the Wizard of Oz, among many others.  A lot of the kid classics simply didn't come my way.  If they had, I'd have read them, because I went through books like locusts through a field!  

Anne Gracie:

I read every horse book going. Pretty much all our reading matter came from English publishers in those days. There were some home grown — the Billabong series, old fashioned even when I was reading them, and various others. But I read everything I could get my hands on, didn't matter what kind of book and quickly went through all the books belonging to my older brother and sisters. Some books made it to Australia from the US. The Bobbsey twins and Cherry Ames came from the US, but I wasn't keen -- they belonged to my older sister. I was more about the animals. So, Thunderhead, Flicka, The Silver Brumby (brumbies are wild horses in Australia), Finn the Wolf hound, Wild Brother (Mary Patchett), and more.

The first stories I remember having read to me — probably because they were family favorites and we read them over and over again — were Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner by AA Milne. And loads of AA Milne poetry read aloud, much of which I still remember and can quote. I also loved the Pookie stories by Ivy Wallace. Pookie was a white rabbit with wings, who lived with a little girl called Belinda. I read pretty much any Enid Blyton book I could get my hands on — she was an incredibly prolific English children's author, who went out of favor for a while —political correctness, some of which was justified and some was plain silly. And also people thinking kids need to read only "good" literature, instead of fun reads. She's available again now, but some books are pretty dated. She was writing in the 40's and 50's and there's a bit of residual racism in some of the books. When I was little I liked Enid Blyton's Faraway tree series,and later it was the Famous Five, the "Mystery of" series (the Five Find-Outers and Dog) and her "of Adventure" series - Valley of Adventure, Mountain of Adventure etc, which had four children and a cockatoo (Kiki) and various other animals.

Cara Elliott/Andrea Penrose:

My early favorite picture books included Dr. Seuss, especially The Cat in the Hat and To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. I just loved the zany play with language. 

I started reading early on and quickly moved on to longer books with pictures. Stuart Little and The Wind in the Willows (with drawings by Arthur Rackham) and Howard Pyle's books on King Arthur, Robin Hood and Otto of the Silver Hand stick out in my memory. Even back then, I loved a rollicking good story! Winnie the Pooh was one of my early favorites too!

Susan King:

Fairy tales, first and foremost! I had a Tall Book of Fairy Tales that I adored, and also a big book of Greek myths that I hauled around everywhere with me. I loved Winnie the Pooh and Milne’s poetry, and I read my mother’s poetry books when I was very young—I remember Longfellow’s “Hiawatha,” “Evangeline,” R. L. Stevenson -- I loved the rhythms and word beauty, though I didn’t understand them then. (My highest praise of a book when I was very young was to draw a princess in crayon on the flyleaf. To me, a flyleaf was just a blank sheet of paper begging for a princess, and the best books got the best princesses!) 

My favorite children’s books, besides dear Pooh, were all the Pippi Longstocking books, which I read over and over, as well as Beverly Cleary’s Ellen Tebbits. I moved on to The Five Little Peppers, then Little Women and Little Men, and kept on going….

Your turn now! What were your favorite reads when you were just small?  Some of the Wenches are going back to read their favorite children's tales again (and some of us are reading the ones we never got around to!) -- and we'd love to know what you all loved to read, too . . . 

Susan

 

 

 

 

in which Anne talks about A.A. Milne

Anne here, and in case you're feeling a touch of Mondayitis, here's a little something to cheer you up.

'What day is it?'
'It's today,' squeaked Piglet.
'My favorite day,' said Pooh.

And why am I quoting Winnie the Pooh, when I should be talking about something historical? Well, it's almost historical. The other day we wenches were chatting about our anniversary — it's our 6th anniversary next week, and Susan suggested the title "Now We Are Six,"  which is the title of an AA Milne book of poetry for children. This in turn sparked a discussion about much loved books from childhood, and we discovered some of us were passionate AA Milne fans and others had grown up without him. 

AA Milne? He was an English writer and playwright born in 1882 whose writing for children — his poems, and particularly his stories about Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and others— became classics.

I guess the poems are less well known than Winnie the Pooh, so let's start with them. They're wonderful poems for reciting aloud — satisfyingly rhythmical and they rhyme, which as any child knows, a good poem should! 

I had them read to me as a child, often, and I still know many of them by heart. And snatches of them pop up at the oddest times. This one, for instance, had generations of children leaping from square to square on the footpath, because you mustn't ever tread on the lines because then the bears can get you.

The whole poem is here:  Lines and Squares

Here's one that shows how bullies should be dealt with — Bad Sir Brian Botany.

There are more poems here.

And if you like bread with butter... or prefer marmalade, this one is for you. But I have to say, I prefer reading the poems with the drawings.

Many of you will be familiar with the Disney version of Winnie the Pooh, in film and cartoon. But if you haven't read the original stories, especially those with the original line drawings by E.H. Shepard, you're in for a treat. E.H. Shepard was a staff cartoonist for the magazine PUNCH and because of these charming little drawings for children his name will live forever.

I'm not going to get into the argument which is better, the Disney Pooh or the original — both are very sweet and I've found people usually get attached to the first version of Pooh they met. But the Disney versions are not the same as the originals, and if you're someone who likes the clever use of language, and the subtlety and delicacy of line drawings, try reading Winnie The Pooh in the original.

They were written in the 1920's by A.A Milne for his son, Christopher Robin. At the time, Milne was a very successful playwright, and he had no idea his serious works would, in the end, be completely overshadowed by his children's poetry and the stories about a bear, a boy and their friends and their adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood.

It's based on the real forest where Christopher Robin played — Ashdown Forest in East Sussex in southwest England. It's still beautiful and these days tourists visit it because of the books, and they stand on this bridge and look down into the stream and play the game called Poohsticks. (You'll have to read the story.) The beautiful pic below is by Paula Pullinger.

Quote: You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.

The characters in the stories were based on Christopher Milne's real toys but for the drawings of Winnie the Pooh, E.H. Shepard used his own son's teddy bear, Growler. Christopher Robin's toys are pictured here and you can see that his teddy is not the model for Pooh Bear. Sadly Growler was eaten by a dog.

The books have sweetness, innocence, humor and also great wisdom. How's this for an example of what modern gurus call "mindfulness" or living in the moment?

'When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,' said Piglet at last, 'what's the first thing you say to yourself?'
'What's for breakfast?' said Pooh. 'What do you say, Piglet?'
'I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today,' said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. 'It's the same thing,' he said.

When I was discussing these books with some others who hadn't ever read them, the comment was made, "Oh, by the time I'd heard of them I was too old for them, and I don't have children, so I never read them."

The thing is, these books are not just for children. One of the secrets of the books' great popularity is that they're just as entertaining to read as an adult, I think.It's the humor, and the characterization. And the little gems of wisdom. For instance, these four quotes on love ...

'How do you spell 'love'?' Piglet asked.
'You don't spell it...you feel it,' said Pooh.

'Sometimes,' said Pooh, 'the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.'

Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude. 

'If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.' 

My brother took a copy of The House at Pooh Corner and Winnie the Pooh with him when he went to university. My brother wasn't the literary type: he was a hunter and a bushwalker and a rock climber. He was living in a residential college at the time and got stirred by a few of his mates for having kids' books on his shelf. He read a few bits out. They laughed. They ended up borrowing the books.

It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like 'What about lunch?' 

'People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.'

'Oh Tigger, where are your manners?'
'I don’t know, but I bet they’re having more fun than I am.'

There are also some wonderful life lessons. Christopher Robin says this to Pooh:

'If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together... there is something you must always remember. You're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I'll always be with you.'

In fact, if you put all four books together — the two volumes of poetry and the two collections of stories, you pretty much have a recipe to live by.

For instance, this certainly covers how I feel about my writing sometimes:
'I don't see much sense in that,' said Rabbit.
'No,' said Pooh humbly, 'there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way.' 

AA Milne even has something to say about being tubby — read this poem and you'll find yourself smiling at the end.

A bear, however hard he tries,

Grows tubby without exercise.
Our Teddy Bear is short and fat,
Which is not to be wondered at;
He gets what exercise he can
By falling off the ottoman,
But generally he seems to lack
The energy to clamber back. (read the rest here)

And if you're the academic type, there are even treatises on Winnie the Pooh -- mostly they're very funny spoofs on academic writing. I have this one that I bought many years ago when I was at university. It's still in print today: The Pooh Perplex. The full subtitle is: In Which It is Discovered that the True Meaning of the Pooh Stories is Not as Simple as is Usually Believed, but for Proper Elucidation Requires the Combined Efforts of Several Academicians of Varying Critical Persuasions.

So what about you — are you a devotee of Winnie the Pooh? Do you have a favorite A.A. Milne character or poem? And who did you meet first — the E.H. Shepard versions or the Disney ones? Or have you never read Winnie the Pooh? If you haven't there's a treat in store for you. 

And do you know the next line? James James Morrison Morrison Wetherby George Dupree...

Don't Know Much About History . . .

Cara/Andrea here, Today, I’m going to be talking about history. Okay, no surprise there, as our regular readers know that all of us Wenches are pretty passionate about the subject. But rather than wax poetic over some fascinating bit of research I’ve uncovered, I thought I’d share a really fun test of knowledge that fellow author Jody Novins recently e-mailed to me.



Now, I have to confess, I usually feel “above the salt” when it comes to British history. The Regency and Edwardian eras are the periods I know best, but I read enough to feel comfortable in other era . ..so when I saw that Jodie had forwarded the link to a History Prize competition that British 13-14yr. olds are invited to take, I thought . . . piece of cake.

Yeah, me and Marie Antoinette. In other words, I was toast.

Suitably humbled, I was intrigued enough to do a little research on the competition. According to its website, “The Townsend-Warner History Prize, started 126 years ago, is one of the oldest institutions in the preparatory school world. It has proved endurably popular in encouraging the study of history.  It is not linked to any national testing or examinations, but aims to provoke interest and delight in historical reading, facts and analysis . . .”

They go on to explain, “The Prize consists of two papers.  The first has 100 questions demanding one-word, or one-sentence, answers from world history, but with a strong emphasis on British history. Many are straightforward, some a little more obscure. Two hundred candidates qualify from Paper 1 to sit Paper 2.  This is in the form of essay questions, but allows candidates a very wide choice so that they can write on what they know, but also show analytical skill and historical imagination . . .”

Over 700 students took the first part of the exam, and according to the administrators, some of the answers proved quite amusing (I was relived to see that I wasn’t the only one a little fuzzy on some of the specifics.)  When asked about the Quakers, many linked them to oatmeal (porridge in “English”) and some students thought that the seventeenth century radical group, the Levellers, ‘took part in the Highland Clearances’. (I give them an A for Logic.)

So, ready to test your knowledge of English and World History? Sharpen your pencils and let’s see how you fair on the following! (I shall also point out that the one of the students in the top 30 was a ten-year-old boy. Maybe we should ask him to make a guest appearance.) I’ve included a link to the Townsend-Warner website in case you wish to see the entire text of each section.


1.   Answer these questions about rulers of England and Britain.

a)   Which English king signed Magna Carta?
b)   Which thirteenth century English king was nicknamed ‘Longshanks’?
c)   Who was the Black Prince?
d)   Which member of the Tudor family was England’s first crowned queen?
e)   Which Stuart king wrote A Counterblast to Tobacco?
f)   Which royal house followed the Stuarts as rulers of Britain?
g)  Who was Queen Victoria’s husband?
h)  Which king abdicated in 1936?

2.   Answer these questions on Roman Britain.
a)   Who led the first invasions in 55 and 54 BC?
b)   What is the modern name of the Roman town of Verulamium?
c)   What was the name of the tribe led by Boudicca in her rebellion?
d)   What was the name of the Roman road linking Londinium with Eboracum (modern York)?
e)   What supposedly happened to the Roman Ninth Legion?
f)   What was the name of the wall built north of Hadrian’s Wall and held by the Romans for twenty years or so?. . . to continue to the entire test click here

ESSAY SECTION
1. Write fully on TWO of the following:

Boudicca’s Rebellion (61)
Roman Roads in Britain
The Fall of the Roman Empire (410 on)
St Augustine of Canterbury (d 604)
The Vikings
The Great Wall of China
The importance of the Battle of Stamford Bridge
The importance of Norman Castles
The achievements of Henry II (1054-1089)
Richard I (1089-1099)
The Wool Trade in Medieval England
Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) . . . to continue to the entire test click here

So how did you fare? Was there any question you found particularly stumping? Would you like to see American schoolkids take such a test? . . . And how do you think they would do? (Sadly enough, I shudder to think of it.)

When Wenches Wed

by Mary Jo

As the Wench newsletter said, in April the Mayhem Consultant and I finally got around to getting married.  Since there was so much interest, I hijacked this date so I could tell you a bit more and show you some pictures.

Our aim was to have a ceremony that was classy but relaxed.  I have a friend who broke up with her fiancé three times between engagement and wedding.  She was an artist and a perfectionist, and I’m sure the wedding was perfect (I didn’t know her then, so I didn’t get to see).  But who needs that much stress?  Besides, they ended up getting divorced—those three break-ups must have meant something.  <g>

Our philosophy was that there are many good choices and no perfect ones, so once we found something we liked, we went for it. 

Finding the venue was easy—just a few miles away is a gorgeous building designed as an English manor house, with some elements copied from Warwick Castle.  The MC says it was built by a bootlegger who later gave it to an order of nuns in an attempt to expiate some of his many sins.  I am not sure about this—the official history of the building is much tamer. 

But whatever its past, the Castle at Maryvale, on the campus of a private Catholic girls’ school, is stunning, and so very, very right for a historical romance writer!

Despite my being a romance author, I’m not all of that romantic day to day.  But who could resist the image of floating down this staircase in something glamorous?

Even as a little girl, I never fantasized getting married in a sumptuous white gown—white was never my color.  But I love dark reds and burgundies, so I thought it would be fun to have a medieval style gown made in that color range.   So—I did.  I also went for the matching cape, which swept gracefully behind me.  (The result if either The Scarlet Woman or Little Red Riding Hood. <G>)

Another reason to have a proper wedding is because my two nieces had been hoping for someone in the family to get married so they could be flower girls.  By the time we got around to it, the older was junior bridesmaid size.  Aren’t Marielle and Caroline gorgeous?  Caroline looks just like my heroine, Lady Victoria Mansfield, aka “Tory.”

(All three of our gowns were made by Belinda Berry of Romantic Threads.  She specializes in marvelous historical garments.  She also made my necklace.)

 We wanted music to match the setting--baroque and classical works like Bach and Handel and Pachelbel and Mouret.  We were lucky to find the Raphael Flute and Strings Trio, which was perfect for this occasion. 

Food matters, too.  Good food and good company make an occasion.  The good company was the friends we've accumulated over the years. 

For the food, Maryvale had only two approved caterers, both very good, so we went with the one that really blew us away.  Chief regret: not enough leftovers. <G>

Cakes, like gowns, are the subject of much interest.  Our local gourmet grocer is considered one of the top bakers in Central Maryland, so we hopped over for a tasting (by the way, this tasting business in GREAT!  I never heard of it before planning this wedding), and made the mistake of starting with samples of their famous buttercream on pound cake.  Everything after that, both at this store and the other bakery we sampled, paled by comparison.  The taste was rich and yes, sumptuous, but not too sweet. 

We tossed in a bit of medieval looking design, and the caterer served the slices with real whipped cream and fresh berries.  Yummmmmmmmm!

 

Needless to say, all the Wenches and Whipmistress Sherrie were invited, but given the vast distances ("the sun never sets on the Wench Empire!" <g>), not everyone could come.  Pat and Susan were my bridesmaids, and Joanna was able to come, along with several of my non-Wench writer friends.  Note that the Elusive Susan managed to be least in sight when this picture was taken. <g> Pat, MJP, and Joanna are in the middle:

It really was a lovely time, and friends from many different parts of our lives mingled wonderfully even though they'd never met.  In the end, we got what we wanted--a wonderful party with friends and family where everyone seemed to be having a good time.  (Photographs taken by Shantel Mitchell and Edward Hawkins.)

When we were in Australia several years ago, a Ozzie writer suggested a line from "Gigi" that she thought suited us.  I liked it so much that I had it printed on the back of the program:

"Some people get married at first.

Others get married at last."

And a good time was had by all!  If you'd like to share some of your own wedding memories, please do. 

Mary Jo, not feeling all that different for being married.  And no, I am not changing my name!

My First Computer

Anne here, in a reminiscent mood. I was watching a documentary on TV the other night, about Steve Jobs and the growth of the Apple company and it started me thinking about my first computer and how it changed my life.

I came to computers reluctantly — most reluctantly. I saw no need for them. I didn't like the idea of them. I had nothing to do with them. (Yep, I was something of a Luddite.)

In fact, I remember when I was a student, an enthusiastic friend doing a computer course said that in twenty years every house would have a computer.

"Not mine," I said confidently.  How wrong I was. (So was she — it took a lot less than 20 years.)

For me the change began when a friend of mine bought her first computer, an Apple Macintosh. She raved enthusiastically and kept telling me I'd love it, but her words fell on deaf (and stubborn) ears. 

But my friend was cunning, and determined to make me use it — and when it came time for summer holidays, she arranged a computer borrowing schedule for her various friends and put me on the list. I had no interest in it, but when it came to my turn someone delivered the wretched thing to my door.

It sat in its box for a good part of the week, and finally I decided I ought to have a play around with it, only because I knew she'd ask me and I'd feel stupid if I said I hadn't even taken it out of the box. And mean because there were others on the list desperate to have it.

So I took it out and put it together. I was amazed at how simple it was to set up. I knew nothing about computers, and yet  I was able to get it up and working purely by common sense and simple trial and error. 

Just for something to do, I wrote a short story on it. And then I printed it out and Lo! it looked beautiful — so professional.

And with that, I was hooked. See, the previous year, I'd gone traveling (backpacking overseas) and had started writing fiction by hand, in spiral-bound notebooks.  I brought home a hand-written novel and a bunch of short stories and a firm desire to become a writer.(Those are some of my notebooks — the top two I brought home from my travels. The cahier - French for exercise book -was bought in Quebec.)

But all of that writing had remained in those notebooks because I was no typist — I've never done a typing course, and can't touch type to save my life. I'm a reasonably fast hunt and peck typist but I make lots of typos. So typing up hundreds of pages by hand was out of the question — for some reason the mistakes always happened in the last few paragraphs of a page, and then I'd have to start the whole page again or produce pages heavy with liquid paper. And these were rough drafts and needed a lot more work before I could pay someone to type them up. So there they sat, quietly rotting. . .

But with a computer, I could fix the typos on screen and when it came to printing, with one click, out it would come: one perfectly typed professional-looking document. 

So I went out and bought my first Apple Mac — it was the model before the Mac Classic. It was small with a tiny screen and no memory, but I loved it. 

Every night after my work was finished, I'd switch on the computer and start on the next bit of my novel. I'd told nobody about my new ambitions to write at that point, so it was a secret between my little Mac and me.

As my novel got longer, I realized I was going to need more memory — at that point everything was saved on one of those little "floppy" disks. So I went to the computer shop, and bought an external hard disk. I well remember the salesman saying "This disk has got more memory than you and I will be able to get through in a lifetime."

It was 20 megabytes. My, how things have changed. 

I sold that first book, and on the fax the editor sent me saying they wanted to buy it, she said, have you got email? You should go on email. Which was pretty new at that point. So I did, and that meant getting a new computer. I was sad to lose my little baby Mac, but going on email for the first time was a heady experience. And I loved my new Mac and what it could do.

I've gone through a number of computers since that first one — all Macs — and I've been fond of all of them. But it was that first one that really changed my life. If I hadn't bought a computer I don't think I would ever have become a writer. Any stories I came up with would probably have stayed in the spiral bound notebooks.

It's hard to imagine being without email and the internet these days, but even though I love the connectivity and so much of my interaction with friends is over the web, in a way, I miss the relative isolation I had, as well. 

With my first computer, there was just me, the computer and the story — no other distractions. Now on my computer there's email, facebook, twitter, and endless fascinating research and other internet time-sinks. And I admit it — I'm distractible. 

These days my whole writing world — friends, colleagues, readers, all sorts of people and worlds come to me through my computer, so now, in a bizarre twist, I've gone back to writing by hand a lot, in spiral bound notebooks, returning to the isolation of me, the story and the pen. 

So what about you — do you remember your first computer? How did it change your life?  And what's your biggest internet time-sink?

Country House Pursuits

Hello, Nicola here. One of the questions I’m often asked when I am showing visitors around Ashdown House is what did visitors to country houses do all day? Life in London or Bath was exciting, with plays, concerts, opera, shopping and many more entertainments. In contrast the country lifestyle was sometimes mocked as slow and boring, especially on a rainy day. “Morning walks, prayers three times a day and bohea tea” was how the poet Alexander Pope described it.

It was a leisured lifestyle, of course, because the owners and visitors didn’t have to work for a living, unlike the servants who attended to their every need. So they were free to pursue whatever activity and interests they wished and, mostly, had the money to indulge those interests. Below are just a few of the ways in which they passed their time.

Ashdown, being a hunting lodge, was all about sport. Guests would go fox hunting and hare coursing over the Downs, ride through the woodland or go pheasant shooting. There was a private racecourse and in the 19th century a nine hole golf course as well. Cricket was also played. If visitors wished to be slightly less active they could watch the progress of the hunt from the viewing platform on the roof of the house or visit the horses in their stables. Rainy days did not mean that exercise could not be taken. Many country houses had long galleries designed for a stroll in bad weather. At Ashdown there was the grand staircase where visitors could climb up and down, admiring the portraits as they passed. And by the mid-nineteenth century one of the favourite occupations of visitors to Ashdown was to watch the Earl taking photographs and posing for them as well. Who said country house life was boring?

Billiards 

From the Regency period onward Ashdown also had the appropriate accommodation for other country house pastimes. Billiards had been known as a game since the 17^th century when it was played with curved cues called maces. However it did not become widely popular until the late 18^th century and by the 19^th century it was common for there to be a separate billiards room, as there was at Ashdown, with a smoking room alongside. This suggests that billiards was primarily a male entertainment but in fact women played as well and mixed games occurred frequently. In 1813 Lord Byron declared his love for Lady Frances Webster over a game of billiards at Aston Hall in Yorkshire! The billiards balls in the picture are made of marble.

Card Games

Card games were another popular way in which to while away and evening. Most country houses had at least one card table and when there was a ball there were usually at least three tables where guests could play if they were not dancing. In Emma, Jane Austen describes: “a very superior party in which her card tables should be set out with their separate candles and unbroken packs in the true style.” Games such as Commerce, Speculation and Loo were considered respectable. However, card games brought with them the dangers of gambling and sometimes accusations of cheating. Nothing was more likely to destroy the happy atmosphere of a country house party than guests falling out because they had lost money at cards or someone had the temerity to accuse a fellow guest of swindling them.

Concerts, Theatricals and Dances

Some aristocratic families such as the Cavendishes were rich enough to employ a private orchestra and to build a private theatre but even those who could not afford to do so could put on private performances in which they all took part. Jane Austen grew up in such a world where families wrote and performed their own theatricals. The Pic Nic Club formed in 1802 to stage their own plays, which were followed by sumptuous suppers. The picture is one of James Gillray's cartoons making fun of the Pic Nic Orchestra.

Ladies were expected to be proficient on at least one musical instrument and both ladies and gentlemen sang. Performing duets together or having a gentleman turn the pages of the music for you as you played the pianoforte could be a very romantic experience for a young lady!

Then there were the country house balls. By the 19^th century there was a dedicated ballroom at Ashdown House but in many smaller properties the drawing room could substitute for a ballroom. All you had to do was move the furniture and roll back the carpets and you could hold an impromptu dance! The dancefloor was a great place to hold conversations without being overheard by your chaperon, although the steps of the dance might move a lady and gentleman apart at a crucial moment.

Drawing  

I have no talent for drawing so it’s fortunate these days that it is not a general requirement for the female sex to be able to paint and draw since I would be found sadly lacking. For ladies in the 18^th and 19^th century there were itinerant drawing masters who would instruct them in the arts of pencil sketches and of painting in water colour. Tradition dictated that these should be painted outdoors but when it rained ladies would sometimes sketch or draw interiors. These drawings have now become an invaluable historical record of what the interiors of country houses looked like and the style in which they were decorated.

Reading, Shell Work and Model Making

Other occupations for a rainy day might be reading, sewing or model-making. We might not now agree with Thomas Hobbes, who claimed that: “Reading is a pernicious habit, it destroys all originality of sentiment” but before the mid 17^th century reading was intended more for reflection than relaxation and country houses had very few books. By the 18^th century a separate room was set aside to house collections of books and although women were always noted to be more avid readers than men, the library was generally a male preserve up until the end of the 18^th century. Interestingly by abut 1820 it had become a multi-purpose sort of a room where tea was taken, music was played and books were read aloud to the assembled company. This is the Library at Blenheim Palace and as you can see it features a piano as well as endless wonderful bookshelves!

The most complicated and intricate of ladies’ entertainments was probably the shell work that became extremely fashionable in the 18^th century. Many ladies decorated boxes with shells but some practised shell work on a grander scale. Sarah, Duchess of Richmond, and her daughters Caroline and Emily, decorated a grotto with seashells at Goodwood Park in Sussex. In 1798 cousins Jane and Mary Parminter decorated a house called A La Ronde in Sussex (pictured) with seashells, feathered panels, glass, broken pottery shards, mica and cork. Shells were also used in model making. One of the most famous models made during the Georgian period was Betty Ratcliffe’s model of the China pagoda at Kew, complete with tinkling bells.

If you had been a Regency lady or gentleman which of the country house pursuits do you think you might have enjoyed? Something sporting or something creative? Which would you have liked to try? 

A Flask of Regency Liquor

No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men: but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
Samuel Johnson

Joanna here, talking about Regency tipples.  The hard-drinking Regency or Georgian gentleman is such a stock figure in Romance, it's worth stopping a minute to wonder what sort of liquor he was likely to be imbibing. 

There was ale and beer, of course, and their cousin, porter.  Ale and beer weren't precisely a gentleman's drink, but it's likely your hero lifted a mug of ale before the hunt and he may well have drunk beer with his breakfast, especially if he lived in the deep country. 

Beer and ale were drinks native to England, universal, and cheap.  The drink of the people, as it were.  Even small children drank a low-alcohol sort of beer called 'small beer' made from the second or third re-fermentation of the mash during brewing and containing just enough alcohol to preserve the drink.

By the Regency, the distinction between ale and beer lay not so much in the ingredients that made them up, as in the proportions.

Ale differs from beer in having fewer hops, which, giving less bitterness, leaves more of the soft smooth sweetness of the malt. It is usual, too, to brew it with pale malt, so that it is not so brown as beer. 
Scenes of British Wealth, Isaac Taylor, 1825.

Porter―later this was also called 'stout'―was a style of strong, dark, well-aged beer dating back to the Eighteenth Century, much favored by the working class of London.  Thus 'porter', because porters drank it.  Not a stylish beverage.  If you're wondering what it was like; Guinness is stout.

Why so much beer drinking?  I read, here and there, the thought that folks drank beer or ale instead of water because the water was contaminated.  Beer is boiled during the fermentation process and afterwards the alcoholic content kills off pathogens.  In a land of contaminated water, beer is a lot safer to drink.  The argument is that historical people somehow sensed this. 

This has always struck me as applying twenty-first century attitudes back into historical times.  The modern popularity of beer or wine―or coke for that matter―isn't an indication folks don't trust the water. 

I think folks in Regency times made beer as a way of handily preserving grain; they drank beer because they liked the taste; and probably, like modern folks, they enjoyed getting a little tipsy.

. . .  sober maids are wooed in wine.
Samuel Johnson

Wine, not beer, was the gentlemanly table drink, being imported and expensive and therefore fancier.  Agricultural experimentation, starting in Roman times, had demonstrated the sad truth that England is not a wine-producing country.   I wonder if some of the ancient conflict between England and France boils down to a certain jealousy that France can make wine and England can't. 

It was to France the English had traditionally turned to fill up their glass.  The two decades of war between England and France made the enjoyment of French wines more problematic.  Our Regency gentleman, who would once have poured out Bordeaux, (which they were likely to call claret,) burgundy, hermitage, (from the Rhône region south of Lyon,) or a sparkling champagne, now maybe substituted Tokay, an old favorite from Hungary, or hock, which was a catchall term for German wines. 

But he might also have turned to some new favorites the English had found among the wines of Spain, Portugal and the mid-Atlantic islands―the wines called Madeira, Malaga, port, or sherry.  Sherry, which, just to liven things up, was also called sack or Canary. 

Next time you see a character in a book with sherry-colored eyes, that over on the left is probably what the author means.  That's a mid-range sherry.  Sherry runs all the way from clear to dark brown.   

These new favorites were fortified wines, most of them heavy and sweet.  They were made by mixing traditional varieties of light, generally sweet wines and then adding brandy at some specific point in the fermentation process.  This fixed the flavor and sugar content and brought the alcohol level up to 15% or 20%.  The high alcohol prevented spoilage during shipment.  These fortified wines were less temperamental in the keg and the robust alcohol level was a nice compromise between ordinary wine and harder liquors.

A fortified wine like port was likely to be passed around the table after a fine dinner when the ladies had withdrawn and the gentlemen could start telling dirty jokes.  Meanwhile the ladies, in the salon, were helping themselves to a ladylike glass of 30-proof sherry and engaging in their own risqué conversations. 

I don't want to zip right past wine without saying that the size of the ordinary historical wine bottle may have been determined by the amount of air in a glassblower's lungs.  Georgian and earlier wine bottles had a long-necked, onion-bodied shape, which made them a bit less likely to get knocked over.  Wine bottles assumed the bullet shape we're so familiar with today when transportation improved in the Eighteenth century.

Early wine was shipped in kegs.  The householder or tavern owner tapped the keg and poured it into the nearest pitcher or bottle.  In the Eighteenth Century, better roads led individual wine growers to bottle their own wine.  The long, cylindrical bottle with a tight cork could be stacked and stored on its side and shipped economically.

When our Regency gentleman wasn't drinking wine, what were the other choices?  There was a formidable array of distilled liquors for him; brandy, arrack, whiskey, gin, cognac, rum, and cordials of every sort.  Exotic drinks could be brought back from odd corners of the Continent; kirshwasser, distilled from cherries in Switzerland and Germany; vermouth, from Italy; maybe a bottle of Green Chartreuse liqueur brought out of France and hoarded from before the Revolution. Absinthe, the green liqueur containing wormwood, was being made in France, preparing for a long career as the decadent man's drink of choice. 

Considering a few of these― 

Geneva was the period name for what we'd call gin.  It was probably not passed around the table after dinner by your average Regency gentleman, gin being notoriously the beverage of the depraved lower class.  The nickname, 'blue ruin', seems applicable.

The poet, also, is disguised, and seems, if we may use his own mixed phraseology, to have "drunk deep" of blue ruin, instead of the "Pierian spring."
Monthly Review, Ralph Griffiths

 
Arrack.  This was strong liquor imported from India and the East Indies, made from any of a number of grains, such as rice, along with sugar and the juice of the coconut tree.  It was regularly imported into England from the Eighteenth Century onward.  It seems to have been drunk, in England, mainly as an ingredient in punch.

Not to keep thee longer in suspense ; last night, it seems, the infamous woman got so heartily intoxicated with her beloved liquor, arrack punch, at the expense of Colonel Salter, that, mistaking her way, she fell down a pair of stairs, and broke her leg:
Clarissa, Samuel Richardson

Was arrack punch a wee bit vulgar?  Our sporting gentlemen probably preferred a rum punch when he met friends at the inn after a long day's ride.


Brandy.  Ah.  Now here is the quintessential liquor for our Regency gentleman.  This is what lurks in the decanter he hands round the table after dinner.  This is the tot served to male guests in the library.  When in doubt, the hero pours brandy.

Brandy is distilled from wine.  Eau-de-vie is most properly the distilled liquor made from other fruits or grains, but in this period they were often called brandies as well.   

So you could have a 'brandy' made by fermenting peaches.  Or you could have a brandy made from grape wine that was later infused with the flavor of peaches.  These fruit-infused brandies were made by soaking crushed fruits like cherries, apricots or blackcurrents in brandy.  There are numerous recipes for this.

To make Cherry Brandy. Take six pounds of cherries, half red and half black.  Mash or squeeze them to pieces with your hands, and put to them three gallons of brandy, letting them stand steeping twenty-four hours; then put the mashed cherries and liquor, a little at a time, into a canvass bag, and press it as long as any juice will run; sweeten it to your taste; put it into a vessel fit for it; let it stand a month, and bottle it out. Put a lump of loaf sugar into every bottle.
The Frugal Housewife, Susannah Carter, 1800

  
Our gentleman will almost certainly serve French brandy, though it seems a bit vulgar to mention the origin.  A gentleman will take that for granted.  His brandy may, in fact, come from Cognac, a region so famous for brandy that the liquor is simply called Cognac. 

He has delivered himself over to strong libations of pure cognac, and is daily plunged in intoxication and stupor
Patrick Kennedy


Rum.  Our fashionable gentleman, unless he's spent his youth at sea, is unlikely to drink rum straight up, but if he's a sporting gentleman, he will most probably drink rum punch.

It is made with rum, brandy, lemon, hot water, and sugar.  . . .  Put in as much sugar as the water will dissolve. If you brew, say, a quart of punch, let it contain the juice and the rind of one lemon. The juice, I say; not the pulp. The rind also; not all the peel; none of the white pith: only the yellow outside pared off thin . . .  Mix your hot water, sugar, and lemon. Let the water be boiling hot—fresh from the kettle on the fire.  . . .  put a wrapper consisting of a folded napkin over the mouth of your jug, and lay a thick octavo or some other equivalent body, over the mouth of that vessel, and let it stand for five minutes. Then add the liquors.
Punch


Whiskey.  Gaelic usquebaugh, from the Latin 'aqua vitae' or 'water of life', became 'whiskey' in English.  It's a distilled malted grain liquor.  Scotch whisky shares with French brandy the distinction of being an illegally smuggled import in England during the Regency.  Would our gentleman have served it? 

Well ... if he were Scots or had spent time in Scotland, very possibly.  Or our gentleman might simply like to add the fillip of illegality to his after dinner relaxation.

When I think of my historical gentleman, at ease, talking with a friend at the table, I think of him with a glass of good simple wine set at his elbow.

What about you?  When you settle down to talk to your friends, what drink do you like to sip, and why?

 

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