Anniversary Bash: Day Two!

Welcome to our second day of celebration! Personally, I'm having a grand time. Who can beat giving away books? Yesterday I was literally bouncing in my chair, laughing and occasionally clapping as I read all the awesome comments.

On that note, yesterday's winner is April at 19:25! Because so many people didn't include an email in their entries yesterday, Carrie Lofty talked me into being nice. Winners will have 24 hours to claim their prize by emailing either myself (lorelielong at gmail dot com) or Carrie (contact at carrielofty dot com). After that, I really truly will pick a new winner.

Today's list of books (free books! books we're giving YOU.) is a little bit more of a grab-bag. But that's part of the awesome, ain't it? There's no better time to try out a new author than when it costs you nothing.

Karen Mercury:
Strangely Wonderful (this one's signed!)

Sandra Schwab:
Bewitched

Diane Whiteside:
The Devil She Knows (not only is this signed, there's a matching keychain)

Lisa Cooke:
Texas Hold Him

Tessa Dare:
Stud Club trilogy -- One Dance with a Duke; Twice Tempted by a Rogue; Three Nights with a Scoundrel (All three of these are signed, even. A complete set!)







As with yesterday, these books can only be shipped within the US. Void where prohibited and all that other not so happy skippy.

The mix of locations in today's giveaway got me thinking: To win today, tell me your absolute favorite location for Unusual Historicals! Where do you like to go in your romances? It's cold and wintry December, seems like the perfect time for an imaginary vacation.

Winner will be chosen by random selection, even if the comments are as hilarious as yesterday.

Lorelie Brown's first book, JAZZ BABY, is currently available from Samhain Publishing and will be released 4 January in paperback. Her second romance, an 1880s-set western, will be published by Carina Press in Summer 2011.

News & Media: Murder Most Dreadful

By Sandra Schwab

Back in the olden days when Good Queen Bess ruled over England, making the news usually involved some kind of gruesome execution and the display of various rotting body parts on crossways up and down the country. If you were very notorious indeed, your story could also be worth an entry into a town chronicle or it was transformed into a broadside ballad. Add a pretty woodcut, and it could be sold on the streets for cheap money; a practice which remained popular until well into the nineteenth century, when the story of the murder of a Maria Marten by her gentleman suitor in 1827 sold more than one million copies.

In the case of Thomas Arden, the story of his death and the bringing to justice of his murderers even entered the Renaissance stage as "The Tragedie of Arden of Faversham" (1592). Arden was a power-hungry landowner, who at forty married a girl of sixteen. He seems to have been a domineering, profit-seeking man, and there was no much love lost between the married couple.

The wife, Alice, eventually took a lover, with whom she started plotting the death of her husband. The events that followed were first described in a chronicle of 1551:

This year on S. Valentine's day at Faversham in Kent was committed a shameful murder, for one Arden a gentleman was by the consent of his wife murdered, wherefore she was burned at Canterbury, and there was hanged in chains for that murder and at Faversham (two) hanged in chains, and a woman burned, and in Smithfield was hanged one Mosby [i.e., Alice's lover] and his sister for the murder also.

The title page of the play shows how a later generation transformed the events at Faversham into a moral lesson on the wickedness of women and the dangers of base lust: "Wherin is shewed the great malice and discimulation of a wicked woman, the unsatiable desire of filthy lust and the shamefull end of all murderers."

Arts and Music: The Pre-Raphaelites

By Sandra Schwab

In 1848, as revolution swept through Europe, a group of young Englishmen formed a secret, artistic society. They called themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. This name clearly expressed their admiration for the early Italian artists before Raphael, whose influence and style had, in their opinion, corrupted the teaching of art. As young rebels are wont to do, they detested the establishment in the form of the Royal Academy of Art and called Sir Joshua Reynolds, its founder, "Sir Sloshua."

They believed in painting from nature. If you want to paint a sheep on a meadow, drag said sheep to said meadow; if you want to paint a drowning girl, put (living) girl into bathtub and watch how her hair floats about in and on the water--in the latter case you might want to remember once in a while to replace the candles that are supposed to heat the bathtub. Otherwise your model might catch pneumonia... And they infused their works with symbolism--a moth is not just a moth, you know. In an attempt to imitate the early Italian masters, they used thin glazes of pigment over a wet, white ground, a technique which lends the colours in their paintings a startling brilliance. Their paintings are also startling in their scope: most of them are huge--indeed, some of them are so huge that they cover whole walls.

The influence of the Pre-Raphaelites on 19th-century art was enormous. As a movement, however, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was very short-lived. It was founded by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais in winter 1848, and the first pictures with the mysterious initials PRB--well, you have to have some cool secret code name when you create a secret society!--were exhibited a year later. Only a few years later, in 1853 Millais joined the detested Academy, which Rossetti regarded as the end of the brotherhood. Nevertheless, their influence lasted well into the early 20th century.

While their first paintings received nice reviews, once the secret of the PRB had leaked out, the critics quickly changed their tune, as the founding of a secret society by some young upstarts was regarded as an affront to the establishment. Consequently, the paintings our hopeful young artists exhibited in 1850 were ripped apart in the reviews. One painting which was particularly condemned was Millais's Christ in the House of His Parents. Dickens for example called the figure of young Jesus "a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-headed boy, in a bed gown."

Apart from religious scenes, the Pre-Raphaelites were fond of medieval subjects and scenes taken from literature. An all-time favourite was Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott," for not only did it allow the depictions of a dead or dying woman as here in Waterhouse's interpretation of the poem:

--but it also allowed the artist to present female transgression. The Lady wasn't allowed to look out of the window, but one day she did! All because of a man! That dratted Sir Lancelot! ...as in this version of William Holman Hunt:

Another lady whose death is associated with water is Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet. This is a painting by John Everett Millais and the model in the bathtub was Elizabeth "Lizzie" Siddal (and yes, Millais forgot about the candles):

Lizzie Siddal was also the model and muse of another painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. They married in 1860, yet there was no happily-ever-after for them. By that time Lizzie was probably already addicted to laudanum, and she died from an overdose in 1862. Rossetti channelled the grief for his wife into one of his most famous paintings, Beata Beatrix, which shows the female subject hovering between life and death, with a bird as the messenger of death dropping a poppy into her hands--a clear reference to the manner of Lizzie's death.

In Remembrance of Kathleen Givens

By Sandra Schwab

[We're taking a break from this month's theme to remember Kathleen Givens. Thank you for your consideration. -- Carrie]

When I came home from a belated New Year's party on Saturday night, horrible news were waiting for me: my dear friend Kathleen Givens had died suddenly and unexpectedly.

I "met" Kathleen for the first time when I bought her first novel, Kilgannon, almost exactly ten years ago, on 7 January 2000. One of the Ladies of Lallybroch (from the Diana Gabaldon message board) had recommended it to me--and she was absolutely right: I loved the story to pieces. Moreover, it was one of the first romances I read as romance fiction (I had read Victoria Holt and Penelope Williamson before, but had thought them historical novels), and I still remember how thrilled I was to have found a genre of historical fiction where heroines are strong and happy endings are guaranteed. And so Kilgannon became one of the books that inspired me to write my first romance novel.

In 2005 I was working on a paper on the depiction of Scotland in American romance novels and decided to use Kilgannon as my main example. I contacted Kathleen and she graciously agreed to answer a few questions about the book.

Then, a year later, I finally met her in person when she came to Germany to attend the Booklovers' Conference in Wiesbaden. For me as a reader it is always so very thrilling to find out that an author whose works I like is just as nice herself. And Kathleen was nice. She was one of the sweetest, loveliest people I know. She was so gracious and generous and always classy. In 2007 she returned to Wiesbaden and I took the chance to drag her around the German countryside to show her old Roman forts and not-quite-so-old castles. I will always cherish the memory of these days. We had such a wonderful time together.

Among my most vivid memories of Kathleen are those of her and her husband. They made such a great team--you could feel that a very strong bond connected them. My heart breaks for her family when I think of what they must be going through right now.

I still can't believe that she is gone. She was a great author and a wonderful person, and I will miss her very much. Goodbye, Kath.

The Seasons: The Mummers' Plays

By Sandra Schwab

In comes I, Old Father Christmas,
Am I welcome or am I not?
Sometimes I'm cold, sometimes I'm hot,
I hope that Old Father Christmas will never be forgot.

Room, ladies and gentlemen, room I pray,
While I lead St. George and all his noble men this way.
Walk in St. George and act thy part,
And shew the ladies and gentlemen thy valiant art.
Walk in, St. George.

This is the opening of the "Sussex Tipteerers' Play," a mummers' play which was recorded by Frederick E. Sawyer in 1884. Mummers' plays are seasonal folk plays which were performed by local men or young boys on specific times of the year, typically around Christmas and New Year, but in some places also on All Souls' Day or at Easter. They emerged in the early eighteenth century as a working class custom. In rural areas there was usually only one group of mummers and one play per village, while in urban areas there were often several different groups.

Traditionally, the members of a team of mummers wore costumes which made them appear all the same. The men sometimes heightened this effect by blackening their faces. Over time, the uniformity of the costumes diminished, with characters like Father Christmas or the Doctor being the first to appear in distinct costumes. Some of the Souling plays also feature a Wild Horse character (sometimes called Dick) with a rather elaborate costume consisting of a painted horse skull with snapping jaws on a pole.

Mumming was a visiting custom: the teams went from house to house and from pub to pub in their areas to perform their plays. In the early days of mumming, they (or only a presenter like Old Father Christmas) would simply burst into the house and start with the play. This explains why Old Father Christmas in the quotation above asks for room (to perform). There is strong evidence to suggest that by the nineteenth century, the mummers only visited houses where they were sure of their welcome (and reward!).

World War I marks a decisive cut in the history of mumming. Many of the performers didn't return from the war, and those who did often didn't have the heart to continue with the custom without their dead team members. Consequently, after 1918 the numbers of teams rapidly declined until in 2002 there were only six teams left whose history extended beyond the 1940s. Most of the groups active today were formed in the wake of the folk revival movement in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Here's a modern day example of a Souling play (don't you just love the Wild Horse character?):

Scandal: The Eglinton Tournament

By Sandra Schwab

Imagine--it's 1838, the old king is dead, the new queen acceded to the throne the year before and is about to be crowned in Westminster Abbey in June. The new fashion for all things Gothic and medieval has swept up the rich and the titled, therefore they are all looking forward not only to the coronation in the Abbey, which, no doubt, will be a splendid affair, but also to the ceremony that will follow upon the service: the state banquet in Westminster Hall with its most wonderful medieval trappings. There will even be a real knight in shining armour--the King's, or, in this case, the Queen's Champion, who will ride into the hall on his steed, fling his glove onto the ground and challenge all people present to deny the sovereign's right to the throne. The whole thing will be perfectly marvellous, something to tell the grandchildren about.

But alas, it was not to be.

The Prime Minster announced that for economic--there were people starving, for heaven's sake!--and practical--remember 1685, when the King's Champion had flung not only his glove, but also himself to the ground? Highly embarrassing, that!--reasons the state banquet and all the outdated medieval ceremonies were cancelled. The Tories were incensed. There were heated arguments in the House of Lords, and the merchants of the City of London put together a petition because the City, too, would have played a part in the coronation banquet Yet despite heated arguments, the Prime Minster, Lord Melbourne, stood his ground and Victoria was crowned without medieval pomp and circumstance. The peers of the realm smarted, and those who would have had to fulfil special duties during the state banquet felt cheated. Among them was a dashing, young Scottish lord, Archibald William Montgomerie, the 13th Earl of Eglinton.

He had been brought up with stories of chivalry, and, moreover, as the Knight Marshal of the Royal Household his stepfather would have had the honourable task of leading the Champion's horse up the hall. The family's extreme disappointment at the Queen's "Penny Coronation" can be easily imagined. To cheer Eglinton up, one of his acquaintances jokingly suggested that he should add some medieval games to his next annual private horse race at Eglinton Park. Out of this rather unfortunate suggestion there quickly grew a rumour which spread like wildfire: Lord Eglinton was going to hold a tournament at his country estate in Scotland. Equally unfortunate was Eglinton's decision to finally announce that the rumour was true and to thus embark on what one author has called "the greatest folly of the century."

It was an enormous undertaking--at Eglinton a tournament ground with stalls and galleries and what not had to be erected. The knights had to chosen, armour to be ordered. The rehearsals for the tournament were held in London in June and July 1839. Not surprisingly, all of London was atwitter and the rehearsals were well attended. For some of the spectators they were a disappointment. After all, there is quite a difference between imagining Sir Walter Scott's medieval heroes riding grandly around and about in their shiny armour, and seeing 19th-century gentlemen trying to conquer the difficulties of moving about in full-scale body armour. The Knight of the Swan literally flew over the neck of his horse, and the unfortunate Knight of the Dragon got stuck in his armour, face downwards, on a dunghill. Only after 20 minutes did his squires manage to help him out of this stinky predicament.


Still, applications for tickets from all around the world continued to pour in at Eglinton's estate. Of course, only conservatives needed to apply for a place on the galleries. Lucky was the man who could claim his wife had once nearly clubbed a Radical to death with a candlestick! The press was also invited, and then there were the many uninvited spectators who gathered outside the palisade and whose numbers reached, if contemporary sources are to be believed, 80,000 or more. In short, the Eglinton Tournament provided for the most enormous traffic jam Scotland had seen so far. In the towns and villages surrounding Eglinton Park all available rooms had been let, and to their dismay, many late-comers found that no accommodation was to be had, not even for ready money. Indeed, the American visitor Nathaniel Parker Willis had to shave and freshen himself up in the pantry of an inn, which presently functioned as the bedroom of three ladies' maids.

At the gates of Eglinton Park, maps and programmes could be bought, and the gaily attired masses (naturally, medieval costume was a must) wandered towards the stands. At the house itself the knights and their entourage got ready for the big procession. Everything had been prepared splendidly, and everybody was ready to thoroughly enjoy themselves. But alas, nobody had taken into consideration the contrary British weather. For just as the Queen of Beauty was about to get on her snow-white horse, the skies opened and it started to pour.

Soon everybody who didn't bring an umbrella was drenched, the tilting ground was transformed into mud, and, to make matters worse, it turned out that the makeshift roof that was supposed to protect the people in the galleries, was not up to its job. Neither was the dye of some of the medieval costumes. Nevertheless, the knights attempted to muddle through, and so at first, the tilting commenced.

It was only interrupted when the rain increased. To the dismay of the invited guests in the galleries, Eglinton had to inform them that the pavilion in which the great banquet was to be held had not withstood the rain either and that he could only entertain as many of his friends as to fit around the dining table at the house. The retreat of the thousands of spectators was chaotic, to say the least. Willis describes it thus:

The rain poured in a deluge. The entire park was trodden into a slough, or standing in pools of water – carts, carriages, and horsemen, with fifty thousand flying pedestrians, crowding every road and avenue. How to get home with a carriage! How the deuce to get home without one! [...] Six hours of rain, and the trampling of such an immense multitude of men and horses, had converted the soft and moist sod and soil of the park into a deep and most adhesive quagmire. Glancing through the labyrinth of vehicles on every side, and seeing men and horses with their feet completely sunk below the surface, I saw that there was no possibility of shying the matter, and that wade was the word.

Even if the tournament was eventually held two days later, the damage had been done, and the press, quite literally, had a field day. Poor Eglinton was ridiculed up and down the country, and the image of the knight under the umbrella not only became the symbol of the tournament, but throughout the century it was also used to mock and satirise Victorian medievalism.

Greatest Hits: Victorian Medievalism

By Sandra Schwab

It's not quite clear exactly whose fault it was. It might have been James MacPherson and his Ossian books, or Thomas Percy and his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, all published in the 1760s (though to be fair, these publications were at first much more popular and influential on the continent). It might have been Horace Walpole and all the other writers of gothic novels. It might have been the antiquarians who started to become interested in medieval life and medieval objects in the late 18th century.

Sir Walter Scott, whose historical novels filled with knights, adventure and romance (Ivanhoe anybody?), certainly has to shoulder a large part of the blame.


Whoever or whatever it was: from the late 18th century onwards the British rediscovered the Middle Ages--with a vengeance! At first it was all quite innocent: one enjoyed a gothic novel or two; an old ballad, perhaps; if you were rich, you might have fancied putting some fake ruins in your gardens, or why not have your country estate remodelled in the neo-gothic style? Add to that portraits of people in (fake) armour and other sort of medieval clothing, and the odd collector of medieval knick-knack.

The two black-and-white drawings are from Punch.

But then somebody got it into his head that these outward trappings were simply not enough. No, on top of these one ought to revive the spirit of the Middle Ages, the great ideals of "the days of old when knights were bold" (or at least what were thought to be the ideals of the knights of old)--in one word: CHIVALRY. As a result of this, the ideal of masculinity radically changed in the course of the 19th century: a man had to be tough, brave, show no sign of cowardice, save / protect women and children, and meet death without flinching.

The Victorian Age saw an immense production of history books, ballads, novels, music and paintings that celebrated this chivalric ideal and thus taught it to whole generations of boys and young men. It proved to be so influential that at the beginning of the 20th century the founder of the boyscout movement, Baden-Powell, claimed that the boyscouts were the modern descendants of the knights of old:

You Patrol Leaders and Scouts are therefore very like the knights and their retainers, especially if you keep your honour ever before you in the first place, and do your best to help other people [...] Your motto is, 'Be Prepared' to do this, and the motto of the knights was a similar one, 'Be Always Ready.'

The knights of old were particularly attentive in respect and courtesy to women. When walking with a lady or child, a Scout should always have her on his left side, so that his right is free to protect her.

(Both quotations are from an abridged version of Scouting for Boys, which was first published in 1908.)

Protect her from what? we might ask. For even in the early 20th century it wasn't all that likely that a dragon would hide behind some bushes in the park, waiting to snatch a tasty little woman. As you can see from this example, the medieval revival and the romanticized version of the Middle Ages offered the opportunity to glorify old genderroles--this became particularly important towards the end of the century when these old genderroles came under increasing attack and women started to demand more rights.

St. George and Princess Sabra
(Whom he has saved from the ghastly dragon)
By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Literature & Education: Medieval Mystery Plays

By Sandra Schwab

Religion and Church were extremely important for medieval man. But as Church services were held in Latin, it became necessary to teach laymen the important bits from the Bible in a different way. This need resulted in embellishments of the Easter liturgy: a short dialogue between the women visiting the grave and finding it empty, and the angel telling them that Christ had risen, was acted out - and this was the beginning of British drama. These so-called tropes were continually lengthened and eventually developed into full-length Easter dramas. They were so popular that they had to be performed outside the churches. Yet because of the entertainment these plays provided, the church authorities became suspicious and forbade the clergy to act.

And this was the point when drama took really off: laymen snatched the chance, took up acting and ditched the Latin altogether. At least since the 14th century annual plays were staged by the town guilds in the context of the newly introduced Corpus Christi festival. These Corpus Christi plays or mystery plays were performed as cycles, which covered important passages from the Bible, starting with the Fall of the Angels (which is not directly covered by the Bible, but was thought to be the reason why God created humankind: humans should eventually replace those fallen angels in the heavenly choirs) and ending with the Day of Judgment. Each guild was responsible for one play within a cycle, and profession of the lay-actors was in some way connected to the contents of the play: e.g., in York the shipwrights staged the building of the ark, and the bakers did the Last Supper.


In York the annual production of the Corpus Christi plays took a special form: there were 12 stations throughout town, and each acting troupe moved from one station to the next with a wagon upon which the stage had been erected. The York cycle contains 48 individual plays, so if all of them were performed, it was a massive undertaking indeed, with 576 performances in total. The plays were not only a giant communal project and a chance for the guilds to display their wealth, but they can also be regarded as the worldly equivalent of the procession in which the host was carried around town in honor of the Corpus Christi festival: in both instances the divine permeates the city.

Through the mystery plays the biblical story became something people could relate to; it became part of their lives. This becomes abundantly clear in the so-called "Second Shepherds Play" from the Wakefield Cycle, which deals with the shepherds on the fields who are called to bear witness to the birth of Christ. They not only address Baby Jesus with endearments that might be used for any other baby ("Hail, little tiny mop!" --mop meant child--and "Hail, darling dear"), but the biblical episode is also preceded by a humorous episode involving the sheep-thief Mak, who hides a stolen sheep in a cradle and pretends it is his newborn child. In a somewhat daring move, the anonymous author thus included a comic version of the nativity in his play.

Both this episode and the introductory passages in which the shepherds bemoan their lot make the characters in the play "normal" people, not removed in time and space from the audience. When at the beginning of the play the world is described as an inhospitable place, full of injustices, it is concerns of the 15th century which are addressed. It is the audience's own world which is in need of God's grace. And together with the shepherds they are reassured that with the birth of Christ God has sent hope into their world.

Fashion: Unusual Victorian Brooches

By Sandra Schwab

On the subject of brooches you can find this little gem in Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford:

The expenditure in dress in Cranford was principally in that one article referred to [i.e. the cap]. If the heads were bured in smart new caps, the ladies were like ostriches, and cared not what became of their bodies. Old gowns, white and venerable collars, any number of brooches, up and down and everywhere (some with dogs' eyes painted in them; some that were like small picture-frames with mausoleums and weeping-willows neatly executed in hair inside; some, again, with miniatures of ladies and gentlemen sweetly smiling out of a nest of stiff muslin) - old brooches for permanent ornament, and new caps to suit the fashion of the day; the ladies of Cranford always dressed with chaste elegance and propriety, as Miss Barker once prettily expressed it.

Brooches were very popular throughout the nineteenth century, and this passage nicely satirises some of the fashions of the day.

As the ladies of Cranford are all either widows or spinsters, it comes as no surprise that they should wear mourning jewellery: mausoleums and weeping-willows are some of the neoclassical symbols of death, which became popular in the late eighteenth century. To top the mourning symbolism, here the pictures are executed in hair, namely the hair of the person who passed away and is commemorated with this piece of jewellery. Normally, hair jewellery was a bit less intricate: a lock of hair was simply placed inside a locket, or the hair was plaited. This was done either by professional hair-artists or by amateurs. Here's a beautiful example for a hair brooch from the collection of the V&A Museum.

Yet not all hair jewellery was for mourning; it was also used for love tokens or as gifts of friendship. This is also true for another kind of brooch mentioned by Gaskell, miniature portraits. A cheaper alternative to a painted portrait was the black-paper silhouette, set behind glass, which gained in popularity from the late eighteenth century onward. The most mysterious form of portrait jewellery, however, are eye miniatures: as only the eye of the person portrayed was shown, his or her identity was kept secret.

Now one of the most striking characteristics of the fictitious town of Cranford is that there are no men--hence the ladies of Cranford don't wear brooches showing the eye of a beloved person. Instead, their eye portraits feature their beloved doggies. Yet this is not just a satirical exaggeration on Gaskell's part: in the collections of the V&A Museum there is a Victorian brooch with the portrait of a Yorkshire terrier.

The true eccentric however, would have probably chosen a piece of mouse jewellery, which was sold by Messrs Thornhill & Co. of New Bond Street. "However disagreeable a live mouse may be running about one's room," one of their ads reads, "in itself it is a gracefully shaped little animal, which may well form part of an eccentric ornament, especially if skilfully modeled and arranged. Whether the substitution of little pigs in the place of mice, which Messrs Thornhill likewise intend to introduce, and which are now the fashion in Paris, will turn out equally satisfactory from an artistic point of view, remains to be seen."

Oh, the lucky heroine who gets to wear a piggy brooch!

Humans in Nature: Travels on the Rhine

By Sandra Schwab

In 1795. Anne Radcliffe wrote about her journey along the Rhine:

Sometimes, as we approached a rocky point, we seemed going to plunge into the expanse of the water beyond; when, turning the sharp angle of the promontory, the road swept along an ample bay, where the rocks, receding formed an amphitheatre, [...] then [...] we saw the river beyond [...] assume the form of a lake, amidst wild and romantic landscapes."
Anne Radcliffe, Journey Made in the Summer of 1794, through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany with a Return down the Rhine, 1795

Anne Radcliffe belonged to the first wave of Rhine tourists. During the Napoleonic Wars, travelling came more or less to a halt, but immediately afterwards the second wave of British tourists arrived on the banks of Father Rhine. There were so many of them that later in the century the writer Thomas Hood remarked:

It is a statistical fact that since 1814 an unknown number of persons have been more or less abroad, and of all the Countries in Christendom, never was there such a run as on the Banks of the Rhine. It was impossible to go into Society without meeting units, tens, hundreds, thousands of Rhenish tourists. What a donkey they deemed him who had not been to Assmannshausen!

One of the most popular, if not the most popular, literary text about a Rhine journey was Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. In Canto III, stanza XLVI, Byron writes:

...Maternal Nature! ...who teems like thee,
Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine?
There Harold gazes on a work divine
A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine,
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells
From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells.

Byron goes on to describe the picturesque view of ruins and hills clothed with forest or vine. Some places he even lists by name:

The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of water broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scatter'd cities crowning these;
Whose far white walls along them shine..."

British tourists would drag a copy of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage along on their travels on the Rhine from then on, so they could trace Childe Harold's steps. This becomes obvious in the Shelleys' History of a Six Weeks Tour, from 1817:

The part of the Rhine down which we now glided, is that so beautifully described by Lord Byron in his third Canto of CHILDE HAROLD. We read these verses with delight, as they conjured before us these lovely scenes with the truth and vividness of painting, and with the exquisite addition of glowing language and warm imagination. We were carried down by a dangerously rapid current, and saw on either side of us hills covered with vines and trees, craggy cliffs crowned by desolate towers, and wooded islands, where picturesque ruins peeped from behind the foliage, and cast shadows of their forms on the troubled waters, which distorted without deforming them.

Mary Shelley also chose the Rhine as one of the settings of her 1818 gothic novel Frankenstein

The course of the Rhine below Mainz becomes much more picturesque. The river descends rapidly and winds between hills, not high, but steep, ad of beautiful forms. We saw many ruined castles standing on the edges of the precipices, surrounded by black woods, high and inaccessible.

Apart from the writers, British painters, too, chose the Rhine and its legends as subjects for their art. Among artists were Turner and Waterhouse, and they, of course, made the sights and legends of the Rhine even more famous.

If you'd like to find out more about travels on the Rhine, check out the background information to CASTLE OF THE WOLF on Sandra's website.

Professions: The Anglo-Saxon Warrior

By Sandra Schwab

When the Anglo-Saxons first came to England, they settled in small groups. The cynn ("the kin" or "the tribe") consisted of the cyning (the lord and guardian of the cynn--I think you can guess what eventually became of this Old English word!) and his followers, and it was held together by mutual loyalty. The Anglo-Saxon warrior fought for his lord and got his reward in treasure, land, slaves or cattle. Because of this, the cyning is often referred to as "treasure-giver" or "ring-giver" in Old English literature.

The Sutton Hoo helmet, a parading helmet which had been included among the treasure of the ship burial at Sutton Hoo

For an Anglo-Saxon warrior it was a matter of life and death to belong to a war band led by a strong leader. The worst thing that could happen to him was to lose his lord and his comrades. In that case, he would have no place in society and no identity in a hostile world. This is exactly what has happened to the warrior in the Old English poem "The Wanderer":

Oft the solitary man waits for prosperity,
the mercy of God, even though he with troubled heart
has long had to stir the ice-cold sea with his hands,
to travel exile-paths. Destiny is completely inexorable!
So spoke the earth-walker, mindful of hardships,
of fierce killings, of the deaths of kinsmen:
Oft did I have to bewail my sorrow alone,
every dawn. There is no one alive now
to whom I would dare to reveal my thoughts openly.

In the early decades of Anglo-Saxon Britain, the hall formed the centre of life. It was here that the lord would give his warriors their rewards; it was here that the cynn would gather to eat and drink and listen to the stories of their bards; and it was here that the common warriors would sleep. The Beowulf poet describes the building of such a mead-hall: the splendid Heorot, the hall of King Hrothgar, which is visited nightly by the horrible monster Grendel (until Beowulf puts a stop to that!) and is eventually destroyed by a fire. The hall was also used for displaying battle trophies: after Beowulf has defeated Grendel, he hangs the monster's arm and shoulder (which he has wrenched off during the fight) up under the roof.

Oh yes, those Anglo-Saxons were a blood-thirsty lot!

Excerpt Thursday: Sandra Schwab

Thursdays on Unusual Historicals mean excerpts! Here's one from Sandra Schwab. She writes:

Of all my characters, Troy and Lillian from THE LILY BRAND probably deserve the most a little bit of holiday cheer--and now, in "Christmas at Bair Hall: A Holiday Epilogue to THE LILY BRAND", they get it. Enjoy!

***

And as Troy rode on under the mighty oak trees up the drive, he remembered the old woman who had reminded him of a fairy godmother from a children's tale. Even now Mistress Nanette's benevolent presence appeared to linger among the hall at times. It seemed to him he could almost hear her voice amidst the rustling of the branches overhead: For no evil shall come to a house that is guarded by a rowan tree...

And for the past eight years her prediction had been proven true. Bair Hall had prospered. It had been transformed into a home filled with life and laughter, and each time he now came up the drive his heart lifted with joy.

You would have been proud of her, he silently told the long-dead woman. So very, very proud.

He left the tree-lined walk behind, and Bair Hall rose in front of him, warm and welcoming. Alerted by the sounds of hooves on gravel, a stableboy came running to take care of the horse.

Smoothly, Troy slid out of the saddle. Yet when his feet hit the ground, a twinge in his leg reminded him of the old wound--a sure sign he had driven himself too hard today. He made a rueful grimace. Brueberry--and the long-suffering stable-hands--had needed the long outing. In fact, now that he had been given the opportunity to trot around and about all afternoon, the stallion appeared practically docile.

Troy threw the reins to the stableboy. "I say he's deserved some oats today." With a nod, he strode to the entrance of the hall and up the front stairs, where Hill had already thrown the door wide open.

"Good afternoon, my lord. I hope you had a pleasant ride."

"Very pleasant, thank you." Troy took off his fur hat, divested himself of his gloves and coat and gave them to the butler. "I trust my wife is--" He broke off to stare at the mighty brown bear that adorned the entrance hall. According to family legend, it had been killed by the first Earl of Ravenhurst on his first hunt in the area. The earl had named the house he had eventually erected here after the beast he had shot on that day.

"What the deuce has happened to the Bear?"

His face carefully blank, Hill said, "I believe it has been ..." He paused. One of his eyelids twitched. "...adorned, my lord."

Troy narrowed his eyes. "Is that a petticoat?" He stepped nearer to the long-suffering bear.

"I believe it is."

"And--" Troy’s brows shot up. "The countess's pearls? Those rascals! And--good lord, what is that?"

Both men leaned slightly forward to eye the Bear’s new headdress. Eventually, the butler cleared his throat. "A lacy veil, my lord."

"There are holes in it!"

Oh yes. It must have come from...from the attic, my lord."

"The attic?" Troy glanced at his butler, but Hill looked blander than ever.

"I believe there was a treasure hunt today."

"In the attic?" A horrible thought occurred to Troy. "Did they find the elephant foot?"

"Indeed they did, my lord." Hill blinked. "And they were much taken by it." He made a pause as if to let these terrible news sink in. "But it proved too heavy for them."

A sigh of relief escaped Troy. "Thank heavens!" he muttered. Fortunately, his ancestor had only been fond of big, brawny animals and had eschewed the daintier fauna. Who knew what would have been dragged down from the attic otherwise!

He shuddered.

"The countess?" he finally asked, his voice sounding somewhat weak even to his own ears.

"Was not interested in the elephant foot," Hill said, his gaze still glued to the unfortunate bear.

Troy looked at his butler more closely. The events of the day appeared to have left the old man shaken. After all, Hill had always regarded the Bear of Bair Hall as his personal responsibility. To see it thus adorned must be downright painful. But as they all knew from experience, the immediate reversal of such beautification and decoration projects would only end in tears and mayhem.

"I take it that she is in the drawing room?" Troy asked, his voice gentle.

Hill started and threw him a flustered look. "Oh yes, yes, the countess is..." His gaze strayed to the Bear once more. "... is..."

"Yes?"

"Taking her tea." With a sigh, Hill turned his attention back on Troy. "My lord."

***

The whole epilogue can be found on Sandra's website. Happy reading! And a happy new year to all of you!

Sports & Entertainment: Books & Reading in the 19th Century

By Sandra Schwab

Do you like to read novels? Of course you do, or you probably wouldn't have stumbled across the blog of a bunch of romance authors! Now imagine yourself living in the 1800s--what would your books look like then?

Generally speaking, 19th-century novels were often smaller than our books today, and until the 1830s, there was no standard publisher's binding. The covers consisted of grey cardboard, which buyers would remove so the books could be bound in their own library style. And this, of course, also tells you something about the readers and the price of books: novels were expensive. Very expensive in fact, and only the upper and upper-middle classes could afford to buy them on a regular basis. A novel was usually published in three volumes, as a so-called three-decker novel. By the 1820s, Sir Walter Scott's publisher had raised the price per volume to 10s 6d, which meant that the complete novel would cost 31s 6d. For the next few decades this remained the standard price. If you compare this to the average weekly wage of, say, a teacher (17s), it's clear that most people couldn't afford to buy first editions.


Instead, a lot of readers got their books from the so-called circulating libraries. For an annual fee, you could borrow one volume at a time; if you paid a higher fee, you could get more books. The most successful circulating library of the 19th century was Mudie's, founded in 1842. Thanks to their efficient organisation, they soon distributed books not only throughout Britain, but also throughout the whole British Empire. Imagine that!

If you fancied some lighter reading (or if you were a young lad enthralled by stories of knightly adventures, monsters, evil magicians, witches, seven-league boots and what not), you might have turned to the cheap street literature: to the broadside ballads and the chapbooks with their somewhat coarse woodcuts.

Luckily for Victorian readers, the cost of books and literature changed dramatically in the course of the 19th century, when Dickens and his publishers made the illustrated monthly popular for mainstream literature. For example, The Pickwick Papers were published in 19 installments from March 1836 to October 1837. Each monthly sold at 1s (except for the last, double, issue which cost 2s), and each issue was surrounded by pages of advertisements which provided an additional income for the publisher. The suspicion with which some people regarded these illustrated monthlies is expressed by Miss Jenkyns in Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford: her neighbour, Captain Brown, is reading The Pickwick Papers in installments, and Miss Jenkyns is quite certain that the author, Mr Boz, can't possibly be a good writer. Indeed, she is rather annoyed when Captain Brown suggests that the opposite is true.

Gaskell's Cranford stories as well as her novel North and South were first published in a weekly magazine, namely in Dickens's Household Words, which ran from 1850 to 1859. Such installments in weekly magazines became another popular way to publish novels and to expand the literary market.

This serialisation of novels meant that the reading experience of nineteenth-century readers was quite different from our own: they often followed the fates of their favourite characters over several months, if not years, which resulted in a special intimacy with the story and the characters. (And, oh dear, the extended suspense!) But not only novels were published as serials: the Victorians read every genre in serial form, fiction and non-fiction alike.

Excerpt Thursday: Sandra Schwab

Thursdays on Unusual Historicals means excerpts!

Here's one from Sandra Schwab's latest release from Dorchester, BEWITCHED. Sandra writes: After a magical mishap that has turned her uncle's house blue, the heroine of my latest novel BEWITCHED is stripped of her powers and sent to London in order to be introduced into polite society and to find a suitable husband. In the following scene, she is attending a private musical party, where she meets the handsome, rakish Sebastian "Fox" Stapleton for the second time. (Their first meeting didn't go too well!)

Enjoy!

***

Amy scratched her nose.

"Don't tell me you're bored, Miss Bourne?"

Her head snapped around. Blue-grey eyes regarded her intently beneath arched cinnamon brows.

Her own eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Mr." --Carrot--"Stapleton."

"Miss Bourne." He inclined his head, and the candlelight ran a fiery path over his hair. When he straightened, she noticed how his dark brown coat accentuated the breadth of his shoulders. A golden floral pattern gleamed on the black waistcoat beneath.

Very stylish.

Apparently disinterested, he gazed over the crowd while his fingers drummed a noiseless tattoo against his thigh.

Stylish, but sadly as cold and as odious as an old fish.

"A nice crowd tonight, is it not?" she remarked pointedly.

He turned his attention back on her, frowning. "I understand you were to meet Mr. Fermont. May I offer you his apologies? Unfortunately, he is ... indisposed tonight." His lips curved into a charming smile. Charming, but careless. A smile one might bestow on a small child.

Amy's nostrils flared. Under the hem of her long dress her satin slipper tapped the floor. If he meant to impress her with all his freckled, carroty glory, he’d failed miserably.

"He asked me to come in his stead. To make up for the loss. So ..." He gestured with his hand. "Shall we take a seat?"

"Why not." Other than the fact that, while his waltzing technique might be divine, he was cold as a fish and apparently also a stiff bore.

They chose a pair of plush-covered chairs and sat down. Leaning his arm on the back of the chair in front of her, he turned towards her. "I understand I am to explain the music to you."

"Indeed." She clasped her hands in her lap and valiantly suppressed the urge to twiddle her thumbs.

"You don't normally like music?" His was a polite, bland voice. They might have been talking about the weather.

"The opposite is the case, I assure you."

"Ah." He nodded knowingly.

Oh yes. How could she have forgotten? Carroty hair, cold as a fish, a stiff bore, and on top of that he was a Mr. Know-It-All-Magic-Doesn't-Exist. Splendid.

Once again Amy was left to wonder what exactly she had done to deserve this. True, turning Three Elms blue was a serious offense--what if somebody had paid them a visit that afternoon? Or what if one of the villagers had happened to pass by the house? Cobalt blue manor houses were rather difficult to explain away. But still, being forced to mingle with obnoxious people in a city that reeked with dirt seemed too harsh a sentence. The quaint cottage and the ill-tempered, scarred tomcat all at once appeared very appealing indeed.

"But you don’t play the fortepiano yourself?" the voice of the horrid Mr. Carrothead cut into her reveries.

Now she did twiddle her thumbs. "No, I'm afraid not. I never had the opportunity."

The buzz around them increased as people chose seats, and chairs scraped over the floor.

"What a pity." He moved on his seat. "Then your family does not own a fortepiano?" When he leaned back, the sleeve of his coat slipped up and revealed a small strip of skin above the white glove.

He had, Amy discovered, freckles even on his forearms. Spots of cinnamon between coppery hair. Again it intrigued her, this contrast between attributes of maleness and the cheeky splatter of cinnamon dust. As if there were mischievous depths to that stiff, formal, probably even slightly bored man.

She shook her head and forcefully dragged her attention back to the conversation. "A fortepiano? No, it's not that. The instrument was just always" --snapping at everybody besides my cousin-- "otherwise occupied."

Once more, her companion gave a sage nod of his head. Cinnamon splatter or not, he was certainly most irritating! Why didn't he say anything more? "I quite understand."

Amy gave him an arch look. "I seriously doubt that, Mr. Stapleton."

Expansion & Invasion: From Empire to Commonwealth (The Short Version)

By Sandra Schwab

It is somewhat ironic that in the same century in which the British Empire reached the peak of its power, the slow process of its dismantling began as well. In a series of wars during the Victorian age Britain extended its empire until it had become the country on which the sun never sets. But such expansion of its territories came at a cost – and some considered the price to high. Especially towards the end of the century disillusionment spread. This is expressed in Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Widow at Windsor," in which the Queen is regarded as a spider which devours the male of the species:

Walk wide o' the Widow at Windsor,
For 'alf of Creation she owns:
We 'ave bought 'er the same with the sword an' the flame,
An' we've salted it down with our bones.
(Poor beggars! – it's blue with our bones!)

The vast empire became more and more difficult to manage and the problems only increased in the twentieth century, when national movements grew in colonies throughout the empire and strove for independence for their countries.

In 1839 Lord Durham, the Governor-General of British North-America, recommended limited self-government for what is now Canada. The idea of "responsible government" spread quickly, and some colonies (such as parts of Australia, New Zealand and Cape Colony) were eventually allowed to manage their own affairs under governors appointed by the mother country.

In 1867 three of the colonies of British North-America joined in a confederation and were granted a new status within the British Empire: they were now known as the Dominion of Canada, and became increasingly independent from the UK. This process was repeated in other parts of the empire, namely in those with a larger (former) European population: for example in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. These dominions were often referred as the British Commonwealth.

The independence of the dominions was recognized in the so-called Balfour Declaration of the Imperial Conference, which stated that:

They are autonomous Communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any respect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by a common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.

This relationship between dominions and former mother country was then formalised in the Statute of Westminster of 1931.


After WWII more and more colonies gained their independence, until the Colonial Office was finally abolished in 1966. With that, the British Empire officially ceased to exist, even though there are still dependent territories such as the Cayman Islands or Saint Helena.

Women: Dead Maidens Floating Down to Camelot

By Sandra Schwab

By this time the report of the accident had spread among the workmen and boatmen about the Cobb, and many were collected near them, to be useful if wanted, at any rate, to enjoy the sight of a dead young lady, nay, two dead young ladies, for it proved twice as fine as the first report.
~ Jane Austen, PERSUASION

Nineteenth-century ideology divided the world into two different spheres: the public sphere and the domestic sphere. The public sphere (work, politics, money) was the realm of man, who was thought to have greater reason and thus greater intellectual capacities. The domestic sphere (the household, raising the children), by contrast, was the realm of woman, who was considered to be more emotional than man and to be unable to withstand the cruelties of the big, bad world outside. All in all, men were supposed to be active, women passive. The model woman was the so-called Angel in the House, a term which derived from a poem by Coventry Patmore, who described ideal female behaviour this way:

Man must be pleased; but him to please
Is woman's pleasure; down the gulf
Of his condoled necessities
She casts her best, she flings herself.

Because women were considered to be angels, they had to look frail and ethereal and had to faint a lot; many drank vinegar to gain an interesting pallor. In ideological terms, the most ideal, because the most passive, woman is a dead woman, and depictions of dead or dying women abounded in the nineteenth century. Indeed, the topic was popular and widespread that it threatened to become a cliché.

Illness, especially consumption, was idealized and regarded as a gentle fading away into death – a most suitable end for innocent, young girls such as Jane Eyre's friend Helen.

Love could also prove fatal for those poor fictional women: in Tennyson's "Lancelot and Elaine" the heroine dies of unrequited love (because Lancelot, the cad, is in love with the queen), but before that happens she composes the Song of Love and Death:

I fain would follow love, if that could be;
I needs must follow death, who calls for me;
Call and I follow, I follow! let me die.

Furthermore, artists and writers used death as a means to subdue the unruly woman and an overly developed, and hence threatening, female sexuality. (Remember, women were supposed to be angels--and pure angels don't know anything about lust or passion!) One of the most popular dead women of the Victorian Age was Tennyson's Lady of Shalott, who sits in her tower, looking into her magic mirror and weaving night and day, until Lancelot comes riding along. When she dares to look out of the window, a curse strikes the lady and her mirror and web, the basis of her existence, are destroyed. She leaves the tower, takes a boat (which she conveniently finds on the banks of the river) and, floating down to Camelot, she dies. One of the most famous paintings on the topic is Waterhouse's Lady of Shalott:

Other artists such as William Holman Hunt chose to depict the Lady's digression, namely the looking out of the window. Given the sexualised imagery in the description of Lancelot, this moment can well be regarded as a sexual awakening (for which she is punished by death). Therefore, Hunt's Lady is a sexual creature, with naked (gasp!) feet and loose, wild hair (Victorian women only took their hair down in the bedroom), who gets entangled in her unravelling web while pigeons, symbols of innocence, fly out of the window.

Being a nineteenth-century heroine was certainly fraud with dangers!

Weekly Announcements - 4 July 2008

Erastes stopped by Risky Regencies to discuss SPEAK ITS NAME.

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Delia DeLeest has been interviewed by Dark Angel Reviews.

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Michelle Styles garnered a great review from Merrimom Crawford of Medieval Book Reviews for VIKING WARRIOR, UNWILLING WIFE.

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Sandra Schwab received another glowing review for BEWITCHED, this time from ParaNormalRomance.

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In celebration of Fae Month at ParaNormalRomance, Jacquie Rogers has been interviewed.

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Lisa Marie Wilkinson's WIP has finaled in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest.

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Join us Sunday when Mirella Patzer will be discussing and giving away a copy of BLOODSTONE CASTLE, set in medieval Italy.

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We'll also draw the winner of a copy of T. J. Bennett's THE LEGACY. Leave a comment for your shot at winning.

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Have a good weekend. If you have an announcement to make for next week, email Carrie. See you next week...

Weekly Announcements - 27 June 08

Jennifer Mueller has two new releases. This week saw the Dark Castle Lords release of FAR FROM HOME, which is set in Byzantium and features a hero who is Varangian--a Viking warrior in the employ of the Byzantine emperor. In July, she will be releasing AN ARRANGEMENT AMONG GENTLEMEN from Phaze, set in Canada.

***

Sandra Schwab received a great review for BEWITCHED from Azteclady on Karen Knows Best, an influential reader blog:

Amy is such a wonderful character. She is strong even when she fears her own weakness, and lets her generous heart guide her during moments of darkness and uncertainty. For his part, Sebastian's reactions and feelings are so well drawn, so deeply felt, that my heart ached for both of them.

***

Michelle Styles received great reviews for VIKING WARRIOR, UNWILLING WIFE from the Pink Heart Society and Cataromance:

Michelle Styles is an extraordinary writer of historical romantic fiction who can make any period of history her own! VIKING WARRIOR, UNWILLING WIFE is a sensational historical romance that is fast-paced, action-packed, engrossing, emotional and romantic!

For those of us in the States who are eager to get hold of this book, it's available now for pre-order on Amazon, set for a December US release.

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Join us Sunday when T.J. Bennett will be discussing and giving away a copy of THE LEGACY, set in 16th century Germany--available now from Medallion Press.

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We'll also draw the winner of a copy of Anne Whitfield's KITTY MCKENZIE, in celebration of her newest release, HER SHADOWED HEART. Leave a comment for your shot at winning.

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Have a good weekend. If you have an announcement to make for next week, email Carrie. See you next week...