Happy Birthday, Mr. Dickens

Today, 7 February, is Charles Dickens's 200th birthday.  He was and continues to be my inspiration.  Every year I reread at least one of his books, for the sheer fun of it as well as the re-setting of impossibly high standards.  No matter how many times I reread his stories, I always discover something new.  This was a writer who could give a chair a personality. 

He inspired my love of English history and taught me to love a city I'd never seen—London—and set off that writer's itch that keeps me going and enriches my travels and makes me endlessly curious about the past, especially the world he grew up in and lived in and wrote about.

I am not sure I would have written a single novel, if not for him.

Thank you, Mr. Dickens, for all you've given us & all you've given me.

And a very Happy Birthday to you, wherever you are.

The illustration of a young Charles Dickens (about age 30 if the info is correct), is from Wikipedia—and quite a different look from the more familiar portraits of his older self.

A remnant of Northumberland House

The hero of Silk is for Seduction requiring a domicile in Town, I looked around early 19th century London for a little something suitable for a duke.  I'd already moved characters from previous books into St. James's Square, so that was getting crowded.  Where, then?  Berkeley Square?  Nope.  I'd already stuck a family there.  Somewhere overlooking one of the parks? Nice, but none of the houses seemed to suit my hero

Eventually, my real estate search led me to the Strand, a much less fashionable neighborhood.  Once upon a time, (the time of Susan's historical novels, for instance) all the great noble palaces lined the Strand.  By 1835, the area had gone into trade.  But Northumberland House, home of the Duke of Northumberland, remained. 


So I stole—borrowed it, called it Clevedon House, made some architectural and decorative adjustments, and gave it to my hero.

Over at Two Nerdy History Girls, you'll find a post with lots of links to historical information about this fascinating holdover.  It occupies several pages in Christopher Simon Sykes's wonderful Private Palaces:  Life in the Great London Houses.  In London today all that remains is the street named after it, Northumberland Avenue, a doorway carefully preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a miniature of the room the doorway belonged to, the Glass Drawing Room. 

 Photos courtesy me.

White wedding dresses before Victoria

My story in the recently released Royal Weddings anthology is set on the eve of Queen Victoria's wedding in 1840.  Many people believe that Queen Victoria was the first to wear a white wedding dress.  This is simply not the case.  Brides were wearing white long before this, and 19th century periodicals offer ample evidence.  Here are some examples.  Here's more.

And here's another, from Ackermann's Repository of Fashions, August 1829:

    

The delights of skating

Though we had a teasing spate of warm (er) weather, it wasn't enough to deter the ice fishermen, we noticed.  Since this may, though, be the last hurrah for skating, it seemed a good time to do an accompaniment to my ice skating blog over at Two Nerdy History Girls.  This quotation is from a half century later.
~~
The good tidings that the ice on St. James’s water or on the Serpentine is strong enough to bear (its safety is another matter) circulates far and wide, and the scene becomes ere long as animated as any that London has to display.  Groups of warmly clad ladies and children are gradually drawn to the scenes of action to watch the sport, and by their presence and encouragement to add gaiety to the scene.  The less confident aspirants are encouraged to essay a venture for the sake of the bright eyes that look on; and the heroes of the day redouble their exertions to astonish and gratify the spectators, by vigorous efforts and intrepid feats of skill.  Some few are to be seen, so well instructed by art, or gifted by nature, as to tread the slippery floor with as much decision and grace as would be exhibited by the most finished dancer in a drawing-room, and would half inspire the believe that they had never trodden rougher ground in their lives, or had been shod otherwise than with the narrow strip of steel which now supports them.  Skating has one advantage over many other amusements, that it is free alike to the rich and poor.
—The Illustrated London Almanack, 1853, as quoted in The London Miscellany: A Nineteenth Century Scrapbook, compiled by Robert Harling, 1938.

Illustration:  Out of door sports - the Caledonian and Thistle clubs playing the Scottish national game of curling upon the frozen pond in the Central Park, New York / from a sketch by our own artist, (from Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper), 1860, Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.  

Rex Carolvs means what?

Continuing the illustrated, annotated version of Last Night's Scandal...

As followers of the Two Nerdy History Girls blog are acutely aware, I spend a lot of time on historical trivia that many readers probably don't find all that thrilling. You can imagine my excitement, then, when a reader is sufficiently intrigued to ask me to explain an obscure detail in one of my books. 

Today's query relates to this exchange:
 ~~~
     “What have you got there?”
     “Dunno.  Brass button?”
     “Let me see.”
     After scraping off dirt, Roy said, “A medal, maybe.”  He peered at the object.
     “Old medal?” said Jock.  “Some of them fetch a good price.”
     “Could be.”  Roy scraped some more and peered some more.  Then he spelled out painfully, “R-E-X.  Then a mark, not a letter.  Then C-A-R-O-L-V-S.”
     Jock, whose reading skills extended to recognizing a tavern sign, said, “What is it?”
     Roy looked at him.  “Money,” he said.

My alert-to-details reader wanted to know what REX CAROLVS signified.

The reference is to King Charles I, who appears as Rex Carolvs (Rex Carolus) on the coins of his reign.  One of the plot elements of the book deals with a legend dating to his reign, the turmoil of the Civil War, and its unfortunate conclusion for him and those who supported him.


These illustrations are by Classical Numismatic Group.  You can see more examples here and here, at the Welsh website, Gathering the Jewels.  Another fine example is at the British Museum.  You can even buy a reproduction at the Royal Mint.

Julia Child's Kitchen

A few weeks ago, on a trip south for a wedding, we stopped in Washington D.C. for a couple of days, to visit friends and, of course, museums.  I have a long list of places in D.C. I want to visit, but there's never enough time for more than one or two.  This time, inspired by Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci's marvelous performances in Julie and Julia, I went straight to the Smithsonian to visit Julia Child's Kitchen. 

(To be strictly accurate, my journey was somewhat straight.  It was necessary to detour round the Boy Scouts parade.  There were several thousand of them in town that weekend, and the 100+ temps made even those brave lads faint, some of them.  But more of that at another time.)

Following up on my blog about Julia Child at Two Nerdy History Girls, here, for you viewing pleasure, are more photos.

There's a ton of fascinating info about Julia Child and her kitchen here, at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History site.

The Bride returns

Let’s face it. My brain simply isn’t big enough to finish writing a book, blog every other day or so at Two Nerdy History Girls, and blog here, too.

Now, though, I’ve sent off the copyedited manuscript (more about that later)—and the experience may well provide blog fodder. That leaves me in the stage of staring into space, wondering what the next book will be about.

So here’s some news.

Once upon a time, between Lord of Scoundrels and The Last Hellion, I wrote a novella, “The Mad Earl’s Bride,” for an anthology titled Three Weddings and a Kiss.


Avon has reissued “The Mad Earl’s Bride” along with works by Catherine Anderson and Samantha James, in a handsome new volume titled Three Times a Bride, which will be out in May.

You can learn more about early 19th century weddings and dresses here.


The wedding dress pictured below is from the 1829 Ackermann’s Repository, as is the description.

WEDDING DRESS.
A ROUND dress of Brussels lace over a slip of white gros de Tours ; the body of the slip is cut low and square ; the corsage of the dress is made up to the throat and fastens behind, it sets close to the shape round the upper part of the bust, but has a little fulness at the bottom of the waist. Long sleeve à l’Imbecille over the manche à la bêret of the slip. A biais of white lace, finished at the upper edge by a white satin rouleau, goes round the skirt, and is surmounted by an embroidery of uncommon depth and beauty. A Turkish pelisse of white satin is worn over the lace dress; it is open in front, and the corsage open before and behind falls over the bust in a deep fold, which is divided on the shoulder; a satin rouleau edges the front and corsage of the pelisse; the bottom of which has no other trimming than an ourlet of uncommon breadth. The hair is arranged in front in the Madona style, and disposed in full bows on the crown of the head. Head-dress, a garland of flowers (orange) and a Brussels lace veil; pearl necklace, from which is suspended a diamond cross; diamond earrings ; gold bracelets, à la Grecque, with diamond clasps ; white satin slippers laced in the sandal style; white kid gloves.

News from the 18th & 19th centuries

The Two Nerdy History Girls, Susan Holloway Scott & I, have returned from our latest junket to Colonial Williamsburg, and we're ready to Tell All. You can learn what we learned about 18th-19th c. coaches, clothes, dancing, and other delights. In case you were wondering, our sources' knowledge extends far beyond Colonial America. For one thing, in Colonial times, Americans viewed themselves as English subjects, and imported just about everything from England. For another, the CW interpreters' scholarship is wide-ranging. They're as comfortable talking about a Regency era carriage as an 18th C one, and the milliners and tailors make clothes for the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. We've got the pictures to prove it--detailed photos you won't find anywhere else. Intrigued? Just click on My Other Blog over there to your right or, if that's too far for you, right here.

Mystery vocabulary

I just finished re-reading (for about the sixth or tenth or eighteenth time) Dickens's The Pickwick Papers, and am once more overwhelmed by my ignorance. Yes, this was an edition with notes, but no, it was not a Norton Critical Edition (there isn't one, I discovered to my intense annoyance), and whoever wrote the notes took an excessively optimistic view of the average reader's knowledge of historical arcana.

Being a Nerdy History Girl, I know weird, useless stuff, make it my business to know weird, useless stuff. But page after page, I was stumped. Here are a few mystery terms:

"plush shorts and cottons"

"Oxford-mixture trousers"

"bagman"

So I thought, if I'm puzzled, what about high school and college students? Then I remembered how tedious I found most of the 19th C "classics" I read back then. Would I be writing the kinds of stories I write now if a friend hadn't explained the joys of David Copperfield to me, sometime in the middle of my lengthy college career?

Two Nerdy History Girls debut

You may have noticed the new link under My Other Blog.

Susan Holloway Scott & I have joined forces to indulge our historical obsessions.

We've been working on it quietly in the background for a while, but finally decided it's time to spring it on an unsuspecting public.

Michelle Buonfiglio at Romance B(u)y the Book hosts our launch party.

She's got more at her Heart to Heart blog at Barnes & Noble.

It's not too late to stop by and say something.

Scandalous prints

In Don’t Tempt Me, I make frequent mention of satirical prints. These were something like today’s editorial cartoons. They were often but not always political. They tended to mock Society, high and low. Most interesting of all, I think, is what the artists got away with. True, the erotic prints tended to be kept under the counter for special customers, but a great deal hung in print shop windows for all the world to see.


An online exhibit of works by Gillray at the New York Public Library shows you Humphrey’s Print Shop in St. James’s Street--where my fictional Duke of Marchmont would have paused to study the prints dealing with Zoe.

And here, in case you were wondering, is the print, Is She Not a Spunky One, that Marchmont plants in the journalist’s mind.

Them's fightin' words

A Central Massachusetts columnist today called for civility in the discussion about health care. I, too, would prefer civilized discussions to scream fests, on this and all other topics. I found myself thinking, though, how differently these things were handled a couple of centuries ago. I’ve been watching, courtesy NetFlix, John Adams. The shouting matches in Congress (and hey, how interesting that our legislators all fit in one small room in those days) reminded me that the debates often went beyond shouting to shooting.

In Gentleman’s Blood: A History of Dueling, Barbara Holland quotes Adams: “ ‘Politics . . . had always been the systematic organization of hatreds.’” According to Holland, “Every faction considered all other factions a threat to the republic and a personal insult.”

In those days, gentlemen stuck to their guns, literally. They weren’t likely to retreat from a long-held position simply because people were yelling at them. If a man did retreat, someone would call him a coward, and then he’d have to fight a duel to prove he wasn’t.

I don’t know if we’re doing better today because our politicos don’t shoot each other so much, or our forefathers did better because they'd put their lives on the line in defense of principle (or manly pride).

History simply makes me ask questions. And watching the miniseries has made me want to read the book.

The Last Hellion--The Interview

HISTORICAL NOVELIST SUSAN HOLLOWAY SCOTT TALKS TO ME ABOUT THE REISSUE OF THE LAST HELLION

SUSAN: As a reader and longtime Loretta fan, I’m personally delighted to see THE LAST HELLION returning in a fresh package for new readers to discover. Would you tell us a bit about the story?

LORETTA: This was one of the cases where a secondary character intrigued me. The Duke of Ainswood makes a brief drunk and disorderly appearance in LORD OF SCOUNDRELS. That was all he was supposed to do. But he kept bugging me. What was his problem? What was he covering up or running away from? It turned out that the Duke of Ainswood is a drunken boor because he’s paid an unbearably high price for his position. But his brand of self-destruction takes him slumming--and puts him on a collision course with big, blonde, and dangerous Lydia Grenville, crusading journalist (and secret romance writer). This story is special to me because it was an opportunity to deal with some aspects of Regency life that one doesn’t encounter often in historical romances. It was a way of getting into that Dickens world I love so much while allowing both my characters to try to fight the good fight--along with fighting with each other and falling in love.

I’m terrible at summarizing my stories, so I’ll let readers look at the back cover blurb here and an excerpt here.

SUSAN: Lydia Grenville is an untraditional heroine, nearly six feet tall, nearly thirty, and full of fire and conscience. She’s also a “career woman” in a time when ladies didn’t work, let alone work as crusading journalists. What inspired you to develop her character?

LORETTA: Dickens gave me the general inspiration for the setting, and the novels he and others wrote in serial form gave me the idea for her pseudonymous ROSE OF CAIRO. But more important, Lydia is one of the many woman characters I’ve created in reaction to women in 19th C novels and to 19th C sexism and misogyny in general. Specifically, what set me off was critics’ reaction to Lady Morgan’s two-volume ITALY. You can read her response to some of the criticism here.

According to Paul Johnson’s THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN, “they hated Lady Morgan as a woman writer...and they were further incensed by the news that the publisher Colburn had paid her the immense sum of £2000 for the book. Byron hailed the book as ‘fearless and excellent.’” Everyone else went nuts. Here’s a sampling from Johnson’s book: “‘she spewed out of her filthy maw/A flood of poison, horrible and black. “She was ‘an Irish she-wolf’ a ‘blustering virago,’ a ‘wholesale blunderer and reviler’; she wrote while ‘maudlin from an extra tumbler of negus in the forenoon.’” This was typical “criticism” of the time--reviewers today are pussycats by comparison. What fascinated me me was the how much they hated her simply because she was a successful woman writer.

It was a tough world, and journalism then was definitely no place for a lady. So I got the idea of a heroine who was both a tough cookie journalist (a HIS GIRL FRIDAY kind of dame)--and a writer of highly popular romantic tales. And the two occupations reflect the two sides of her personality.

SUSAN: While Lydia is unusual, her hero, Vere Mallory, Duke of Ainswood, outwardly seems that most stereotypical character, the rakehell peer. But it only takes a few pages for readers to see the only typical thing about him is that he’s one more in a long line of deliciously unforgettable (and irresistible) heroes. What makes him so special?

LORETTA: Well, he’s a big, dumb jerk, for one thing. I love writing tough, smart, cool heroes like James Cordier of YOUR SCANDALOUS WAYS or Lord Rathbourne of LORD PERFECT. But the Regency had its cowboys, too, and creating those types of heroes (Rupert of MR IMPOSSIBLE is one of my cowboys) is a different kind of challenge, and a different kind of fun. Sometimes I think we have an overly refined image of what men were like then. There’s a great passage in Conan Doyle’s RODNEY STONE: “He was a type and leader of a strange breed of men which has vanished away from England--the full-blooded, virile buck, exquisite in his dress, narrow in his thoughts, coarse in his amusements, and eccentric in his habits.” The “coarse in his amusements” concept influenced heroes like Lord Dain and the Duke of Ainswood.

Another inspiration for this story and his character was Pierce Egan’s LIFE IN LONDON. I could easily picture Ainswood in the situations Cruikshank illustrates.

Lord Who?

A reader asks:

“Every once in a while a character in a historical romance will be referred to simply as Lord Such-and-such, with no indication ever being given as to what his title actually is (Earl, Viscount, Baron). Sometimes the title is the same as the last name, sometimes it is different. Was this a typical way to refer to nobility at times, with the actual rank being a given to those of the time? Was the rank understood to be different if the last name was the same?”

British titles and styles of address is a quicksand topic. One of my favorite quotations on this subject comes from my 1936 Whitaker’s Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage:

“The rules which govern the arrangements of the Peerage are marked by so many complications that even an expert may occasionally be perplexed.” (italics mine)

This is why, whenever I respond to questions about same, I do so with trembling typing fingers, sure that someone, somewhere, will remind me of an exception I forgot to except or a subtlety I’ve overlooked. As I try to answer your question, please bear that in mind.

The grades of the peerage are, in order of rank, Duke, Marquess or Marquis (pronounced “markwiss” or "markwess" but not "markee"), Earl, Viscount (rhymes with My Count--"s" is silent), Baron. Anyone referred to or addressed as Lord So & So is below the rank of Duke.

How do we know this? A duke is addressed as Your Grace (older style guides include the form My Lord Duke) or, by equals, Duke. He might be referred to as the Duke of Someplace, e.g., the gentleman here is the Duke of Wellington. But the duke is never Lord Wellington. (This rule does not apply to Royal Dukes, who are younger sons of the monarch. They’re addressed differently.)

Below the rank of Duke, the correct form is “Lord.” So a Lord Somebody is a Marquess/Marquis, Earl, Viscount, or Baron. One doesn’t address these peers as Marquess of So & So or Baron Such & Such, and normally doesn’t refer to them by their rank. In conversation, people would refer to this gentleman, the Earl of Egremont, as Lord Egremont or, very informally, Egremont.

According to my Titles and Forms of Address: “All peers and peeresses below ducal rank are called lord and lady in speech....there are a few formal occasions in which the full title would be used, but it would never happen in intimate speech.”

Sometimes the title is the same as the last name and sometimes not. For a great many peerages, the title comes from the name of a place. All dukes’ titles are from a place, even when the family name is the same as the title. But a baron’s title might come from a place, his family name, or another source entirely.

If there's no “of”, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a family name. And if there is an “of”, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a family name.

The first Earl Granville--whose wife raised the two illegitimate children he had with her aunt--is missing the "of," though Granville isn’t his family name but the name of an ancestor whose title became extinct. This earl's family name is Leveson-Gower, pronounced lewson-gorr (pronunciation is another minefield).

Leveson-Gower is also the family name of the Duke of Sutherland, who’s selling the Titian and who has a really nice place in Scotland, Dunrobin Castle, that I got to visit years ago when the dollar wasn’t like Monopoly money. (That's me at his place with the owl.)

But I digress.

Viscounts and Barons, whether the title is from a place or not, don’t have an “of” in their titles, thus, the Viscount Hereford or the Baron Headley.

So no, there’s no way to tell the rank simply from the name used in the title. Those with whom they associate are supposed to know whether Lord Castlereagh here is a marquess or earl or viscount or baron. I’ve always imagined that members of the aristocracy learned who was who in the same way they learned to speak, and the knowledge was, like accent, one of the ways members of the upper orders could tell who was one of them and who wasn’t. It was a small world, after all.

And that’s as far as I dare to go on the topic. Not a word about younger sons, wives, daughters, son’s wives, daughter’s husbands, etc.

If you’d like to explore this labyrinth, there are plenty of references. In addition to the aforementioned Whitakers, and an 1811 Debretts reprint, my frequently-used guides are:

Titles and Forms of Address: A Guide to Correct Use, A&C Black, London.

Measures, Howard. Styles of Address. Thomas Y Crowell

Emily Hendrickson, The Regency Reference Book. An excellent reference for a great many Regency-era subjects, it's sold privately. Contact Emily at regencygal@hotmail.com for information or to order a copy.

Candice Hern has heaps of terrific Regency-era stuff on her website, including a Who’s Who of the lords & ladies we often encounter in the stories and a fabulous collection of fashion plates.

Of course, not everyone needs to know more. Before I got into this business, I had very little understanding of British titles and would not have known or cared when an author used the incorrect form. Now that I do know, such mistakes may unsuspend my suspension of disbelief.

(Originally published at Word Wenches)

Francesca's Tattoo

Fourth of July. U.S. Independence Day. I always wonder, What if King George III and his ministers had handled things differently? What if, over here, the pro-England side had prevailed over the dump-England side? What would we call ourselves? Maybe the U.S. and Canada would all be the same country. We wouldn’t be the U.S. Would we be Canada?

But what I wonder most is, Would Regency-era historical romances be as popular?

Since a great many of our readers are not in the U.S., I’m going to skip the Independence Day blog. Besides, I want to talk about tattoos.

In the course of my cybertour for Your Scandalous Ways, I’ve been asked more than once about Francesca’s tattoo. Readers emailed me about it, as well.

This was one of those topics I’d thought of addressing at some point in the story itself, but the right opportunity never appeared. This happens a lot. There are lots of little substories that don’t get told because it would disrupt the pacing to do so, and the topic doesn’t seem important enough for a detour...and I have only so much time to write a book as well as only so many pages.

So leaving out the story of Francesca’s tattoo was an artistic decision. It bothered me a little at first, but the more I thought about it, the less inclined I was to try to wedge it into the story. I figured this could be one of those “make up your own story” things. Like, “Make up your own story about what happens to Francesca and James after the end of the book.”

Let me start out by saying that anyone who wants to imagine Francesca has one of those henna tattoos that wear off after a few weeks should feel free to go on seeing it that way. It’s a great concept.

Here’s what was in my mind: Tattoos were unheard of among the upper classes in Francesca's day. Edward VII got one when he was Prince of Wales--but that was almost half a century later. Tattoos in Francesca’s time were not respectable, absolutely not for ladies. They were for sailors and criminals and savages. So one element of Francesca’s tattoo is shock value--and that’s clear in the scene at the opera. Even James, who’s seen it all, is shocked to see it. After all, she may be a courtesan, but she’s a lady by birth.

Where did she get it? By Francesca’s time there were professional tattoo artists in major ports, to accommodate the sailors. I imagined that by this time there must be at least one professional tattoo artist in big, cosmopolitan cities like London and Paris. I envisioned her getting her tattoo in Paris, as an act of defiance and a permanent symbol of her having turned her back on respectability.

I chose a serpent partly because of the Cleopatra-asp association. Both Byron and James Cordier associate Francesca's unusual looks with an Egyptian goddess or queen. I envisioned the kind of snakes one sees in Egyptian art and hieroglyphs. Too, given the tools available, a simpler tattoo, say, from a hieroglyph, seemed to make the most sense.
One reader suggested a Garden of Eden connection. That works well, too, given it’s her job to tempt men.
Another thing I considered was the pain and the risk. They used sewing needles and rubbed in the ink. I have no doubt it was a great deal more painful than today’s tattoos and of course the risk of infection was much higher...in a time when there were no antibiotics. Again, this says something about Francesca’s character, her inner toughness, her daring--and the ferocity of her anger with the world that rejected her and which she, symbolically, rejects when she gets her tattoo.

One reader asked why the tattoo doesn’t appear on the cover. Covers are painted long before the book is finished, and they're usually based on the story outline, rather than actual chapters. I did not mention the snake tattoo in the outline (one doesn't go into this much detail). The covers are meant to appeal to a broad audience, and Avon has done a great job, I think, in making my recent covers very beautiful and apt. I also suspect that, given the genre and the fact that not everyone likes tattoos, it would have been left out of the picture, even if I'd made prominent mention of it in the outline.

Originally posted at Word Wenches.

YOUR SCANDALOUS WAYS: The Interview Part Due

An Interview with Wench Loretta Chase
by Susan/Miranda

Welcome to the second part of our release-celebration-interview for Your Scandalous Ways by Wench Loretta Chase, NOW in stores! Today Loretta answers questions about Lord Byron, writing dangerous characters, and the magic of setting a story in Venice. If this still isn't enough about this marvelous book, check out Loretta's new YouTube clips. And please look for Your Scandalous Ways in bookstores everywhere.

Susan/Miranda: There’s a lot of your trademark humor in this book. Some of the bantering between James and Francesca is laugh-out-loud funny, even as it manages simultaneously to be very sexy. Yet this is, in many ways, a “dark” story. How did you decide to use humor the way you did?

Loretta: Completely dark isn’t me. I can go for only so long with a straight face. One thing--among so many--that I loved about writing this story was all the risqué jokes and double entendres the women as well as the men could indulge in. That’s part of my emphasis on giving Francesca tremendous joie de vivre--so that my readers as well as my hero could understand why men throw away fortunes on her.

Susan/Miranda: Lord Byron was another writer who fell in love with Venice, and of course he leaves his mark on YSW. In addition to being an acquaintance of Francesca’s, you’ve chosen to use quotes from his poems as subheads to each chapter. How did he influence you? How did you keep him from hijacking your book?

Loretta: Byron is--as he always was--about impossible to keep under control, even though he’s been dead for nearly 200 years. His voice is so powerful, it comes through even in the dullest biographies, and it simply vibrates in his letters and journals as well as his poetry. So I made him the Narrator, in a way. The Byron quotations help paint the picture and comment on the action and set the mood. I didn’t exactly channel him, but I found his work gave me a strong sense of place and time and a certain view of the characters.

Susan/Miranda: Gambling, drinking, masked identities, and general all-around excess in a fairy-tale environment made early 19th century Venice the equivalent of modern-day Vegas. Or, as Byron notes in one of your many quotations from Don Juan: “What men call gallantry, and gods adultery/Is much more common where the climate’s sultry.” Why are James and Francesca so at home in such a place?

Loretta: They’re both rebellious souls who prize their personal freedom. The cities of the Continent tended to be a little more tolerant of these characteristics than was London’s Beau Monde. Today, except in certain circles, a woman over 21 who’s had a lover or two or three doesn’t raise eyebrows. A divorced woman is not automatically deemed a ho. To an extent, this was the case in Continental Europe in Byron’s time. The upper classes there did the same as the English did--but some Europeans tended to be more open about it and more open-minded. In Venice, the most tolerant of cities, Francesca is simply a divorced woman. And if she has a lover who showers her with nice jewelry--well, then, so do other respectable women.

Susan/Miranda: Plasterwork putti make an intriguing appearance in Your Scandalous Ways. Would you like to discuss them further here for the WordWenches?

Loretta: We’ve all seen those children we call Cupids and cherubs. What I didn’t realize was how much property they covered--literally--in Venice. My model for certain rooms of Francesca’s house came from the Palazzo Albrizzi, whose plasterwork is famous. I loved it because, in a city abounding in gorgeous artistic excess, it was so totally over the top. The ballroom, which I adapted to become Francesca’s Putti Inferno, is described thus in Venetian Palazzi, “The ceiling is completely covered with a closely-folded velarium [basically, this looks like drapery] of stucco supported by twenty-eight winged putti and by four male figures arranged like caryatids at its four corners." Remember, these are not painted on. These are 3D figures in plaster. Here among the glittering folk you’ll find some pix of the palazzo, but not, alas, of the ballroom’s putti. Venetian Palazzi does have beautiful interiors, as do a number of other books on these palaces. Katherine Shaw's photos will give you an idea of these interiors.

Susan/Miranda: The palazzi in YSW are vividly described. Are they based on actual buildings in Venice, or a blending of real places with your imagination?

Loretta: In writing a story, I need a strong sense of place, which meant spending a lot of time looking at pictures of Venetian buildings. The houses in the book are based on real ones, but I might take a room from one and put it into another, or set it in another part of Venice. I kept the layout fairly simple, though, sticking to the basic floor plan shown in Lauritzen’s Palaces of Venice. The Palazzo Albrizzi and the Ca' Rezzonico (more pix here) were the ones I used most frequently but there are bits and pieces of several palazzi throughout the story. (There's more on this topic on my blog Your Palazzo or Mine.)

Susan/Miranda: It’s clear you had a lot of fun writing this book. Will you be returning to Venice any time soon for another? What are you working on now?

Loretta: I fell totally in love with the setting, the characters, and the language--so much so that I started taking Italian lessons. My new book, however, is set in England--or so it seems at the moment. It’s early days yet, and things change. All I can say for certain is that the heroine is another scandalous woman, and she’s going to make the hero’s life very interesting.

Originally posted at Word Wenches.