Showing posts sorted by relevance for query MM Bennetts. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query MM Bennetts. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, September 22, 2014

M.M. Bennetts: The Closest Friend I Never Met

By Nancy Bilyeau

On December 11, 2011, I sent a Facebook friend request to a British writer named M.M. Bennetts with the following message: "You are the funniest person in our group. Please do me the honor of permitting Facebook friendship."

Her swift response: "Ha. Ha. Ha. Can't think what I've said. But yes, absolutely, delighted to."

And that was the beginning of it.

In December 2011 I was a woman with a debut novel one month away from publication. As we are all advised to do, I was writing a flurry of blog posts and meeting fellow authors in person and online. And enjoying myself. I loved writing my first post, one about Halloween in the Tudor era, for English Historical Fiction Authors, a group blog launched by author Debra Brown with the idea that each day a different person would post something on real history, either touched on in the research of a novel or simply of great interest.

Enter M.M.

As Debbie told me in an email: "It was in December. Things got behind with holidays, and I did not have enough posts. I invited British histfic authors from the Triberr group I was in to join, and that is when she came in. She said she could provide two or three posts if I needed them. 'Just ask,' she said. 'Anytime.' "

She was the perfect addition to the group and soon became one of its most active members. M.M. Bennetts, an accomplished author of two novels, Of Honest Fame and May 1812, was also a tireless researcher and editor and a book critic of many years with The Christian Science Monitor.

Or, as M.M. once put it to me: "I know I'll dig and dig until I get as close to the truth as possible, even if it means I annoy the hell out of everyone. And I don't care if people like me--I was too long a book critic to care about that."

You see, that was what I loved most about her. She was brilliant and talented and generous--and she had an edge. A wicked sense of humor and little tolerance for a "nincompetentpoop" or "wholly unintelligible drivel." We reviewed each other's books--mine Tudor thrillers and hers Napoleonic spy stories--and furiously promoted each other's blog posts on social media. And in 687 private Facebook messages over nearly three years (is this a record??), we would vent to each other about the difficulty of publishing novels. "The prob is at the minute over here, everything is World War I until I'm about to vomit. It's everybloodywhere." We swapped bits of hard-won experience and insight. There were a few tears but more often there were jokes, as in her priceless assessment: "The publishing industry is knee deep in horse muck. Only horse muck is good for roses and I'm not sure what they're good for."

I was a little intimidated by how many things she did well. She was a talented pianist. She was a horsewoman. She knew a lot about gardening. M.M. and I had in common a distaste for easy sentiment about historical figures. She had done years of research into Napoleon and knew about the havoc of his armies. She did not like the romanticizing of him, and she approved my similarly un-sentimental feeling toward Henry VIII.

I was nervous about my first bookstore reading, and she shot me useful advice in an email. Afterward I celebrated with her. No one was better than M.M. Bennetts at celebrating something going well for once.

On the bookstore reading: "The worst is one where no one comes. Ha ha. I once had a reading at a local shop and about an hour before really bad weather blew in and the heavens just opened and there were flash floods locally. So there I was with the bookshop owner and one friend who braved the deluge (and she was dripping...) So that was a bit tense, but you just have to laugh because there's nothing you can do about it. Though you do feel like a numpty with these stacks of books just sitting there. So chuffed it went well for you."

We kept nagging each other to visit. Only the Atlantic Ocean separated us! I'd traveled to London in the summer of 2011 to research The Chalice but I hadn't known M.M. then. When I pressed her to come to Florida for the June 2013 Historical Novel Society conference, she responded: "Me, on an airplane, with my claustrophobia? That's just not going to happen." Also: "June is the month in which Parnel sits her A-levels, has her final Speech Day, has her Leavers' Ball (parents invited) and sundry parties. You may have thought otherwise, but really, I'm just a high-end taxi service. So I have a better plan. You come here. For research for your next book. I could be nice and take you on the cakey tour!"

I wanted very much to visit, but finances wouldn't permit it. Still, we talked a lot about our agenda during my theoretical stay. I confided: "High tea is what has the power to bring me to tears."

M.M. responded: "Don't cry over it. That just ruins the tea. If you want high tea, we should go over to what used to be the family shack in Sparsholt. Now it's a posh hotel. Or there's a place down in Brockenhurst which does a fine high tea. Ginger Two has the best cake in Hampshire and that's in Winchester. Very homey--there's a pic of all the cake on my wall--the only pic. I have my priorities."

Of Honest Fame is a suspenseful and beautifully written novel. Read my review here: "A Regency Novel Like No Other." M.M. was doing an amazing job with her article writing and her editing of the EHFA anthology  Castles, Customs and Kings. But what about another novel, I asked?

"I want to--just as you say--have fun with writing again," she responded. "Enjoy my work, enjoy playing with the language and characters like a sculptor plays with clay. But there's this manic focus on numbers--how many books have you written and how many have you sold and it's all push, push, push, and no time for reflection--but at heart, books are about dreaming... which is just the opposite. So I don't know..."

This past March I received an email from M.M. that surprised and worried me: "I've been, er, fighting the big c for a few years now, am just about finished with a kind of big thing with radiotherapy to the head--they are also convinced I'm going to be fine, and I'm looking forward, but you know, I want my life back, and I want to get back in the saddle with my work."

She reassured me several times that she was getting better, suggesting I write a guest post for her blog on the Hermit of Dartford, but at the same time I noticed her witty and knowledgeable comments on the EHFA Facebook group were becoming less and less frequent.

My last email to my friend M.M. Bennetts was on August 9, alerting her to my blog post on the Hellfire Club in Medmenham Abbey: "I thought that if anyone would enjoy a bit of Georgian debauchery, it would be you!"

There was never a response. And then I knew. Yet when her daughter emailed me in that M.M. had died, peacefully, surrounded by family on August 25, I looked at the message on my phone in disbelief. I read it on the way out of my apartment building and found I couldn't get out the door. I sat in the corner of the lobby, facing the courtyard window, and I cried and cried.

I mourn her friendship, her knowledge, her warmth, her never-to-be-forgotten jokes. I wish with all my heart she'd written another novel. I hope people will find the fine ones she did write.

"We learn and we grow wise and we do it ourselves," she once emailed me.

M.M., I promise you I will try.

Love, Nancy


M.M. befriended many members of English Historical Fiction Authors besides myself, and touched readers with her storytelling gifts as well. Debbie Brown and I would love it if we all shared a memory of M.M. Bennetts in the comments section of this blog post.

M.M. Bennetts
29 July, 1957 - 25 August, 2014

The Third Anniversary of #EHFA

by Debra Brown

Thank you! We have enjoyed your visits to the blog for a full three years. Your comments, Google plusing, and help with sending out links has been very much appreciated. At this writing we have had 1,759,084 pageviews since Day One, September 23, 2011.

Lindisfarne Castle, Holy Island*

Our all-time most visited posts, counting down, have been:

#10) Playing Doctor with the Queen by Anna Belfrage
#9) Samuel Leech's Account of War at Sea by Wanda Luce
#8) The Real Identities Behind the Books we Love by Karen V. Wasylowski
#7) Victorian Violence: Repelling Ruffians (Part Three) by Terry Kroenung
#6) Tudor England's Most Infamous Villain: Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich of Leez by Beth von Staats
#5) Stand And Deliver ... Your Tolls? The Rise and Fall of the Turnpikes by J.A. Beard
#4) Who Placed the Earliest Roman Footprint in Scotland? by Nancy Jardine
#3) Greeting Nobility by Marie Higgins
#2) Little Ease: Torture and the Tudors by Nancy Bilyeau
#1) Seven Surprising Facts About Anne of Cleves by Nancy Bilyeau

Congratulations to all of the authors above, and especially to Nancy with the #1 and 2 posts.

There are ever so many other wonderful posts by regularly contributing authors. We have several by Linda Root on the topic of Mary, Queen of Scots and the people and events surrounding her. Beth von Staats who runs the Queen Anne Boleyn blog focuses on the ministers of and people living during the time of Henry VIII. Helena P. Schrader is currently discussing people and events surrounding the Crusades, and Octavia Randolph takes us back to Anglo-Saxon times. Mark Patton shares information on Roman and pre-Roman Britain.

One of my favorite all-time posts remains that of Richard Denning with his haunting video of the Lord's Prayer in Old English.

I am seriously neglecting many other outstanding authors whose posts fill the pages of this blog, and I apologize that I cannot name them all. If you have not followed them here for long, please take a good look through for true tales from your favorite eras and authors. Please use the blog's search function. On social media sites, watch for our hashtag, #EHFA. It will take you to our group posts and projects as well as those of some of our members individually. And we'd love to have you join our Facebook group where we actively discuss history and historical fiction topics.

Mistletoe at Hampton Court Palace**

Last year at this date we released our anthology of selected posts from the first year of this blog titled Castles, Customs, and Kings: True takes by English Historical Fiction Authors edited by myself and M.M. Bennetts and published by Madison Street Publishing. CC&K has done well and continues to sell. Volume II is in the works.

We had at one time planned to announce the release of CC&K Volume II today, but tragedy cut into our path with the illness and death of M.M. Bennetts, one of the blog's beloved member-authors and a co-editor of the book. Her death has keenly saddened the group and the historical fiction community. Her witty posts and the extensive knowledge she imparted when we had questions on historical topics will be greatly missed. What more might she have taught us? Please browse these EHFA posts, most of which are her writing. I am sure you would also enjoy her own blog focusing mainly on Regency and Napoleonic (she hated him--that will clearly and amusingly come through) history.

If you have not read M.M.'s books, you are missing a treat. They can be found on Amazon US and UK.

Plans for a distinguished, annual M.M. Bennetts Historical Fiction Award at EHFA is in the works with Katherine Ashe as Chairman of the Board.

The following post is a tribute to M.M. Bennetts by her good friend, Nancy Bilyeau. Please read on.

Thank you for being a part of our lives, and I hope we will be invited to join you at tea every day!

Photo Attributions
*"LindisfarneCastleHolyIsland" by matthew Hunt - originally posted to Flickr as Holly Island 11. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LindisfarneCastleHolyIsland.jpg#mediaviewer/File:LindisfarneCastleHolyIsland.jpg
**"Mistletoe at Hampton Court Palace" by Jonathan Cardy - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mistletoe_at_Hampton_Court_Palace.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Mistletoe_at_Hampton_Court_Palace.jpg


Friday, September 21, 2012

1st Anniversary of English Historical Fiction Authors

by Debra Brown

A year ago, September 23rd of 2011, a group of authors lost in yesteryear Britain launched this blog. The goals were to take you back in time with a daily historical post and a weekly historical fiction giveaway. Readers would be introduced to the authors and their work.

We feel that we have had great success. We have had nearly eighty thousand of you wonderful folks come to visit us here--for the exact number, scroll down to our little knights at the bottom of this page. We have Nearly four hundred blog followers and have had over five hundred and fifty of you join us to chat in our Facebook group. Many have joined in the fun by leaving comments on our posts, and at least one of you per week has won a book in our giveaways.

This weekend we are celebrating. We have a giveaway planned with twenty books being given away. See the separate Giveaway Post and enter the drawing by midnight Pacific Standard Time on September 23rd. Please also check the weekly giveaway for The Gilded Lily by Deborah Swift. 

I am going to mention some of the highlights of our year's posts here and categorize more of them just in case you missed one. :) And tomorrow we will have a post of interesting historical anecdotes.

And now....

The post receiving the most views for the year is... (don't ask me how, really, we suspect he paid people to visit the post. Honestly, are toll roads the most interesting topic in England?) But yes, the top post of the year is by J.A. Beard, Stand and Deliver ... Your Tolls? The Rise and Fall of the Turnpikes. Maybe it was all those Olympic attenders worried about getting around the country. Congrats J.A.!

#2) Little Ease: Torture and the Tudors by Nancy Bilyeau

#3) A Glimpse of York During the Regency by Lauren Gilbert

#4) The Poor Always Amongst Us by Phillip Brown

#5) Child Labour and Pick-pockets by Marie Higgins

#6) In the Wake of James Cook by Linda Collison

#7) An Inconvenient Princess by Nancy Bilyeau

#8) A Regency-era Lady's Prodigious Layers of Clothing by Wanda Luce

#9) Top Ten tourist attractions in London, 1780 By Mike Rendell

#10) The Birth of "Bloody Mary" By Nancy Bilyeau

A special mention, too, to Gorgeous Georgian Metrosexuals — or How to strut your Metrosexual Stuff in Georgian England by Lucinda Brant, which was a ragingly popular post until it disappeared into thin air. We could not find it on the blog. For months we thought it gone forever, but Lucinda discovered that she could get to it by Google search. Huh? Well, we did some tinkering around and discovered that it had been unpublished. So we published it again, and it is back. Who knows what happened. Someone worried about that Number One spot, probably. ;)

Congrats to these authors. It seems Nancy Bilyeau ran off with the cake.


POST CATEGORIES

For reading ideas, I am categorizing some of the posts. I wish I could add all 365 of them, but time and space don't allow. And you'd get sick of it.

PLACES

A Journey to the Brontë family at Haworth
by Stephanie Cowell


Boundaries: Medieval Women in Medieval Gardens by Judith Arnopp

The Tower of London by Debra Brown

The Lost Houses of England by Maggi Andersen

London in the early 19th century by M.M. Bennetts

Marshalsea Debtor's Prison by Wanda Luce

The Lost Palace of Richmond by Anita Davison

Lloyds-- Lifeblood of British Commerce and Starbucks of its Day by Linda Collison

Welsh Idylls with Judith Arnopp Part One: St Gwenog's Church


CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Smuggling in Devon by Jenna Dawlish

Old English Crime and Punishment: Death By Pyre...A More seemly Death For Women? by Teresa Thomas Bohannon

Fourteen Years Hard Labour by Prue Batten

Steal a book, seven-years' hard labor overseas: Transportation as punishment in the 17th-19th centuries by J.A. Beard


WAR AND BATTLES

Bloody Deeds at Tewkesbury by Anne O'Brien

Degsastan - a lost battlefield by Richard Denning

The West Africa Squadron by Tess St. John

'Carrying Away the Booty' - Drake's attack on the Spanish 'Silver Train' by Jenny Barden


PEOPLE

William Before He Was the Conqueror By Rosanne E. Lortz

Eleanor of Aquitaine: Mother of Kings by Christy English

Richard II and His Double by Brian Wainwright

Lady Jane Grey: Royal Tragedy - Royal Pawn by Teresa Bohannon

The Mysterious Death of King William the Second by Judith Arnopp

Alice the Bad or Alice the Good - or Alice the Quintessential Business Woman? by Anne O'Brien

Charles Brandon ~ Loyaulte me Oblige by Katherine Marcella

Adeliza of Louvain, Lady of the English: A Forgotten Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick

The Harlot Who Was Dickens’ Muse, or, Even Greater Expectations by Katherine Ashe

Two Men, One Crown by Paula Lofting


ART

Holy Grails, Bejeweled Crosses, and Beastly Aquamanilia: European Art in the 13th Century by Sherry Jones

The Royal Coat of Arms by Debra Brown



WEAPONS

The English Longbow – Available in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Video by Scott Higginbotham


LIFE

The Victorian Wedding versus My Own Wedding by Karen V. Wasylowski

Regency Era Classified Ads by Debra Brown

Mother Mourning: Childbed Fever in Tudor Times by Sandra Byrd

Celebrating Childhood Picture Books and the stories that shape us by Deborah Swift

The must-have garden accessories for the rich and richer? A glasshouse and pineapples! by M.M. Bennetts

Eloping to Scotland and the Marriage Act of 1753 by Regina Jeffers

Culpeper's Complete Herbal by Farida Mestek

History-Within-History by Grace Elliot

Downton Abbey and the Fight for Irish Freedom by Tim Vicary

The Great ‘What If’. What if Edward Bruce had succeeded in Ireland? by Arthur Russell

The Sheltons, A Typcial Knight's Family by Anne Clinard Barnhill

By Permission of Heaven - The Great Fire of London by Richard Denning


FASHION

Undergarments Revealed by Diane Scott Lewis

The Changes in Ladies' Fashion from 1780s to 1814 - Too Much or Too Little by Maggi Andersen

The Wig Business was Big Business in 18th Century France by Lucinda Brant


FOOD

Nom nom nom ~ Regency style by M.M. Bennetts

17th Century Recipes by Katherine Pym

Food and Drink in Anglo-Saxon England by Richard Denning


TRANSPORTATION

The days the world’s most powerful man, the richest man and smartest man came together by David William Wilkin

Sir Goldsworthy Gurney and His Steam Carriage by Gary Inbinder

Mrs. Benz's Wild Ride by V.R. Christensen


REGENCY TIMES

Waltzing during the English Regency? Preposterous! by David W. Wilkin

Almack's - it's not quite what you think... by M.M. Bennetts

‘Privy & Privation: A Handsome History of Health & Hygiene in Regaustenian* Times’ by Lady A~, Authoress of ‘The Bath Novels of Lady A~’ Collection.

The Regency Review, by Lady A~, Authoress of 'The Bath Novels of Lady A~' Collection


TUDOR TIMES

The Reformation and the English People by Sam Thomas

Elizabeth & Mary, Rival Queens: A Study of Leadership by Barbara Kyle

Our Tudor Sisters by Sandra Byrd

The Lady Elizabeth, Prisoner at Woodstock by Victoria Lamb


There is soooo much more. Please look around. Don't forget to check our weekly giveaways. And do come back for another year! 


Friday, May 15, 2015

What Are the Ozarks?

by Steve Wiegenstein, Finalist for the M.M. Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction
Winner to be announced at the Historical Novel Society Luncheon on June 27, 2015 and HERE.

My novel series is set in the Ozark Mountains, an area of the United States that is not well known, even to most Americans. Those who have heard of the Ozarks probably only know it from a couple of sources: the simple, comically rustic family on the television show “The Beverly Hillbillies” or the clannish methamphetamine dealers of the novel and movie “Winter’s Bone.” Both narratives, oddly enough, have (fictional) roots in the same location, Taney County, Missouri.

The Ozarks are a rugged region of hills (the “mountains” descriptor is essentially honorific) in the central part of the United States, mainly in the states of Missouri and Arkansas. Because the hills obstructed travel, the region was lightly settled during the westward expansion period and developed a reputation for backwardness and poverty. The literary Ozarks begin with The Shepherd of the Hills (1907), the first American novel to sell a million copies. The Shepherd of the Hills took the hillbilly stereotype and added a layer of Christian uplift over the top of it, along with enough melodrama to fuel a contemporary TV mini-series for two or three seasons.

Although the people of the Ozarks are poor, the region itself has long been attractive to outsiders. The earliest European settlers, French, came for lead and iron. In the late Nineteenth Century, the nation’s craving for building materials led to indiscriminate timber cutting that changed the landscape permanently. In the mid-Twentieth Century, the region’s steep and narrow valleys drew power companies and government dam builders, who envisioned a network of hydroelectric power dams feeding the electrical needs of the rest of the Midwest (only a few of which have actually proven efficient). The 1960s saw a renewal of the lead and iron boom. And for the last several decades, the commodity in demand has been natural beauty, as retirees and tourists flock to the rivers and lakes of the Ozarks in search of a rustic ideal.

Ozark Lumber Company

Rural hill people everywhere are experienced in dealing with exploitative outsiders, and Ozarkers are no different. The classic legend/fiddle tune “The Arkansas Traveler,” in which a country bumpkin baffles a traveling city slicker with his incomprehensible logic, exemplifies this interaction as well as anything I know. The old fiddler is either a fool or a genius, and the city slicker can’t tell which. The great Ozark folklorist Vance Randolph, quoting one of his informants, titled one of his books We Always Lie to Strangers, an approach that lives on today. That phrase, fittingly enough, was reused by the creators of the 2013 documentary film about Branson, Missouri, the current high temple of all things Ozarks, both faux and authentic.

The history of the Ozarks is rich in contradictions: the idyllic landscape that has existed in grinding poverty since its first colonial settlements, the beautiful isolation that draws political extremists and criminals looking for a place to hide, the residents who resent the stereotypes placed on them but who are willing to employ them when useful. I set my novels in the Ozarks partly because I’m a native of the region and I feel a kinship to it unlike any other; but I also write about the Ozarks because as a novelist who is interested in issues of the environment, social class, the land, and the romantic ideal of Nature, it’s a near-perfect setting to engage with those issues.

An Ozarks Trail

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Steve Wiegenstein is the author of Slant of Light and This Old World, the first two novels in an anticipated multi-book series. Slant of Light, published in 2012, was the runner-up for the David H. Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction, and This Old World, published in September 2014, is currently a finalist for the M.M. Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction. Both books were published by Blank Slate Press, a literary small press in St. Louis, Missouri.

See more about Steve and his work on the M.M. Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction website.


Friday, April 24, 2015

Utopian Communities of the Nineteenth Century

I have invited the three finalists of the M.M. Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction to write posts about the research behind their novels. These posts will not always be British but will be interesting history. Tonight's post is the first.

by Steve Wiegenstein

Life is pretty much a mess, most of the time. People don't behave as they should; they follow their own interests and desires, bringing them into disagreement with others and creating unnecessary heartache and conflict. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone could agree in advance that they would act for the common good, setting aside their own wishes in favor of what's best for everyone?

That is the essence of the utopian ideal, and that's why it has fascinated me for many years. I first got interested in utopian movements when I read about the Icarians, a little-known group that lived in the United States for about fifty years in the Nineteenth Century. That interest led to a wider appreciation for the entire utopian movement, which was a transatlantic movement inspired both by Romanticism and by the newly created idea of “social science,” both of which contributed important elements to the movement in varying degrees.

When I think of the foundations of this movement, three names come to mind: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, coiner of the memorable phrase “Property is theft”; Charles Fourier, the utopian socialist whose concept of the “phalanx” inspired communities on both sides of the Atlantic; and Robert Owen, the Welsh reformer who put his ideas into action in Britain and the United States. The intellectual roots don’t attract me as much as the human drama, though.

- the New Harmony community in Indiana,
as envisioned by Robert Owen

The Icarians, like a lot of utopian groups, originated with a charismatic leader who attracted a group of followers. But the Icarian movement was different from most others as well. For one thing, its founder, Etienne Cabet, hadn't actually intended to form a settlement. He wrote a novel, Voyage to Icaria, largely to comment on the political situation in France and to keep his name in front of the French public while he served a period of exile. But the novel, in which he set forth his communistic ideas in the form of an imaginary community in the South Seas, caught the public imagination, and in 1848 Cabet found himself leading a group of immigrants to the United States to establish a real-life Icaria. The experiment was marked by equal amounts of strife and heroism, nobility and pettiness, but the last colony of Icarians didn’t disband until 1898, and their dogged persistence in trying to live out their ideal deserves our admiration, if not imitation.

New Harmony as it actually looked

Those of you who have read my first novel, Slant of Light, will recognize that situation as the starting premise of the book – a charismatic social reformer who founds a community, almost by accident. I depart from history at that point, but certainly one of the central themes of my book is the utopian impulse that lives in us all, and whether that impulse can ever be realized. This Old World picks up that story after the devastation of the American Civil War, when the first wave of utopianism died down as dreams of a radical refashioning of human nature felt to most Americans more like a cruel hoax than an achievable ideal.

Somewhere below the surface, the utopian impulse has a dictatorial side—it's the "I know best" impulse, the belief that life's messes and strife could be avoided if only you would agree to what I know is best for us all. You can see hints of this impulse in the obsessive fascination with order that characterizes many of the utopian theorists’ visions of the ideal community. Fourier’s ideal phalanx was to have 1,620 people, equally divided among male and female, and encompassing what he imagined to be all combinations of the common passions of humanity. To the social reformer, our human imperfections are a problem to be solved. But to the novelist, they're what makes us so interesting.

- An artist’s imagining of an ideal Fourierist phalanstery

The fictional inhabitants of Daybreak, the name of my fictional community in Slant of Light and This Old World, try earnestly to arrange their lives for the common good. They hold weekly meetings to vote on everything from whether to install windows in their cabins to whether to buy cloth for mourning dresses. They eat together, work together, travel together. But their communal urges keep getting thwarted by their human desires. They envy, they betray, they fall in love with the wrong people. It's the struggle between these two sides of human nature—the desire to improve and perfect ourselves, and the desire to have what we want when we want it, regardless of others—that drew me to the utopian experience of the Nineteenth Century as a microcosm of human nature.

- the Icarian settlement in Nauvoo, Illinois

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Steve Wiegenstein is the author of Slant of Light and This Old World, the first two novels in an anticipated multi-book series. Slant of Light, published in 2012, was the runner-up for the David H. Langum Prize in American Historical Fiction, and This Old World, published in September 2014, is currently a finalist for the M.M. Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction. Both books were published by Blank Slate Press, a literary small press in St. Louis, Missouri.

See more about Steve and his work on the M.M. Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction website.

Friday, November 6, 2015

Mr. Darcy strips off...

by M.M. Bennetts

Upon occasion I feel the need to bring the late M.M. Bennetts' work to the forefront again. Today is one of those days. I'm sure you'll enjoy this amusing post, whatever era interests you. And if you have not read her books, please take a look at them. And now, the entertaining M.M. Bennetts:

First off, we have a conundrum.

Because, of course, there are two versions of the novel featuring Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, set in two sartorially different periods. Do I tell you about Mr. Darcy circa 1796-97 when First Impressions was being written? Hmn. Well, that's easily solved. In 1797 wealthy young men were wearing cravats in the style of the Prince of Wales, which "were then worn without stiffening of any kind, and bagged out in front, rucking up to the chin in a roll." Messy. Very messy. Not to say slovenly...

Therefore, a picture of Darcy circa 1813--when the revised novel, Pride and Prejudice as it was now called, was published--is no doubt the better choice.

Gentlemen's clothing had undergone a radical change during the early years of the 19th century. The long war with France had isolated Britain from the Parisian trend-setters who had dominated the 18th century, along with their preference for brightly coloured silks and satins. In their place, a new, austere, almost monochromatic aesthetic had taken hold, courtesy of one George Brummell, based on the finest of British tailoring, and drawing its inspiration from the military, from English horsemanship and a classical standard of masculinity as seen in the ancient Greek and Roman statuary, most notably the Apollo Belvedere.

And this ideal of "unity, simplicity and a continuously flowing movement from one part of the body to the next" is at the core of Regency menswear.

The body beneath must needs be moulded into a figure worthy of the clothes too--hence the daily exercise taken by gentlemen at the many boxing saloons, such as Gentleman Jackson's, or Fencing schools about London. Riding is also known to build strong back and shoulder muscles, as well as those of the thighs and calves. Carriage driving also requires very strong shoulders...

So, there's the man and the ideal...but what's he wearing?

Among the essentials of this new neo-classical look were breeches or pantaloons for the day, made either of doeskin or chamois leather or a soft stocking-like fabric. (If made of soft leather, often the wearer first wore them dampened, allowing them to dry to his physique so that they more closely resembled a second skin--they weren't called bum-clingers for nothing.) Both had corset lacing at the back, a fall front fastened by side buttons over the stomach, and were held up with braces to maintain the severe and fitted line over the thigh. They were also cut wider on one side at the top of the thigh, and higher on the other, to accomodate the family jewels, in a custom known as dressing to one side. Beneath the knee, button fastenings kept the fabric taut down the length of the leg.

Evening breeches or pantaloons were made of sheer black silk jersey, knitted cashmere or a stretchy silk-stockinette imported from India, made with only one seam per leg and that along the outside--though this was sometimes embroidered or 'clocked' down the length of it--all of which was intended to frame the muscles of the thigh.

For summer, the breeches would be cut the same, but made of stout pale or white linen or nankeen, a heavy twilled cotton.

Just as important was a gentleman's fitted waistcoat, which would have been made of white or skin-toned fabric--the idea being that if a gentleman were to remove his coat, in his shirtsleeves and from a distance, he would resemble nothing so much as a naked Greek god, muscular, beautiful, carved from marble or stone.

Coats were now made of dark matte fabrics such as wool Bath cloth or 'superfine', sculpted through the back and shoulders, with a high collar to provide a contrasting frame to the whiteness of the starched cravats. Our Mr. Darcy has several specialist tailors from whose work to chuse: John Weston's at No. 34 Old Bond Street, or even Mr. Brummell's favourite, Schweitzer & Davidson on Cork Street.

Beneath it all, the shirt of white linen, plain and lightly starched, with collars "so large that, before being folded down, it completely hid [the] head and face..." with tiny buttons at the neck and cuffs. Cuffs were worn long--a good inch or two longer than the coat sleeve to emphasise the fact that the gentleman did not work.

About Mr. Darcy's neck was his starched cravat.

Made of fine Irish muslin, a triangle was cut on the diagonal from a square yard of fabric, with its edges plainly stitched. This triangle was then folded twice and wrapped carefully about the neck, with the ends tied in one of several manners before the wearer lowered his chin to create a neat series of folds which were either rubbed into place by a day-old shirt or pressed with a hot iron. (I favour the day-old shirt method, myself...less danger of frying the larynx.)

Footwear? Highly polished Hessian boots with spurs by day and thinly-soled black pumps for evening.

Underwear? Very little was worn and then only rarely--it being pretty much a thing of the 18th century, although it was still in use (in cold weather, for example) and referred to as 'summer trousers'. In this look of careless, casual, sensual arrogance, there was no room for lumpy knickers or rucked up shirt tails. However, due to the transparency and cut of the tight kneebreeches and pantaloons, a lining of either flannel or cotton was sometimes incorporated into the garments.

Mr. Darcy would have dressed some three or four times during the course of a normal day.

He would also have required, per week, in addition to the usual "20 shirts, 24 pocket handkerchiefs, 9 or 10 summer trousers, 30 neck handkerchiefs, a dozen waistcoats, and stockings at discretion", a chintz dressing gown and Turkish slippers for taking his breakfast.

He would also have several driving coats and/or greatcoats, caped, and made of a heavier wool worsted or "Norwich stuff" for colder, rainier weather (read every day from September to May and most of June).

Like Brummell and other gentlemen of his class and station, Darcy would have bathed every part of his body every day, and in hot water. He would have used no perfumes (they were considered very 18th century!) but smelled instead of very fine linen and country washing.

So there he is--drab greatcoat emphasising the width of his shoulders, thigh-hugging doeskin breeches, pale waistcoat, dark coat (navy, grey or black being the preferred colours), and pristine white cravat and collarpoints outlining the strength of his jaw. Polished Hessians are on his feet.

Does he not look fine? Every inch a god?

So now...let's take it off.

His high-crowned bevor, his cane, his gloves and his greatcoat he has, fortunately, left with the footman belowstairs. The door is shut.

His boots (with or without horse muck on them) have been left at the door or really anywhere but in the bedchamber, if at all possible. There are two reasons for this. One, this may be a good idea at a time when there are no Dysons or Hoovers. But also, the method of removing one's boots generally required the backside of another person, and gentlemen didn't much care for bootjacks as it was said to break down the back of the boot. Equally, the reason a gentleman did not 'sit down in all his dirt' was a pungent one.

So shoes are a better bet. Easier to slip off.

And it all starts this way: with the the kissing...this could go on for a long time. A very long time. Because the most important thing is always that his Eliza feels and knows that her wishes and desires are paramount to his.

Then, the coat comes off. It's easier, I'll be frank, if she'll slips her hands upward from his chest toward his shoulders and lifts it away from him. But assuming she's not forward and that he doesn't have his coats cut so as to make removing them akin to peeling an obstreperous orange, he shrugs the thing off, first one shoulder, then the other, all the while still kissing her.

Then, the waistcoat. Button by tiny button. All eleven or so of the things. More than that if the waistcoat is double breasted. And with each button, a sensation of incremental yet greater sensual liberty is attained.

The waistcoat now on the floor with the coat, Darcy slides his index finger into the front of that knot of white linen at the base of the throat and pulls. And index finger into the remaining tied-bit and pulls. And freedom. And the end of the cravat is yanked and pulled off and discarded onto the floor.

Then he takes down his braces, first one, then the other.

And finally, he undoes the small Dorset buttons at his neck and cuffs. But being not a little impatient, he pulls the shirt off over his head without unbuttoning it all the way.

But the removal of the shirt only happens when she wishes it to happen. For all the time, his removal of his clothes is secondary to touching her, kissing her, telling her in every wordless way that her beauty blocks out the sky and the stars and is all that he sees.

And that's how he did it.

"To teach thee, I am naked first..." John Donne




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M.M. Bennetts was a specialist in early nineteenth-century British and European history, and the author of two historical novels set in the period - May 1812 and Of Honest Fame: Amazon. Find out more at www.mmbennetts.com.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Chawton today ~ a Walk in Jane Austen's village

by M.M. Bennetts


Walking up to the 'Big House'
Although she didn't settle in the village of Chawton in Hampshire until 7 July 1809, it's now one of the places we most associate with Jane Austen.

It's there that the cottage she lived in with her mother and sister Cassandra is found, and can be visited...and it's there that she wrote and rewrote during the most productive years of her short life.

As probably everyone knows, the Austen family had been living mostly in Bath and roundabout for a number of years, since 1800--though Jane, rather like her heroine Anne Eliot of Persuasion, did not like it there. Thus when her brother Edward offered the family the use of the small 17th century cottage in Chawton that was his as owner of the 'big house' in the village, Chawton House, it was a welcome change.
Chawton House, owned by Austen's brother Edward
Between moving to the cottage in Chawton in 1809 and her death in July 1817, Austen wrote or revised the novels which would change the face of fiction forever.

Though Austen's niece described the family's life there thusly, "It was a very quiet life, according to our ideas, but they were great readers, and besides the housekeeping our aunts occupied themselves in working with the poor and in teaching some girl or boy to read or write..." I think it's fair to say that while Austen's life may have appeared quiet, her imagination and her pen were busier than ever.

Starting with the publication of Sense and Sensibility in October 1811, she went on to publish Pride and Prejudice in January 1813, which was followed by Mansfield Park in May 1814, Emma in December 1815.  (Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously in December 1817...)

It's been 200 years since Austen published Pride and Prejudice from that most modest address and to celebrate, earlier this month, the village of Chawton opened their gardens to visitors, and Chawton House besides opening their gardens, also brought the a company of Regency dancers to perform in the grounds as well as to teach some of the dances to visitors.



Into the church yard






Over the past few years, a great deal of work has been done on the Chawton property to open more of it to the public and to provide an education centre as well.  

Among other things, the garden has been carefully planted with flowers and shrubs that were available at the time of Austen's living there, rather than with modern cultivars and the effect is wondrous.  


Austen's garden
The church 

Walking the still-quiet lanes, peering into the beautifully kept gardens, observing the dancing at the big house, all of this is part of the life that Austen would have known when she resided there...so many of the cottages might easily have belonged to Miss Bates or housed the school where Miss Smith had grown up, don't you think?


The view from Austen's front door



Austen's garden

So please, take a moment to walk with her and see what she might have seen, to hear the distant bleating of lambs, and smell the scents of roses, pinks and rich earth as she did in those heady weeks after the publication of her most famous novel, when she had no idea how famous she would become, nor how many of us would make the pilgrimage to this tiny village in northeast Hampshire.

For a virtual tour of Austen's Chawton home/museum today, please click here. 

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M.M. Bennetts is a specialist in early 19th century British and European history and the Napoleonic wars and is the author of two novels, May 1812 and Of Honest Fame set during the period.  A third novel, Or Fear of Peace, is due out in 2014.

For further information, please visit the website and historical blog at www.mmbennetts.com

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Giveaway: Of Honest Fame by M. M. Bennetts

M. M. Bennetts is giving away an ecopy of Of Honest Fame to an international winner. You can read about the book HERE. Please comment below to enter the drawing. Be sure to leave contact information.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

What's a Fall Front? you ask...

by M.M. Bennetts


It seems only fair that since previously I've given such a full and frank appraisal of a gentleman's clothes, circa 1812, I ought to offer the same care and attention to the ladies...

Just to be fair, you understand.

The first thing I should tell you is leave all your pre-conceptions behind.  For many of the gowns of the era weren't constructed as we think women's gowns were...with fastenings at the back.

So, how did they work?

Imagine if you will that the top of the gown is like a short-waisted jacket--almost like a shrug or bolero-- into which you would slip your arms.  (This is for the ladies in the audience...)

Then the attached skirt was gathered on a tape or ribbon which was tied at the front.  The front of the gown, attached as it was to the front bodice, was buttoned, tied, or pinned in place over the bosom, probably at four points--two on each side, one just below the shoulder at the top of the neckline, and at the waist on either side.  When these were unfastened, obviously the bodice front would fall--hence fall front. 

Underneath, yes, the corset.  Not the boardlike flattening corsets of 30 years previous.  No, these were designed to make the most of a woman's charms by pushing up the breasts so that they (here's that classical reference stuff again) resembled the improbably high bosoms of ancient Greek godesses as seen on all the statues.  In their results, if not their construction, Regency corsets were not dissimilar from today's push-up bras.

Underneath that, a shift.  I fancy this would protect this tender skin from any biting or pinching that a tight corset might get up to... Be that as it may, it was a loose-ish, often white, sometimes pale pink or beige, slightly gathered about the neck slip which came down often as far as the knees, or longer.  It might be made of cotton lawn, linen or silk.

The pale pink or the pale beige silk was designed to create the impression that the woman was wearing nothing at all under her gown. 

And, for those who wish to know, yes, dampening one's petticoat, as Lady Caroline Lamb and others were said to have done, would cause the silk to cling to her waist and thighs so that everything was on show. 
Stockings were worn, held up with garters tied about the thigh.  Fancy garters were de rigeur if one was expecting to waltz. 

Finally, colour.  Much is made of the fact that they wore a great deal of white or pale-coloured muslin.

The fashion for white muslin goes back at least as far as Marie Antoinette in France.  She and her ladies in waiting were known to wear simple white muslin gowns as they played at being milkmaids at le Petit Trianon at Versailles.  And the fashion continued well into the early years of the 19th century.  There was as mentioned above the desire to resemble classical Greek statuary and for their gowns to recreate the image of the classical draperies found on such statuary. 

But white muslin also has the benefit of sending a clear financial message to the on-lookers.   For the very nature of the fabric meant that it could not be laundered frequently and survive--hence the wearer could afford to replace her clothes as often as she chose.  And, those pale colours soiled easily, and required frequent washing--so the wearer could afford the luxury of a laundrymaid. 

And now you know...

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M.M. Bennetts is a specialist in early 19th century British and European history and the Napoleonic wars and is the author of two novels, May 1812 and Of Honest Fame set during the period.  A third novel, Or Fear of Peace, is due out in 2014.

For further information, please visit the website and historical blog at www.mmbennetts.com