Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen, and Religion in the Regency Era

By Rosanne E. Lortz

[T]aking Holy Orders and becoming a beneficed clergyman was generally an undemanding way of life which enabled many practitioners to continue to enjoy the popular activities of the period—riding, hunting, drinking and gaming—without censure, and, for those who wished to marry, a well-endowed living provided ample means for supporting a wife and family…. A desire to enter the Church did not necessarily have to spring from a strong religious conviction or a passion for the calling; for many younger sons it was position which could ensure a reasonable degree of comfort based on an income derived from one or more livings which were frequently made available from the family estates.

Jennifer Kloester’s book Georgette Heyer’s Regency World is billed as “the definitive guide for all fans of Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen, and the glittering Regency period.” The book is a well-researched compendium of the dress, dining, manners, customs, houses, and haunts of the time period. I have heard more than one historical novelist refer to it as the “Bible” that must be adhered to when writing Regencies.  I refer to it often and keep a special spot for it on my shelves.

Interestingly, the above quote, taken from Kloester’s book, is the single paragraph dealing with religion during the Regency in England. The lack of material on this subject (as well as the general tenor of this passage) gives the impression that religion, among the upper classes at least, was either nominal or peripheral.

But was religious belief, in particular Christianity, such an unimportant aspect of Regency society?

It is certainly true that religion does not figure much in Georgette Heyer’s books. However, it is equally true that Georgette Heyer’s Regency world is not the same world as that of the historical Regency era. Georgette Heyer was a historical novelist from the twentieth century who developed the genre of Regency romances as we know them today, and while many aspects of her books are well researched, there are other aspects that veer into the world of fairy tale (as romances in any time period are wont to do). The chance of meeting a wealthy, eligible, titled bachelor in Georgette Heyer’s Regency London, for example, is far greater than it would have been in real life....

Portrait of Jane Austen drawn by
her sister Cassandra

Jane Austen’s work, on the other hand, is far more realistic a picture of Regency life, for Austen did not simply write in the Regency world, she lived in it. Period sources show that she was the daughter of a clergyman who was much more devout than the description of clergymen given to us by Kloester at the beginning of this essay.

Peter Leithart, in his biography Jane Austen, examines primary source material and shows that that although Jane Austen was not demonstrative with her religious sentiments, she followed in her father’s footsteps as a believing Christian in the style of the period in which she lived. She attended church regularly, wrote her own prayers in the style of the Anglican prayer book, and encouraged her family members in moral living.

The most memorable clergymen in Austen’s books are the conceited Mr. Elton and the absurd Mr. Collins—Mr. Elton could certainly be the clergyman of nominal faith described in the paragraph from Kloester’s book. However, Leithart points out that all of Jane’s other clergymen are praiseworthy individuals. Edmund Bertram from Mansfield Park, despite temptation from the worldly Miss Crawford, is portrayed as taking right path to join the Church. And though Austen treats Mr. Elton with a good deal of ridicule, she also centers the whole book of Emma around the virtue of Christian charity.

Christianity, it seems, was not just a peripheral matter in Jane Austen’s life. It affected her daily life as well as her writing. And while it would be foolhardy to take the single case of Jane Austen’s beliefs and make them representative of all the denizens of the Regency era, it would also perhaps be reasonable to wish that “The definitive guide for all fans of…Jane Austen…” had a little more than one paragraph about a matter which impacted her life in such a large way.
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Rosanne E. Lortz is the author of I Serve: A Novel of the Black Prince, a historical adventure/romance set during the Hundred Years' War, and Road from the West: Book I of the Chronicles of Tancred, the beginning of a trilogy which takes place during the First Crusade. Her current WIP is a Regency era murder mystery.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kloester, Jennifer. Georgette Heyer's Regency World. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, Inc., 2010.

Leithart, Peter J. Jane Austen. Thomas Nelson, 2010.

Regency Era Wallpaper, or Decorating your Drawing Rooms

by David W. Wilkin

One thing I find when writing my Regency Romances, or reading others, is that they invariably have many scenes in a drawing room. And why not, the art of calling on ones friends and neighbors was a central point of many of the Ton’s days. Or when in the country, the men may have been off sporting about the grounds of the great manor house, but our Heroines were back at the house, ensconced, in a drawing room.

Now, I bring this up because when I sit down and am madly typing away, I am much more concerned with what takes place in the scene, then the setting, and this I fault myself for. I have watched enough BBC dramas to know exactly what these rooms look like in my mind. I have visited several of the great houses and know how they look as well. I just take the short cut that relies on my psychic ability to project what I see in my mind's eye to be inherent in my writing and know that my readers need nothing from me to guide them to a similar view.

Now I shall remove my tongue from my cheek. It is easy enough to type with it planted there, but not so easy to speak should I want to hold a conversation.

As I fault myself for not providing enough detail about the rooms, I begin to add either in first draft, or second, details about furniture, and the layout of a room where a scene is set. Sometimes I create detail about the color schemes. But I still fall short, I am sure of it. (Though my action, which takes place often times through dialogue, starts off quickly in these drawing rooms, and my Hero’s being manly men, take little notice of the decor when they are about to offer for the Heroine.)

During the Regency our rooms could be decorated with a few materials, and they could use more than one at a time to ornament their rooms. Prior to our period, in Late Georgian times, the fashionable set would have had fabric hangings stretched between chair rail and cornice. Expensive and opulent fabrics made of silk, velvet and wool damasks.

By the 1770s wallpaper came into general use. These comprised patterned flock and printed designs. As late Georgian merged into our Regency, we see an increase in the wealth of many during the times. Despite the war, affluence was growing. And as it did so, the use of wallpapers took over, though silk and some other fabrics remained a luxury to adorn one’s walls.

The motifs employed were classical, Neo-Grecian, created in bas relief or as trompe l’oeil. The surviving wall paintings from Pompeii became vogue as they were unearthed the previous century. Making a room all over in the theme of Chinese, Turkish, Egyptian of Gothic was quite common, but few of these survive for study.

So before continuing the discussion of wallpapers what we know as they come into their own is that the rooms of the older established houses, whose owners might not have enough of the ready to keep up with the times, will have walls that are painted, or covered with fabrics. That alone can set the tone for your drawing rooms. The Duke of Wellington famously attempted shades of yellow at Apsley House, causing controversy.

Gold, however, was not allowed for your run of the mill members of the Ton, and even amongst the first circle. Save that for Prinny and his brothers.

And by no means do we ever wish to gaze upon the unadorned white wall. That is something that was not done. And though not wallpaper, during our period, as we transitioned from the coverings of fabric, we find entire walls fauxed to look like marble, or fake wood graining. Entire guides such as Nathaniel Whitcock’s Decorative Painter and Glazier’s Guide showed just how to achieve these effects.

By 1790 wallpaper was in common usage, but not necessarily for the entire wall. The chair rail, made of wood, was still a divider of the surface. At the end of the period it might be considered fashionable to remove the chair rail and run wallpaper the entire length of the wall. This was the practice in the 1830s, but earlier the use of the chair rail dividing the upper and lower parts of the wall was still very much the practice.

At the time, wallpaper was designed as we see with block printed patterns on pearwood blocks to produce rolls of 11 1/2 yards in length. In the 1830s the blocks were replaced by mechanized cylinders. In 1783 there is a patent for a machine that will emboss the paper, but there was an import ban on French paper until 1825. When this was lifted it led to lighter, cheaper paper flooding the market. In order to hang the paper, a specialist was needed. It was an art under the upholstery branch. By the 1820s wallpaper retailing was so sophisticated that manufacturers were making their own, illustrated order books. There is a copy in the Victoria and Albert of Cowtan’s Order Book.

Popular designs were often flock paper, with powdered wool, or other fabric refuse on glued patterns to give a cut-pile effect. These were also used for borders. Imitation of marble or dressed stone was often used in hallways or passages (not a drawing room, I know, but my research uncovered this tidbit.) Pin ground papers were used for practical reasons in rooms. Flies would soil the paper and so having this would cover the fly marks. Somehow though, my interpretation of the idealized Ton won’t have dead fly spots on the papers of their drawing room. A good vigorous cleanse by the servants will of course take care of such things. (These are historical novels I turn my hand to, not totally historically accurate novels, but now the vision of one of those not of the First Stare, energetically scrubbing at her wall before someone like Austen's Lady Catherine de Burgh is expected to visit has come into my head and I just may have to use it.)

Gothic papers were available from the manufacturers, bedrooms got ‘moire papers’, which was made to look like watered silk, or to suggest drapery. Floral patterns in bedrooms which had small repeats in the pattern and also used in the rooms of the servants.

For the rich, as was the craze in all things oriental, Chinese wallpapers were sought. These could be hand painted which naturally would appeal to all of the first circle. Understated bragging rights to a pattern that no one else had.

With this exploration of what was done in period, one can easily then take the knowledge and adapt that to building a unique drawing room. Any young heroine given the chance can remodel the wool and silk covered walls of her husbands mother to the more modern wall paper. A trip to look at the manufacturers book, or to speak to a specialist who can procure a one of a kind paper surely can be recounted in a paragraph or two to add to the setting of the next Regency drawing room you read about, or that I remember to write about.


Research
Stephen Calloway The Elements of Style, 1991
Steven Parissien Regency Style, 1992
Susan Watkins Jane Austen in Style, 1990

Mr. Wilkin writes Regency Historicals and Romances, Ruritanian and Edwardian Romances, Science Fictions and Fantasy. He is the author of the very successful Pride & Prejudice continuation; Colonel Fitzwilliam’s Correspondence.

His work can be found for sale at: David’s Books, and at various Internet and real world bookstores including the iBookstore, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords.
He is published by Regency Assembly Press
And he maintains his own blog called The Things That Catch My Eye