It’s still very much the depths of winter here in Michigan, so our Favorite this week is reminder that warmer weather is on its way. That it includes a healthy dose of Georgian, Regency, and Victorian men is purely coincidence 😉
Clips used by the video’s creator include:
Amazing Grace 2006
Casanova 2005
Emma 1996
Northanger Abbey 2007
North & South 2004
Persuasion 2007
Pride & Prejudice 1995, 2005
Sense & Sensibility 1996, 2008
The Shadow in the North 2007
Wives & Daughters 1999
Some of you might remember a certain little copper satin Regency-era gown that I wore for the Historical Novel Society’s Costume Pageant in 2013.
Our Favorite this week is the originator of that gorgeous frock, Matti’s Millinery & Costumes. Based in Minnesota, Matti’s makes historically accurate attire for men, women, children, and even pets, ranging from the Middle Ages all the way through the Edwardian era. Check out their website or Etsy shop and see if anything strikes your fancy. If you’ve got something else in mind, Matti’s also does custom clothing, and the customer service was wonderful! They also ship internationally 😀
They’re back!
Last May, BBC Radio 4 re-aired a radio play of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, in celebration of the novel’s 200th birthday. The cast included David Tennant as Tom, Benedict Cumberbatch as Edmund, and Felicity Jones as Fanny Price.
And now you can have a copy of your very own 🙂
Amazon UK has the CD in stock, while Amazon.com has a US release date of March 1. Can’t wait on the American side of the Pond? Audible also has it as a digital download, available now.
Our Favorite this week is a celebration! Eighty years ago Georgette Heyer published her first Regency romance novel, and The Beau Monde is commemorating the anniversary with a series of articles. Pieces for Regency Buck (written by Alina K. Field) and An Infamous Army (by Shannon Donnelly) are already posted, with more to come throughout the year for each of Heyer’s Regency romances and some of her non-Regency historicals. Check them out and sigh over your favorites, find new-to-you gems to read…or remind yourself which titles are already on your TBR list 😉
Our Favorite this week is a bit of an odd duck. Whoever thought that the United States Supreme Court would be citing Pride and Prejudice in one of its decisions? Well, on January 13, 2015 it did.
It was a case where a bank robber fleeing from the scene broke into a woman’s home and “guided a terrified Parnell from a hallway to a room a few feet away, where she suffered a fatal heart attack.” This bank robber (Whitfield) was convicted of (among other things) forcing the woman to accompany him–which increased the penalties he’d face. He was appealing based on the definition of the word “accompaniment”, which is used in the statute he was convicted of violating.
This is (in part) what the Court decided:
In 1934, just as today, to “accompany” someone meant to “go with” him. See Oxford English Dictionary 60 (1st ed. 1933) (defining “accompany” as: “To go in company with, to go along with”). The word does not, as Whitfield contends, connote movement over a substantial distance. It was, and still is, perfectly natural to speak of accompanying someone over a relatively short distance, for example: from one area within a bank “to the vault”; “to the altar” at a wedding; “up the stairway”; or into, out of, or across a room. English literature is replete with examples. See, e.g., C. Dickens, David Copperfield 529 (Modern Library ed. 2000) (Uriah “accompanied me into Mr. Wickfield’s room”); J. Austen, Pride and Prejudice 182 (Greenwich ed. 1982) (Elizabeth “accompanied her out of the room”).
Interesting, isn’t it? 😀
You can check out the full text of the decision here.
First published in 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been adapted and re-adapted dozens of times. And this week’s favorite is the newest–an audiobook dramatization featuring Arthur Darvill as Victor Frankenstein and Nicholas Briggs as Frankenstein’s Creature. It’s available as a download or a collection of CDs at the Big Finish website for both US and UK listeners (I’m not sure about other countries–if you try it, let me know).
Check out the trailer:
Ever wonder how to make Georgian ices? Or what an English plateau dessert looks like? Our Favorite this week can tell you that and more.
Historic Food is the website of Ivan Day, a noted food historian and professional cook. The site has tons of pictures from both period books and recreations of historic dishes. There are even recipes from original cookbooks, complete with modern explanations and background information.
In a year of Friday Favorites, which one was the most popular? None other than Richard Armitage reading Georgette Heyer! This post received more views than any other post on And Then He Kissed Her in 2014. I joked at the time that, if I became famous, it would be because of Richard Armitage…and I may not have been far off 😉
Check out the original post here, which includes an excerpt of Richard reading Venitia, interviews conducted during his work on The Convenient Marriage, and links to other audio samples and projects.
Reindeer aren’t the only ones playing games this holiday season–we can too! Our Friday Favorite this week tests your intellect and memory while The Bard himself plays Game Show Host. Check out Modern Library’s Shakespeare Games:
Cover reveals are a big event in the lead-up to a new book’s release. And different versions of a book (paperback, hardcover, mass market) might have different covers, or a new cover might be designed for the re-release of an older work. But what if your book was 200 years old? How many different covers would it have then?
Our Favorite this week is an article from The Guardian: Jane Austen’s fashion history: 200 years of cover designs – in pictures and a similar one from The Huffington Post: Jane Austen, Reinvented. Between the two there are about a dozen Austen covers from the past two centuries. See if you can tell the era in which they were designed before you read the article 😀
Cora Lee, Regency Romance Author 