Regency era posts (and books)

[Sherwood]

Over at Book View Cafe, I've posed about Heyer, Austen, and Silver Fork Novels and also The differences between Heyer and Austen.

My two Regency romances are comedies of manners in the old silver fork style, Danse de la Folie and Rondo Allegro. (About the last one, I will only say that the audio version at Audible.com was done by a wonderful narrator. I was lucky! She does all the accents right!: English, Irish, Spanish, Italian, and French)

As for how good or bad they are, that's for readers to say, but I'll add that there is NO on-screen sex, which I don't think jives with silver fork comedies of manners, though I thoroughly enjoy Tessa Dare and Courtney Milan, who I think are consciously aiming at today's audience who doesn't care about historical detail, but likes lots of bedroom romping on stage.

[Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂]

Sherwood wrote: "Over at Book View Cafe, I've posed about Heyer, Austen, and Silver Fork Novels and also The differences between Heyer and Austen.

My two Regency romances are comedies of manners in the old silver ..."

Thanks for posting Sherwood! :)

[Abigail]

Thanks for the reminder, Sherwood! I’ve had your books on my TBR list for a while. I’m a comedy-of-manners reader all the way—no bodice-ripping for me!

[Kim]

I have these on my Kindle, saving them for a treat after I finish something dark/heavy.

[Abigail]

Sherwood, I just clicked on the link and skimmed through your essay. What a fascinating piece it is! I hadn’t heard the name silver fork applied to this sort of novel before. And I’m very impressed with the breadth and depth of your reading. I wonder if you would include Zuleika Dobson in the category?

[Sherwood]

Abigail, that's a good question. I think that Beerbohm was parodying silver fork novels in Zuleika Dobson, but not in the same way that Thackeray savagely parodied them in Vanity Fair. (I also think that Beerbohm's novel would be far better known today if less than three years after its publication the young men of Oxford he was pillorying hadn't begun dying by the thousands in the trenches of WW I.)

[Abigail]

Very true. Pretty much killed the joke.

You’re so widely read, you might be familiar with a tome I adored as a kid, Moths by Ouïda. I have lived a long life and traveled the world over and never met anyone else who has read it. Might call it the vanitas subgenre of silver fork.

[Sherwood]

Oh my goodness, Moths! It's been decades, but as I recall, it was one of the Sensationalist novels. Louisa May Alcott wrote them, too, only Oida's novel was set in high society. Very melodramatic, with women breaking the rules and getting away with it. Not sure it's silver fork . . . at that end of the century, silver fork would be more like E.F. Benson's Dodo, or the utterly delightful Dolly Dialogues by Anthony Hope--full of wit.

[Abigail]

Well, I’ve truly lived a full life now—I’ve met (at least virtually) someone else who has read Moths. It has been decades for me as well, but I recall much rant about the hollowness of Society’s allure. I did enjoy a hysterical tone in those days; Villette was another favorite.

I must look for the Dolly Dialogues!

[Sherwood]

I should really look out a copy of Moths--I wonder how it would read now?

[Elza]

Sherwood, I just finished Danse de la Folie. I'd read Rondo Allegro about a year ago and absolutely loved it. What a pleasure to read a good story about characters I actually like, can relate to, and who understand the importance of behaving themselves. All this, and written with restraint. Thank you!
As with Rondo Allegro, I hated for Danse to end. You left me wanting a peek at what happens with Clarissa and Catherine the day after the ball.
Please tell us that you are writing more --

[Sherwood]

Thank you! I have one planned, though it takes place a few years later. (It's about Clarissa's youngest sister.)