Guest Sharon Lathan-- Regency: What’s Not To Like?

Linda Banche here. Today I welcome Sharon Lathan and her latest book, In the Arms of Mr. Darcy, which continues the saga of the lives of the well-loved Pride and Prejudice characters. Sharon talks about why she loves the Regency, but also why we should take Regency etiquette with a grain of salt.

Leave a comment and your email for a chance to win one of the two copies of In the Arms of Mr. Darcy which Sourcebooks has generously provided. Sharon will select the winners. Check the comments to see who won, and how to contact me to claim your book. If I cannot contact the winners within a week of their selection, I will award the books to alternates. Note, Sourcebooks can mail to USA and Canada addresses only.

Sharon selected the winners Maggie Dove and Meg Evenstar. Maggie, I've sent you an email. Meg, please contact me at linda@lindabanche.com to collect your prize. If I do not hear from you by October 24, I will award the books to alternates.

Welcome, Sharon!

Thanks for inviting me as a guest! This is a tremendous honor to be here today!

I was asked what I like best about the Regency and what I like the least. Hmm….

Not so easy to answer. There are many aspects to this roughly 10-year period of time spanning the end of the larger Georgian Era and the Edwardian to Victorian Eras that came next that are appealing to me as a writer and lover of history. This was a trend setting time, revolutionary in many respects, and the radical changes affected those later decades profoundly. Certainly the clothing comes to mind since I think it the most appealing out of the past centuries. I adore the romantic renaissance attitude of the Prince Regent and his contemporaries as shown in the elegance and beauty of the architecture, art, poetry, and music. I could write several essays on the neoclassical styles of the era that are incredibly pleasing to the eye and provide a perfect backdrop to writing romance.

For my story I can’t deny that the staggering number of modern technologies feeds my mind. I am fascinated by the discoveries in every field of science that began during this period falling in the early years of the Industrial Revolution. I use what I unearth frequently within my saga.

Yet, if I have to pick one thing I like the best I suppose I would say it is the “old fashioned” tone that I love. I yearn for the days of politeness when people truly cared about another person’s sensibilities. Manners, decorum, and etiquette were taken seriously. A lady was a lady and a gentleman a gentleman. There were rules and standards that decent people made every attempt to follow. Modesty, careful speech, protocol, decency, and social obligation were prized. Being honorable was held dear and to be accused otherwise was a shameful happening. There were real scandals! Improper activity was looked down upon and one who acted immorally or outside the bounds of propriety often suffered serious consequences.

Yes, call me old fashioned, but I wish we had more of that in our world these days.

Oddly, to answer the second question, what I like the least about the Regency is this same strictness! Partly I admit that this is my modern attitude showing through. I love Pride and Prejudice, but I sure want to reach into the text and rattle those two stubborn idiots for not simply talking about it!! Life would have been way easier if they had thrown out the rulebook and actually been forthcoming for once. Of course that would have made for a short novel, but you get my point.

So here is the rub: Should we base our assumptions on what is written in a novel? Or what we read in the etiquette books of the day? I once read an essay where it was pointed out that etiquette books are usually written to point out how things should be done because they probably aren’t being done that way! Interesting point, I thought. I can’t speak for the veracity of 1811’s The Mirror of Graces but I know if someone plopped an Emily Post on my lap I would be mortified to discover all the ways I am failing!

However, these high standards are taken as gospel truth without keeping in mind several facts. One, none of us lived way back when so we can’t really know if the majority lived as perfectly as many of us like to imagine they did. Two, humans have always been human with every single frailty and evil thought we have today so it is highly unlikely they followed the rules any better than we do. Three, honest history proves that underneath the glamorous Regency there was squalor, crime, and poverty on a massive level while within the upper classes extravagance, frivolity, and superficiality often ruled.

In conclusion, I adore the formality and properness of these bygone days and I do think it was a standard characteristic adhered to by most, even if falsely, far more than we see today. I love writing with that in mind! But I also love writing about real people who respond in real ways. Gritty, honest, human characters who cry, rage, show passion, laugh, swear, and even sin a bit now and again. Don’t ever tell me a person would “never” do such-and-such unless you can prove they can’t do it today!



IN THE ARMS OF MR. DARCY BY SHARON LATHAN—IN STORES OCTOBER 2010
If only everyone could be as happy as they are…
Darcy and Elizabeth are as much in love as ever—even more so as their relationship matures. Their passion inspires everyone around them, and as winter turns to spring, romance blossoms around them.

Confirmed bachelor Richard Fitzwilliam sets his sights on a seemingly unattainable, beautiful widow; Georgiana Darcy learns to flirt outrageously; the very flighty Kitty Bennet develops her first crush, and Caroline Bingley meets her match.

But the path of true love never does run smooth, and Elizabeth and Darcy are kept busy navigating their friends and loved ones through the inevitable separations, misunderstandings, misgivings, and lovers’ quarrels to reach their own happily ever afters…

About the Author
Sharon Lathan is the author of the bestselling Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One, Loving Mr. Darcy: Journeys Beyond Pemberley, and My Dearest Mr. Darcy. In addition to her writing, she works as a Registered Nurse in a Neonatal ICU. She resides with her family in Hanford, California in the sunny San Joaquin Valley. For more information, please visit www.sharonlathan.net. You can also find Sharon at Austen Authors – www.austenauthors.com, and Casablanca Authors – www.casablancaauthors.blogspot.com.