Live Like a Regency Heroine: Replace Servants with Overpriced Appliances

Apologies for the lack of posting last week, dear readers. I took a much-needed jaunt to Monterey, where I avoided all sites of interest and locked myself in my hotel to edit my latest project. I almost felt like a Regency heroine, even though I was wearing pajamas most of the time -- as an unmarried lady with no male relative or servant to escort me, I instead confined myself to my rooms and wrote. It would get old v. fast, but for a few days, it was wonderful. But the point of this post is not Monterey -- instead, it's about servants during the Regency. In every Regency romance I've ever read, at least one of the protagonists had servants to attend to their every need (it is a fantasy, after all -- and how many of us fantasize about working twelve hours a day in a factory or toiling as a milkmaid?). Even the smallest middle-class households had at least a stout maid or footman to do the heaviest work; without any mechanized help for laundry, cleaning, cooking, or other chores, keeping up a household was endlessly grueling. But how could a family afford to hire so many servants?

The answer: human labor was incredibly cheap by today's standards. A maid could be hired for £6-8 per year, in addition to room, board, and a few articles of clothing -- roughly equivalent to only £450 ($730) per year today. As an example of what the purchasing power of those pounds was, a lady could buy roughly 12 pairs of silk stockings, or three pairs of walking boots; she could not even think of buying a cashmere shawl, which could approach a price of £60 (nearly £3370/$5480 today -- this was back when all the cashmere actually came from Kashmir and had to make its perilous way to England by sea).

Obviously, to live like a Regency heroine today, I would need to pay someone much more than $730/year to wait on me (I would also have to start wearing silk stockings instead of Uggs, but that is another matter). However, the advantage (or disadvantage, if you are a Luddite) of the Industrial Revolution is that we now have appliances to replace many of the tasks that servants used to do.

The appliance I'm currently salivating over is the Breville One-Touch Teamaker (and no, I'm not a shill for Breville - I found this on my own). It has all the bells and whistles one could ever want in a teamaker: an automatic start timer, a keep-warm function, and settings to control the exact time and temperature of steeping, since different teas require different brewing times and water temperatures. At $249.99, it seems absurdly expensive for a teamaker; after all, my teakettle, which cost approximately 15% of that, has held up for years. But, to look at it another way, the teamaker costs 1/3 of what it would have cost to hire a maid for a year, and she would have brought me hot tea whenever I wanted. With that (questionable) logic, I've almost convinced myself that it's worth the purchase. And the teamaker won't listen in on my conversations and spread my affairs to the entire ton, so that's a definite point in its favor.

Have you splurged on something lately that helps you to live like a Regency heroine? Should I buy the teamaker, or keep up the drudgery of boiling water on the stove?

My Funny Regency Valentine - Winner!

Sadly, only two people created a valentine for the contest (even though I know that there were many more visitors lurking throughout the day). But happily, the two poems were both amazing: From: Secret Admirer on 14 February 2011

Let my guitar woo you With covers of Ke$ha and U2 Ne’er did a song sing so sweet Than after a feast of loose meat. Let our hearts combine! Clever girl — won’t you be mine?

From: Fish Monger on 15 February 2011

Ah a Fish Monger that’s what I am. I sell fish and I sell clam. I make good money that is true. I’m saving it for someone special like you.

There’s nothing better than great fish and fine wine. I would ask you to be my Valentine. But I don’t know you and you don’t know me. So I’ll just forget it and sell my fish by the sea.

Both poems hit exactly the spirit of a Regency valentine, offering some sort of pragmatic skill/riches to woo a lady. The fish monger poem ended rather pessimistically, particularly for a romance, but was still lovely.

However, there can be only one winner. I went to random.org, asked it to pick a random whole number between 1 and 2, and it chose 1. So, Secret Admirer wins! I will be in touch with your giftcard, and thanks for playing!

My Funny Regency Valentine (and a prize!)

Valentine's Day is upon us again. I've no particular love or loathing for the holiday - for me, it ranks somewhere between St. Patrick's Day and Columbus Day in terms of enjoyment. However, as a romance writer, I suppose I should give the holiday its due. And what better way to celebrate than with a contest? Read on to find out how you can write your own Regency valentine for fun and profit. The first known "valentine"-type love letter was a poem written by Charles, duc d'Orleans, in the 15th century. The duke was captured after the Battle of Agincourt and spent the next 25 years in captivity in England (back when captivity of nobles was either house arrest in grand quarters or a stint in the Tower followed by a trip to the executioner - the duke was lucky enough to receive the former, rather than the latter, and was eventually released). During his captivity, he wrote a valentine to his wife back home, with perhaps the most romantic/ridiculous use of 'etc.' in a love poem that I have ever seen.

By the Regency, publishers were starting to give advice to hapless suitors on how to write suitable valentines for their lady loves. The first advice book was published in 1797, and I found a slightly later, vastly amusing snippet of prewritten Regency-era valentines at Google Books. Starting on page 72 of THE YEAR'S FESTIVALS by Helen Philbrook Patten, the author excerpts from a book that was published in 1812 called "Cabinet of Love; or, Cupid's Repository of Choice Valentines."

I'll leave it to you to explore the excerpts, as there are several poems worth giggling over. My favorites are:

From a baker:

"In these hard times it truly may be said That half a loaf's much better than no bread; Then surely, pretty dear, you glad may be Since sure of loaves enough, to marry me."

From a shoemaker:

"A piece of charming kid you are As e'er mine eyes did see, No calf-skin smooth that e'er I saw Can be compared with thee.

You are my all, do not refuse To let us tack together; But let us join, my Valentine, Like sole and upper leather."

Now, isn't that romantic?

So this makes me curious to see if we can do any better. I'd love to see what you can come up with as a Regency-style valentine. Length is no issue - it can be a short, poorly-rhyming couplet or a marvel of epic verse. Talking up the pragmatic rationale for your love is a plus; odd puns and references to starvation are definitely encouraged.

All entries between now and nine p.m. (PST) on Tuesday are eligible, and you can enter as many times as you like. After the contest closes, I'll choose a winner randomly (using random.org). The winner will receive a $15 Amazon giftcard - so please check back on Wednesday to see if you've won! And may you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day, filled with warm bread and well-fitted shoes.

A Brief Thought on Musicales

I adored everything about Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series, but one of my favorite running jokes was the annual Smythe-Smith musicale. Happily, Ms. Quinn is revisiting the Smythe-Smiths (the first book in a planned quartet comes out May 31, according to her website), but they were very much at the forefront of my mind last night, for reasons I will explain in a moment. The joke with the Smythe-Smiths is that they are forced to put on a musicale every year; their mother seems to think that showcasing their talents will endear them to male suitors, but as they are sadly lacking in musical ability, the evenings prove tiresome rather than enchanting. Whenever I read Regencies, I find myself longing for some sort of abstract version of days of yore - but I think I would rather die than trade my iTunes library for endless evenings of excruciating amateur music.

You see, last night I found myself at something akin to a musicale. One of my friends is a singer (quite a good one, actually), and she invited an army of her friends to see her perform in a recital comprised of fellow students of her vocal teacher. Sadly, the army failed to materialize; like musicales, these activities do tend to scare people away. And while I was very glad that I got to hear my friend sing (again, she is amazing, and hearing her sing Ke$ha around the house is no match for the power of her voice performing an aria), the opening bits with the true amateurs left me feeling as cranky as any Smythe-Smith musicale would.

So while I would happily attend rout-parties, Venetian breakfasts, and the like, I think I would have to draw the line at making musicales a regular part of my social whirl. Are there any Regency entertainments that make you have second thoughts?