Saturday June 14th 2008
Manchester Central Library has become a hotbed of passion and romance! Last week saw the launch of Mills & Boon’s Book Exhibition, celebrating their centenary (the photo on the left shows the M&B banner proudly displayed on the library's impressive portico). The exhibition puts together Mills & Boon's books, authors and readers throughout the century against a backdrop of history, from the suffrage era to the present day - an absorbing and interesting display. It's well worth a visit (it is in Manchester until the end of July, then on tour through the country) I've included a couple of photos at the bottom of this page......
The library staff decided to expand on this theme and hold their very own Regency Day. Regency Pleasures and Pastimes was the library’s celebration of all things Regency. The library staff raided the bookshelves and archives for books on Regency costume, customs, music, history and authors (including, of course, Jane Austen) and used these as the backdrop for their Regency-based activites - they had singers performing Regency songs, displays of embroidery, fan-decorating and Regency doll-dressing for the children (see the pictures below of the decorated fans and dolls) accompanied by Regency refreshments (I can recommend the cloudy lemonade!).
All this took place in the main body of the library, and quite an audience stopped to listen to the wonderful singing. There were displays of some of the library’s reference books, showing dance steps and positions (and a wonderful little booklet of Cotillions printed for a dancing master) as well as beautiful fashion plates from the period. Then, in the Conference Room, I teamed up with Harlequin Mills’ & Boon author Nicola Cornick to give a talk on Writing the Regency Novel. We had a vase of beautiful pink roses on a table between us, a fabulous marble fireplace at our backs and discussed various aspects of the Regency novel with the audience (including one or two familiar faces). There was a wonderfully comfortable and informal air about the whole proceedings.
After setting the scene by explaining a little about the Regency period, Nicola discussed the character that more than any other typifies the Regency hero – the rake. Many of Nicola’s own heroes are rakes, reformed by the love of the heroine (naturally), but only after the requisite amount of suffering! One thing we are both agreed upon: fascinating as rakes may be and however much we love to read about them, in real life we would not care to be involved with men whose lives revolve around racing, gambling, drinking and womanising!
Nicola and I are both passionate about working for historical accuracy in our novels and I spent a little time explaining how I try to recreate the spirit of the Regency times, reading about the period, exploring the music and literature to get a feel for the use and flow of the language.
It was a pleasure to discuss this fascinating topic with Nicola and we also gave a few hints and tips to the aspiring writers in the audience. I only hope they enjoyed it all as much as I did.
Our presentation was followed by jay Dixon’s talk on Georgette Heyer, whose historical romances sparked the whole Regency Romance genre. With captivating insights into the writer’s life and works, jay explained how Heyer explored various writing styles and created the Regency novels that are enjoyed by millions of readers world-wide. Like many other writers, I discovered Heyer in my teens and my love for her work is as strong as ever – I still return to her books as my “comfort reads” when I need to pamper myself!
Below is a photo of the beautiful "corset" designed by artist Ros Burgin for the M&B exhibition using book covers, plus snapshots of a few of the many display cabinets showing Mills & Boon's books throughout the century - the exhibition remains at Manchester Central Library until the end of July- it's well worth a visit.
