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Gaming Hells

I did some writing while in Vegas, which was a surreal experience because Warren’s book involves gambling, and it definitely enhanced the writing experience to be in a city so dedicated to that. Most Regency bucks gambled primarily in private clubs (like St. George’s) or gaming hells. My book concerns the latter, since I wanted to have a sort of tavern/gaming hell combo where tavern maids served the men. I had to scour the internet for period descriptions and images of hells, which is how I was reminded of Crockford’s, a club run by a former fishmonger. Originally he worked in a gaming hell, and I found an excellent article at the Smithsonian magazine about it. It’s clear from the article that gaming hells were designed to cheat the customers at every turn. I guess we know why they were called hells! As usual, the house always wins, one way or the other.

Card Games

Regency folks loved card games, and many of those were either precursors to games we play now or are actually still being played. Whist, for example, became our present-day Bridge. Patience is our modern Solitaire, and Vingt-un (which is what the Brits called it; only the French called it Vingt-et-un) is actually our Blackjack. And Piquet (Warren and Delia’s game of choice) is still being played as it was centuries ago. In fact, the term carte blanche came directly from Piquet. It’s a very complicated game, so I haven’t attempted to master it, but you can find tutorials on the internet if that interests you.

Cyprians

I admit it. I invented the widow’s auction that is the basis for my reissued novella, The Widow’s Auction. To my knowledge, no such auction ever occurred in a gentlemen’s club. But other similarly scandalous events took place. Like the Cyprian’s Ball held in the Argyll Rooms annually during the period. There’s even a famous print from the period depicting it.

A Cyprian was a courtesan, and the ball enabled women who couldn’t attend balls and society events normally to have their own where they could scope out potential protectors and vice-versa. So my auction is a bit of a variation on that, with masked respectable widows auctioning off their favors to gentlemen for one night. After all, why should courtesans have all the fun?

Illegitimate Children

Regency and Georgian men and women could be quite randy. The Duke of Queensbury had an illegitimate daughter, Mary, by an Italian marchesa (the equivalent of an English marchioness) and easily convinced an earl to marry his darling daughter. The founder of the Smithsonian Museum started life as the illegitimate son of the first Duke of Northumberland and a wealthy Bath widow. He was born abroad (discreetly) in Paris, and eventually brought back to England to be educated. William IV, Prinny’s youngest brother, had ten illegitimate children with an actress, all of whom were given titles or married off to lords. The higher in rank you were, the more your indiscretions were overlooked or swept under the table. But lower-ranking women could have a rough time. Many was the story of a fallen woman on the stage or in the brothels who’d been a gentlewoman before she was seduced. Which is why my club members are trying to keep the rogues at bay!

Dictionaries

Yvette’s hobby of collecting slang is a bit out there, but it’s feasible. Regency women loved wordplay. If you read or saw the adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, you may remember Emma and Harriet collecting riddles and charades (word-puzzles) for a book. And slang dictionaries were more common than one would think. Captain Grose really did produce A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, and Pierce Egan really did have a book called Boxiana, with references to boxing slang. What’s more, one of the earliest female lexicographers I could find, Anna Brownlow Murphy, wrote a children’s dictionary that was published in 1814 and widely used in the Regency. It appeared in multiple editions. So why not a female lexicographer who collects slang?

Artists

In researching The Art of Sinning, I discovered quite a few American artists who ended up touring or settling in England. The most famous one, of course, is Benjamin West, one of the founders of the Royal Academy of Arts. Already established as a portrait painter in Pennsylvania, he went to England initially for a visit and ended up residing there for the rest of his life. Alvan Fisher, an American landscapist, toured England around the time of my story. Samuel Morse (yes, the co-developer of Morse code) was also a painter and member of The Royal Academy, who studied in England under West. In fact, several American artists of the period studied there—Robert Fulton, Charles Wilson Peale, and Washington Allston, among others. So Jeremy was part of a long-standing tradition with American artists.

Comics

We tend to think of comics as modern, but the very first comics were humorous or satirical prints done by well-known artists like William Hogarth, James Gillray, and the Cruikshank brothers. The one I’ve included is of George IV (who was Prinny during our period). The caricaturists satirized him shamelessly, especially once he grew in girth. They were the first political cartoonists, but they didn’t limit themselves to political issues. Some of them just liked to poke fun at the rich and aristocratic. If you have time, check out their works online. Some of them were quite racy and amusing!

Remembering Family

There was no photography in the Regency, so the only way you could capture your family’s images for all eternity was to have their portraits painted or their busts made. I was particularly moved by the bust of a young man commissioned by his family after his tragic death in his teens. They had no image of him to work from, so the artist did a likeness based on his siblings’ features and the descriptions of the family. Can you imagine having to endure your grief for a loved one without even being able to look at a picture of him? It really brought home to me how we take photographs for granted.

Paris

After the war ended, Regency ladies particularly enjoyed visiting Paris to check out the latest fashions. It was so common that daily trips were made by steam packet boats and diligences, a sort of omnibus coach where those willing to pay could travel more comfortably in the coach looking out a window than their less fortunate fellow passengers who were outside in the weather. Now we know where the idea of going first class comes from.

Travel

We are not the first generation to go touring other places for entertainment. The Lakes were a popular vacation destination for Regency travelers, but so was the Peak District, which lies mostly in Derbyshire. You may remember that when Lizzie expects to go to the Lakes for her vacation with the Gardiners in Pride and Prejudice, they have to go to the Peak District instead, which is how they end up seeing Pemberley (the stand-in for Pemberley’s outside scenes in the 2005 movie adaptation is the famous great house Chatsworth, which is also in the Peak District). Buxton, Derbyshire, was a spa town much like Bath, and there were caverns and other mountain beauties to explore in the district. One of these days I hope to visit it myself.