Lady Clara's book, Dukes Prefer Blondes—update

I've just finished reviewing the copy edits and making corrections to the manuscript of Dukes Prefer Blondes. This is my next-to-last chance to go over the work and try to catch as many errors and stupidities as possible. The copy editor has gone over the manuscript in detail, correcting punctuation, spelling, and typos; providing formatting instructions for the printer; correcting or querying inconsistencies; and pointing out content that looks wrong or sentences that don't make sense. 

It is always a wonder to me how anybody can do this for 400 pages (probably two or three times, I'll bet) and not set the manuscript on fire. Of course, these days, we are copy editing electronically, using Track Changes, so the fire would only be virtual.

Track Changes definitely makes things easier and faster, and I'm happy to have it. But my brain doesn't always read the computer screen correctly. I know some authors can work without ever printing out anything, but they are not me. I went through the whole manuscript electronically. Then, because I had time and  OCD, I printed it out and went over it again. And guess what?  I found 20 or more problems I'd missed on the first run-through. And you know what? Next go-round will be the page proofs, and you can be sure I will still find several crazy mistakes that none of us caught the first or second times.

And when the book goes to print, we may be sure there will be at least one mistake.

But that's some time away. The publication date is January 2016, with a release date of 29 December 2015.

Trafalgar Square, illustrated above, plays an important part in the story. This image is from the mid 1830s (Wikipedia has it for 1837-43, but the dresses look 1834-35 to me). The area was a work-in-progress for many years. Nelson's Column wasn't completely completed until the 1860s.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will allow you to view it at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

What is Lady Day?

In Lord of Scoundrels, Lord Dain refers to an event occurring between Candlemas and Lady Day. These dates may not mean much to many readers.  Following is a short explanation, which I originally wrote for Two Nerdy History Girls.                                 ***

The Severe Steward

In my book Lord of Scoundrels, Lord Dain refers to an event occurring before Lady-Day.  He does not mean the singer Billie Holiday.

He’s referring to a Quarter Day, as do characters in many books.  These are important dates in the British calendar, as the following page illustrates.  It’s from a little instruction manual, The Guide to General Information on Common Things (1868).

Quarter Days

According to Hone’s Every-day Book, Vol 1,  “Lady Day is a holiday at the Public Offices, except the Excise, Stamp, and Custom.”  He describes various religious festivals associated with the day, then goes on to note:  “In England, Lady Day is only remembered as the first quarter-day of the year, and is therefore only kept by tenants who truly pay rent to their landlords.”

However, servants were customarily paid on quarter days as well.  Though we tend not to use religious holidays as the marking points nowadays, we do continue to to divide the year into quarters for various financial transactions, e.g. quarterly reports.

William Hone explains Candlemas here.

Image: William Redmore Bigg,The Severe Steward, or Unfortunate Tenant (1800-01), courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will allow you to read at the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.

 

Hardwick Hall, the Model for Athcourt

Because readers seem to be very interested in the posts about locales and vehicles mentioned in Lord of Scoundrels*, I'm continuing the visual guide.

Athcourt, where Lord Dain resided, is on the fringes of Dartmoor.  It’s based, however, on Hardwick Hall, which is in Derbyshire.  But there are moors there, too, and Hardwick Hall certainly is atmospheric.  I chose it because it looked like the sort of place Dain would have grown up in and because I had a picture of it in cross-section—so helpful in seeing the movie in one’s head.  Since a great deal of action takes place in this house, the cross-section was invaluable.

You can see a black and white version of the cross section here.

The National Trust publication about Hardwick Hall includes a cross section in color, as well as many interior views, including the Long Gallery, down which Dominick runs au naturel. Below is a Victorian pseudo-Elizabethan view of the gallery, but it hasn't changed much.

*Yes, still celebrating the book’s 20th anniversary.
 

 

Images: North View of Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire and
Interior View of the Hall at Hardwick, by John Buckler (1813), courtesy Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. Gallery image from The Mansions of England in the Olden Time, Vol 2, 1870 - See more at: