Lately I’ve been reading a lot of historical romances set in England during the Regency period. I like being whisked to a different time and place from that in which I live and write about; while the language, culture, and mores of the English Regency are similar enough to mine that I can easily relate to them, the stories offer a pleasant change of pace from my everyday life and the inspirational romances I write.
But something’s rotten in the glitzy London ballrooms I’ve been visiting. The more Regencies I read, the more mistakes I’m finding. I’m not talking about typos and the odd editorial hiccup, but about glaring, persistent errors that the writers, editors, copyeditors–somebody–should have caught. I am unable to fathom why so many of the people who make these books don’t appear to have stirred themselves to spend even twenty minutes learning the very simple rules for addressing members of the British peerage and their wives and children.
The most common error I’m seeing involves the daughters and wives of peers. Recently I read an otherwise forgettable book in which, um, Lady Susan Important was referred to as “Lady Susan” in some places and “Lady Important” in others. That’s not just a little bit wrong, it’s unforgivably wrong–and if I were Susan, I’d whack that clueless writer and her asleep-on-the-job editors upside their silly heads with my reticule. Since the daughter of a duke, marquess, or earl is accorded the courtesy title “Lady” at birth, the heroine in question is Lady Susan Important or just plain Lady Susan. She is not Lady Important. Lady Important is her mother (unless her mother is a duchess–but we won’t get into that now). Lady Important quite properly calls herself by her husband’s title.
Another mistake I’m seeing far too often is introductions in which a person of high rank is presented to an individual who is clearly his or her social inferior. “Miss Nobody, may I introduce His Grace, the Duke of Wherever” is breathtakingly incorrect. I don’t care if the crowd at Almack’s is calling the chit an Incomparable, she’s still a little nobody in relation to the duke, and she should be presented to him, not the other way around. If I were His Grace, I’d give the bumbling introducer a freezing look through my quizzing glass before imperiously twitching my little finger and having the moron hustled out of the ballroom by four burly footmen.
People who write or edit regency romances have no business making errors like these. It’s too easy to learn the proper forms of address. Interested readers and conscientious writers should check out Wikipedia’s entry on the peerage, which briefly describes ranks and forms of address and also provides links to some very authoritative sites such as Burke’s Peerage.
Are stupid errors like these being perpetuated in your favorite romance subgenres? Have you ever read about a cowboy mounting his horse from the wrong side? Seen the word “electric” used in story that takes place before electricity was discovered? Shaken your head over a cop hero who doesn’t know the first thing about police procedure? Share your pet peeves in the comments. Or, if you’re not in the mood to complain, tell us which authors are consistently getting their facts and period details right.
No related posts.
[...] There’s an interesting post over at Romancing the Blog about mistakes authors make when their characters are addressing British peerage. A lot of fantasy uses the same titles, so I think many here will find it enlightening. [...]
A good place to check the accuracy words is the online etmyology dictionary.
http://www.etymonline.com/ Besides giving the date that a wrod was first attested,(electric 1652) it also gives its changing meanings. For example, glamour (1720) meant magical enchantment and did not come to have the meaning of magical beauty until 1840. The meaning of excitingly attractive came even later.
It is unknown unknowns that can cause problems. Or the things that writers etc thnk they know.
But for me, it really depends on if they are little niggles or if the world is poorly constructed. The story is key.
I do not enjoy PD JAmes’s mstery stories any less because she happened to send a character by the wrong train station in London. Or did not necessarily know the finer points of every single motorcycle make and choose the word *motorcycle* when only one specfic motorcycle could perform in that fashion.
This was excellent, thank you!
I did have a cop hero once who took everyone’s word for everything at the scene of crimes. And didn’t even think to question the one person who was supposed to have been a witness. But I managed to persuade the author that he might want to fix that, and he happily did.
I think I get more annoyed when authors get the geography wrong in places I’ve actually been to. I yell at the book, “It doesn’t take an hour to get there!” My husband started rolling his eyes at me because I couldn’t refrain from whining to him when the author repeatedly claimed that his characters got over their elevation sickness when they “decended” from Machu Picchu to Cuzco (Cuzco is about 3500 ft higher than Machu Picchu…I know…I had a nasty elevation sickness of my own!).
Thanks for the opportunity to rant!
Like I always say, people read Historical anything because they like or even love history. This means they *know* history pretty doggone well. The Historical author who gets her history right is going to mean the difference between being considered lousy, good, or Great.
Besides that, consider the reputation of the Romance genre. Sloppy research doesn’t exactly improve it.
Besides research, I think what really sets a great Historical anything author apart is his or her ability to capture the reader with themes, characters, and plots withOUT resorting to themes, characters, plots, and voice which are obviously contemporary. Check out NEFERTITI by Michelle Moran for a great example.:wink:
Well, technically, Lady Susan Important’s mother is Lady Placename, not Lady Important, because her husband is Lord James Important of Placename and his title is Earl (or whatever) of Placename, not Lord Important.
For what it’s worth.
Higher education has failed me. I do not know the date of the champagne flute’s invention. (Or care.)
Back when I read “historical anything” on a regular basis, it wasn’t because I cared anything about history. It was because I was, as always, searching for an entertaining story. When I’m seeking to be educated, there’s a great deal of well-written nonfiction to serve that purpose.
I was recently coerced into reading a very popular author who is often applauded for her attention to period detail, and I now understand why. In three separate instances in the book in question, I was slapped upside the head with a “Look here! I did my research!” sign. I found it distracting and annoying, as it wrenched me from the story and added nothing to it, from my perspective, but others absolutely adore her for it. Just goes to show you, every reader has a different style.
On a side note, I would triple-check any info gleaned from Wikipedia, if you use it at all. When Joe Fratboy can go in and edit any topic in a drunken stupor, it’s not an entirely reliable resource.
Well, technically, Lady Susan Important’s mother is Lady Placename, not Lady Important, because her husband is Lord James Important of Placename and his title is Earl (or whatever) of Placename, not Lord Important.
No, Sarah. If his title derrived from a place name, he would not be called Lord James Important of Placename. He would be “James Important, Earl of Placename,” and he would be referred to as Lord Placename, never Lord James Important. (Lord James Important would be the courtesy title of his son–who would be called Lord James and never Lord Important.)
Also, while dukes’ titles are always place names, an earl’s title is, as often as not, his family name. One example that everyone here will know is Lady Diana’s father. He was Earl Spencer, not the Earl of Spencer. Spencer was, of course, the family name.
I didn’t get into all of this this in my post because I thought it would be too much detail, and not everyone reading this is a Regency fan, anyway. If anyone wants to know more about these things, I encourage you to go Googling or just start with the Wikipedia entry I linked to and nose around a little.
Kerry, Wikipedia is actually highly accurate in most cases because it can be edited by anyone. Mistakes and misinformation can and do creep in, but they don’t last long in an oft-read article because the sticklers will pounce on any inaccuracy and edit it within days or even hours. Still, you’ll notice that in my post I didn’t imply that the Wiki article was an ultimate authority, but simply a starting point. For the last word on this stuff, I recommend Burke’s Peerage.
Wikipedia should be the start never the end of your research.
Anyway, I love historicals and can’t tell you if it’s accurate or not, but if I feel like this world has been described to me and I feel like I’m in whatever time period then I’m happy. The only thing that irritates the hell out of me is a woman of four and twenty being a spinster and no longer caring about suitors so it’s “okay” to be alone with the hero or men. How many times do I have to get the story set up this way? The only time there’s a chaperone is when it’s NOT the hero. Come on. Be a little creative.
I digress. I think this argument is more literary license vs. keeping to research (if the person does research) The thing about historicals is that you have to consider would this detail break up the rules of the world, turning on a light in the 16th century, saying, Cool or Dude. In a police investigation calling someone deputy who isn’t from the sheriffs office. First and foremost write the story then write to the audience. If you’re audience will know this detail then stick to it and find another way to tell your story. 9 times out of 10 it’ll make you a better writer.
I’m a stickler for accuracy, to the best of my ability, but I sometimes find that people think they know what’s correct, and they’re wrong.
I saw a comment on another site that took issue with medical practitioners in England in historical romances being referred to as “Doctor” during the 19th C., rather than “Mister”. And yet I’m reading Roderick Random by Tobias Smollet, written in the 18th C., and Smollett properly has the ship’s surgeon addressed as “Doctor Mackshane”. And a surgeon wasn’t even a “real” physician.
So sometimes what we think we know isn’t always what’s historically accurate.
I’m willing to overlook a minor detail if the author gets most of it right, and has a rousing good story. The shape of a champagne glass is a minor detail and I can forgive that. Having the heroine blithely go into marriage in England thinking she can get a divorce if she wants, that’s a major plot point I’d have a hard time accepting.
I don’t read regencies, but I used to read historicals and I was appalled at some of the mistakes done. Thanks for this enlightening article!
Hi Brenda,
Nice to bump into you here!!
I wrote trad Regencies for Zebra for 6 years, but my first, Lord St. Claire’s Angel, was appallingly wrong in title usage. The nice folks at AAR pointed it out to me, but unfortunately it wasn’t in time for me to correct the mistakes in my second book, Lady Delafont’s Dilemma! Ack, is that an awful feeling, to know that what is coming out is wrong and have no way to correct it!
Sigh… I try to get it right now.
Okay, I stand corrected, but I still think Lady Susan’s mother is unlikely to be Lady Important, but Lady Title instead. And from what I remember, Earl Spenser is the exception, rather than the rule.
What an interesting topic. I never even thought about those kinds of things. I am glad someone is checking though. I’ve read a few historical romances, they are kind of fun, especially reading about the way life used to be. They tend to be “strong heroine with modern ideas sent back to olden days” kind of thing where the heroine promptly throws all the rules of the time out the window..still, its wonderful when true love conquers all social restrictions…but I digress… I suspect it is difficult for a writer to really get into the way things were back then, the attitudes, especially towards and by women were especially alien to modern liberated ones. Even the sanitized versions of how things were must be difficult to write.
Jessica, Kimber, and Tempest, thanks for your kind words. I’m glad this post interested you.
Donna, I can understand a new author making those mistakes. What I don’t get is how your editors could have allowed them to stand uncorrected. Good grief, it’s their job to catch these little screwups. Sure, everyone’s going to make a mistake once in a while. But this is happening too often for some of us Regency lovers to excuse it. Repeated errors of this type make it darn near impossible to defend romance novels when people complain about them being poorly written and edited. Too often, they are.
Sarah, you might be right about titles deriving from place names more often than surnames. I was trying to keep things simple here, and look what a mess I’ve made! Is everyone hopelessly confused now?
I’m sorry, Donna, if it sounded as though I was berating you just now. It was your editors I was ragging on.
They should have known better. They should have been watching out for you, a new author.
I don’t think all readers of historical romances read them because they love history. Sometimes they just like horses and pretty dresses.
For me, I would be more likely to notice the confusing switch between Lady Susan and Lady Important, than to notice that Lady Important was wrong. I know very little about peerage, other than the fact that there weren’t half as many Dukes around as there are in romance novels.
I also forgive authors mistakes if I love the story. I tend to get mainly frustrated with mistakes when the story itself isn’t keeping my interest, and then I can focus on the errors. Such as the book I read where the heroine flew from the west coast of the US to New Zealand THROUGH GERMANY, in July, then went wandering around on mountains in the South Island in Shorts! I was there in January and I was STILL bundled up most of the time.
I don’t read much historical fiction (keep getting distracted by fantasy novels *g*) so I can’t really say, although something that annoyed me endlessly this weekend: I was in an airport bookshop and picked up a memoir by a celebrity who is not a writer, but worked with one. And editors. And copyeditors. Yet the quote on the back of the book from the book itself describes the author meeting her future husband, is three lines long, and contains the adjective “broad” twice, to describe his smile and his … shoulders? I don’t know. But I was completely thrown, and that was just on the backcover. That’s probably inoccuous to most people but I was somewhat horrified.
I’m shockingly ignorant of things that have historical accuracy, but I do love a good story. If the subgenre is something I know anything about, I do hate when the details are wrong–it’s distracting and annoying (because there’s a way to check the details, and it isn’t all that difficult to do these days). I also agree with Kerry when I also say that I don’t really enjoy the very obvious “hey look, I’m getting this right–check it out” kind of inclusions in stories.
One of my pet peeves is the idealised presentation of pagan religions as pseudo-Wiccan One with Nature and women have equal status-constructs. Another are out of time rants against slavery, arranged marriages and assorted other historical givens no one at that time would have thought about.
Jess, that’s interesting–I have trouble reading traditional fanatasy now (used to adore it) because I can’t buy the fantasy worlds. I know they’re fantasy and by their very nature will have inconsistencies with our own history, but so often the details don’t make sense. Such as woman pulling their formfitting dresses on over their heads…what, they had Spandex?!
Ok, I try and play by Mrs. Rabbit’s rules, so I’ll just name off a few writers that I adore for their accuracy: Candice Hern, Julia Ross, Pam Rosenthal, and Sabrina Jeffries can usually be counted on to GET IT RIGHT. None of their books are wallbangers for me.
I remember reading a romance one where they were travelling up the east coast of the country. they kept referring to the fantastic ocean views on their left. It drove me batty that If you are driving UP the EAST coast no matter where you are the ocean will be on the right hand side.
You make a great point about inconsistencies. I think most people don’t know how titles and aristocracy are addressed. That’s not to say that the author should get away with passing false info. I get more annoyed when the eye or hair color changes for a character. Physical attributes of a character should be important enought to warrant consistency.
My pet peeve is the number of dukes, earls, etc. there are in a population of less than 5,000 (generous estimate).
Well, said, Brenda. Sometimes when I’m writing, I find myself being sloppy about titles and forms of address, until I get to editing and polishing. Then, I make sure I’m right. One “mistake” that I keep in my Regencies is “reticule” instead of “ridicule”. If you’ve done any research in the Regency era, you will know that the little purse women carried were actually called “ridicules”, but when was the last time you read a Regency in which they were called that? I don’t think I ever have, and I think it would stop me in the story for a moment while I figure out what the author is talking about – or worse, I’ll think an editor missed a typo.
Denise, that sounded very odd to me, so I looked it up and learned that “reticule” is derived from the Latin word reticulum (”small net”) whereas “ridicule” comes from the Latin ridiculum (”a joke”). While I can easily imagine people mispronouncing “reticule” and turning it into a jokey name for the little drawstring handbags, I’d hazard a guess that the bags were never properly (and perhaps not even widely) called that. A quick internet search just now turned up next to nothing on that subject–I didn’t see anything that struck me as particularly authoritative–so if you can cite a good source that indicates the bags were widely called “ridicules,” please do. You’ve got me curious now.
I have to say, though, that you make a good point about how writers might jar readers with too much accuracy.
I remember reading a historical romance set in Cornwall, and was very startled when the characters, sailing along the coast, suddenly saw a pelican. I think it may even have specified brown pelican, which makes it wrong by a whole continent.
Since I have used reticule in my historical books, I’m really interesting in hearing about this ‘ridicule’. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it called that, and I have a sizable reference library with all things Victorian.
I think Austen uses the spelling ridicule somewhere. It’s the French one – I just checked with my War and Peace edition which keeps the French dialogue Tolstoy inserted in some scenes, and voilà, there it is right in the first chapter describing the soiree at Anna Pavlovna.
Thanks for your post–and thank goodness for the internet, I say. It’s so easy to check these details now. I don’t like mistakes like the one you mentioned re nobility titles, but what annoys me more is glaringly twentieth/twenty-first century attitudes in a historical time period. The heroine may have been ahead of her time, but not *that* ahead. I just read a book (not straight romance) set in the 14th century with a hero and heroine that were ridiculously modern in their thinking. Of course, everyone else in the book came across as a superstitious stuck-in-the-muds in comparison, although their attitudes were normal and even forward thinking for the time. The main characters’ modern sensibilities didn’t make me admire them; they made me want to slap them upside the head. You’ve got to make historical characters sympathetic, but they’ve also got to be real. A delicate balance, I suppose.
Kate
I agree, that is my biggest problem with historical romances as well.
It’s just little crap that annoys the daylights out of me.
I drive a semi. I don’t know everything, but I do know alcohol in the cab is a federal offense. So no, your hero is not getting his pretty runaway/stowaway/whatever drunk in order to get laid during his 10 hour break.
Nor are there buffets in Love’s truckstops (seen just this week). Love’s and Pilots are strictly fast food.
I do my homework on my historicals. And I try to stay out of time period when I’d have to mess with peerages and titles.
reticule v ridicule.
Actually both terms were used. Dickens also used ridicule on occassion. However, if you look at various fashion magazones from the period (ie La Belle Assemblee founded 1806) or the Ackermann plates, they use the word reticule. BTw the plates from La belle Assemblee are beautiful.
It all depends on your source. And quite probably the word reticule will less likely to draw the average reader out, even if both are correct.
I recently read a novel where the characters sent emails, chatted on mobiles, set up a dotcom, watched DVDs and sold things on Ebay. In 1987. Grrr.
I don’t care if writers get titles right or the appropriate way to address a certain someone. I don’t read historical romance for the accurate representation of the time. If that were the case, most of these romances would never have even happened.
It is a fantasy Regency world that I am reading about. Minor details do not bother me.
As for editors catching these ‘mistakes,’ they are not historical experts. They are most likely assuming the writer has done the research. Plus, editors and others have been doing less actual editing over the years. They don’t have the time to track down every last minute detail in an historical romance.
[...] Anyway, on to the lovers’ spat brewing in romancelandia between the readers and the writers. I’ve mentioned it before, the great Champagne Flute Debate of 2007, concerning historical accuracy and readers’ expectations. But it has spread, and is referenced here, and here, and here. [...]
Interesting discussion. I don’t read a whole lot of historicals but even in contemporaries, there can be facts that are dated incorrectly or some other world-building error that jars me as the reader out of the story. When that happens, it really grates on my nerves.
One thing that comes to mind that is not, uh, PC is, being PC when the characters wouldn’t have been during that era. As much as our current sensibilities may not like it, there were different thoughts, knowledge, beliefs, and moods in other times, even as recently as 20 years ago. It’s important to get these things right. I applaud the writers of historicals who get the details right because that’s a big job.
I read a non-fiction book called “Revolutionary Mothers” about women of the American Revolution. It was a pretty good book until I reached the part where a woman zipped up her bag. How the editors could have missed that one was beyond me.
When I read historicals, I tend to see the anachronisms in speech patterns. That and simple copyediting mistakes seem to JUMP off the page at me. That’s when I wish I could hire myself out as a freelance proofreader!
Nice post, Brenda…have a super day!
I don’t know if anyone ever looks at these after their day is gone, but I finally unearthed my OED and here’s the scoop on ridicule and reticule (used to mean a small purse):
Ridicule is dated to 1805.
Reticule is dated to 1824.
So your Regency Miss is carrying a ridicule. Your Romantic era Miss is carrying a reticule.
I look at these… Kalen.
‘Course that might be
because I’m a few days behind.
LOL
Have I ever heard of a Regency gal
in a romance novel
carrying a ridicule?
I don’t remember.
Many of them carry reticules though.
Maybe because the ridicule
sounds so… well… ridiculous
(I’ll take a chance on punny
as no one other than dear Brenda is reading this).
[...] been thinking about this ever since I read Brenda Coulter’s post on Regency titles over at Romancing the blog. It’s a pretty interesting comment trail, too. At least one blog [...]