Quote:
Originally Posted by sportourer1
My novel is set in Georgian London and I hope I have the atmosphere about right within which my imagination can roam free
|
Hi there, I write Regency London (end of the Georgian period).
Quote:
Originally Posted by sportourer1
In my novel I think I have the balance correct even down to general political atmosphere at the time. I was accused however of including a "modern sex scene" whatever that means!
|
Gah. I hate hearing that. The Georgian time was one of debauchery and decadence; the Victorian moralists were a reaction against it. But many ignorant readers project Victorian mores backwards and think the Georgians were even more moralistic. It's a frustration I share.
There were some extreme brothels; period writings describe them in detail. Pornographic sketches and cartoons were sold publicly, and advertised openly. You could walk down Bond Street and see porn in the windows of printing shops. Many aristocratic men of the time collected snuff boxes with pornographic scenes on them. A friend of mine has one that depicts three men and two women in flagrante delicto.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sportourer1
It was also a melting pot of immigrants some of whom were plotting against their hosts - as today!
|
And it was a time of great xenophobia among the British, too. They relied on the talents of the immigrants, but there was a lot of distrust.
I try to make my fiction a window into a different time. The characters have many of the attitudes of the time. Society wasn't cut from one cloth, even then. There were aristocrats who were decadent and aristocrats who were upright and cared about their tenant farmers. The trick is to do enough worldbuilding that the reader understands how the characters are a product of that environment, or to show what they're rebelling against.
Nothing drives me crazier than a modern character in an historical setting. If that's what someone wants to write, just do a time travel story IMO.