Cool 19th Century Places to Visit: The Thorne Rooms

Sometimes the coolest things are the smallest. That’s certainly true of the Thorne Rooms, a series of miniature interiors painstakingly recreated. While the rooms were constructed between 1932 and 1940, they depict lifestyles from the late 13^th century to the 1930s, in Europe, Asia, and the U.S.

The visionary behind the work is Narcissa Niblack Thorne, wife of James Ward Thorne connected to the Montgomery Ward department stores. She designed the rooms and commissioned artisans to create the various pieces to populate them. The scale is one inch equals a foot, and the details are exquisite. I recall touring the rooms held by the Art Institute of Chicago. In a tiny library of the Georgian era lay a pair of spectacles on a side table before the hearth.

Peering through the glass boxes that house the collection, one is transported to another time, another place. Many date around the late 1700s/early 1800s. A Regency hero or heroine would be right at home. I certainly feel at home. Thorne’s English Dining Room of the Georgian Period formed the basis for Sir Nicolas Rotherford’s dining room in The Courting Campaign. Margaret Munroe slept in Thorne’s Massachusetts Bedroom, c. 1801, at the Marquis deGuis’s home in the Lakes District in The Marquis’ Kiss.

The Art Institute of Chicago holds the most of these wonderful rooms (68 in all), many of which you can find online to view. The Phoenix Art Museum and the Knoxville Museum of Art also have collections.

Highly recommended. You may never look at a room description the same way again.

Photos in this post were used under a Creative Commons license and taken by Joseph Reagle. 

The One and Only Margaret Munroe

Writers have favorite characters (sh—don’t tell the others!). Every once in a while one truly leaps off the page and refuses to let you go. Take my Lady Emily or Vaughn Everard; they would not rest until their story was told. As their author, you can only hope others will react to them the same way.

Another such heroine is Margaret Munroe in The Marquis’ Kiss. She was one of my earlier heroines, back in the days when I often based my heroines on women I knew. I have told you about Hannah Alexander of Secrets and Sensibilities being based on my late dear friend, Nancy. Margaret is also based on a friend. With her verve, vim, and vigor, I thought she would make a marvelous Regency lass. I asked her permission first, of course, and when Kiss was first published, she accused me of peeking in her windows the characterization was so spot on.

But many people struggled with Margaret, including the Art Department at Kensington, where the book was first published. You see, she is prematurely turning gray, and gray-haired heroines were not in vogue. But my friend had strands of gray hair when I met her at a summer camp when she was seventeen and I was nineteen. I was very glad when the first cover showed a young lady in the moonlight. I like to pretend the silver in her hair is from more than the moon.

Margaret is also open-hearted, giving of herself to everyone she meets, from a royal duke to a reformed prostitute. Some people thought she should have been more attuned to the class system of Regency England. I never questioned that. Margaret knew it was there. She simply refused to abide by it, and she was ready to take the consequences.

Finally, Margaret is honest, to the point of embarrassment. She says what she thinks, with very little filter. Reviewers commented that she couldn’t possibly behave that way. One went so far as to say that no human being ever born behaved like Margaret Munroe.

Shall I introduce you? Here’s a taste.

The marquis was already sitting properly on one of the arm chairs when she arrived. He was probably the only person in the world who could look comfortable and in command on the stiff furniture. He was arrayed in a splendid coat of camel-colored superfine and tan chamois trousers tucked into gleaming Hessians.

He rose as she entered, and she did not think it was her imagination that he looked relieved to see her. She wondered what her stepmother had been saying to him. Mrs. Munroe was glowing possessively. Margaret and the marquis had no more than greeted each other and seated themselves before Mrs. Munroe made the flimsiest of excuses and quit the room with a knowing glance at Margaret.

She was giving the marquis a moment to propose. The idea was so ludicrous that Margaret’s nervousness evaporated in amusement.

“I’m now supposed to captivate you with my stimulating conversation,” she informed him in the silence that followed her stepmother’s precipitous departure. “As we both know this visit is a sham, perhaps we could just dispense with the formalities.”

He frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean by sham, Miss Munroe. Are you under the impression that my intentions are less than honorable?”

Having both heard of and been witness to his proper lifestyle, she could not help but chuckle. “Oh, no, my lord. I’m sure your intentions, if you had any, would be entirely honorable. I simply thought it best that we be honest with each other from the beginning and acknowledge the fact that you are here only because of Lady Janice.”

He rose and walked to the window, but not fast enough to hide the fact that he had paled. “Have the rumors spread so quickly?”

“I have no doubt the gossip is flying,” she replied, refraining from mentioning her cousin’s stream of it. “But I was there at the ball when she jilted you, remember?”

She thought his shoulders sagged in his relief and wondered suddenly whether there was more to the story of Lady Janice’s refusal than she had thought. If he did stay in her life long enough, she might have to have a talk with the lady. Surely Lady Janice would tell her the truth of the matter.

“You are very good at being forthright,” he said to the window.

“Painfully so,” she acknowledged cheerfully. “And I do expect the same of others. So, out with it, my lord. You are only here to prove to Society that you were not trifling with my affections. Let us have a decent conversation and set you free from this onerous duty.” She knew the words sounded like a challenge and steeled herself for his concurrence. He stiffened as if making some resolution then strode back to her side. Sitting beside her on the sofa, he took her hands in his. Margaret looked up in surprise at the intensity of his gaze.

“Miss Munroe, you must believe me. I would not be here if I were not sincere in my admiration of you.”

She would have given anything to hear that speech and believe it. She snatched her hands away from him, leaning back against the opposite arm of the sofa to put distance between them. “Rubbish! Do you think me so feather-brained? You have not spent more than a half hour in my company since the day we met over a year ago. During that time, you sincerely courted two other women. You cannot admire me. You don’t even know me.”

He swallowed, lowering his gaze. “You are right, of course. I did not mean to imply that I had formed an attachment in so short a time. That would be quite unseemly.”

Though she had known the truth, his statement still hurt, for her own attachment had been formed quickly and surely. “Not unseemly, my lord. Just unlikely.”

“Agreed. I know very little about you, as you noted. However, I must insist that what I know is wholly admirable. You are sharp-witted; you seem to have a joy of life I have seen in few others; and your laugh is altogether delightful.”

“Really?” she squeaked, then swallowed the astonishment and pleasure that was preventing coherent thought, much less speech.

“Really,” he said with a smile that lit his eyes with blue flame, like brandy around a plum pudding. It both warmed and thrilled her.

“I will not claim to be courting,” he continued, “but I see no harm in a friendship. Will you allow me the opportunity to get to know you better?”

She could only nod, overcome by the tumult of emotions. A friendship was more than she had thought possible, yet how insipid it seemed. Her cousin Allison had inspired an offer of marriage after only a few encounters, and the best Margaret could do was a friendship? The second-rate Munroes were a dismal second this time. Yet even as she sighed, she felt a tingle of hope. Stranger things than friendship had led to romance.

I am very happy that Margaret’s story is available once more. I hope you find it does her justice. But I’m not sure I’ll ever be a good enough writer for that.

You can find The Marquis’ Kiss at fine online retailers such as

Smashwords    

Amazon 

Barnes and Noble  

Kobo 

iBooks 

Blast from the Past: Hermits Weren’t the Only Ones in the Woods

I’ll be playing, er I mean learning and networking at the Romance Writers of America annual conference this week, but I promise to come back with lots of good insights to share. In the meantime, enjoy this post, updated slightly from when it was originally published in August 2011.

Contrived rustic landscapes were only one way nineteenth century young ladies and gentlemen discovered nature. The period saw a rise in the appreciation of natural beauty for beauty’s sake. Where once the pockets of wilderness around England had been seen by the fashionable as backward hamlets in their otherwise civilized isle, now they saw the lofty peaks, verdant valleys, and thundering freshets worthy to visit, to view, and to capture in word and drawing. And one of the most popular areas to appreciate nature, then and now, was the Lake District.

The Lake District boasts a collection of rocky mountains, deep clear lakes, and crystal streams found nowhere else in England. It had already achieved some popularity with the more outdoorsy types who enjoyed walking along the paths and shores. However, when the romantic poet William Wordsworth authored a Guide through the District of the Lakes (anonymously in 1810 and under his own name in 1820), even those usually content with indoor pursuits took notice.

Wordsworth had been born and went to school in the Lake District, and his time away from it only made him appreciate it further. He wrote some of his most famous poems while at Dove Cottage in Grasmere with his sister Dorothy and spent much of his married life in a house in Rydal. His love of the area glowed in his guide. Take this from early in the piece:

“When the sun is setting in summer far to the north-west, it is seen by the spectator on the shores or breast of Winandermere, resting among the summits of the loftiest mountains, some of which may be half or wholly hidden by clouds, or by the blaze of light which the orb diffuses around it; and the surface of the lake will reflect correspondent colors through every variety of beauty, and through all degrees of splendor.”

Kind of makes you want to go there, doesn’t it? His words certainly had that affect on the gentry and aristocracy of nineteenth century England, many of whom built summer homes along the lakes and streams.

Growing up as I did near the mountains and seas of the Pacific Northwest, and having returned to live there now, I feel a particular affinity for the Lake District. I have set several of my Regency romances there, including portions of The Marquis’s Kiss, An Honorable Gentleman, and the Everard Legacy series. 

Now you know another entry on my ever-growing bucket list of places to visit in England!