The Library of Congress invited Eloisa James to talk at the 2012 National Book Festival, making her the first romance author to speak at the festival. She claims that genre fiction transforms individual lives by resonating with reader emotions. We hope you enjoy the following selections! What lessons have you learned from reading romances or other genre novels? If you [...]
Filed under Behind the Scenes · Tagged with 2010s, architecture, Barbara Cartland, beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Carol Bly, childhood, duchesses, Eloisa James, expectations, fairy tales, genre fiction, Georgette Heyer, Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy, Library of Congress, literature, love, Mary Bly, meritocracy, mystery, National Book Festival, parents, pirates, poetry, Pride and Prejudice, relativity, Robert Bly, social history, teaching, The Ugly Duchess, William Butler Yeats
As the 1960s progressed, mainstream media looked warily at a changing American sexual culture. In 1960 the Food and Drug Administration approved the marketing of Enovid, the first oral contraceptive, and by 1962, more than 1,000,000 women were “on the pill.” In 1965 the Supreme Court ruled in Griswold v. Connecticut that all women, not merely married women, had a [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with 1960s, affairs, Anne Bancroft, Benjamin Braddock, California, chastity, commitment, contraceptives, Dustin Hoffman, Elaine Robinson, FDA, film, Griswold v. Connecticut, intimacy, Karen Dunak, legal history, marriage, media, middle age, morality, Mrs. Robinson, romance, San Francisco, sexuality, social history, Summer of Love, Supreme Court, The Graduate
Could you recognize love in another time or part of the world or even another subculture? DePaul University professor of English Eric Selinger ponders the wide variety of actions and thoughts encompassed within one word. How do you define love? What’s required for you to read or view or feel something and accept it as love? Do you have family [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with anthropology, Beatrice, cultures, Dante Alighieri, definition of love, Eric Selinger, history, love, social history, sociology, subcultures, variety, Vita Nuova
Quick—name a famous 19th-century British romance fiction writer. Did you say Marie Corelli, Amy Levy, Augusta Webster, or Lucas Malet? While Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë come first to the minds of 21st-century readers, Corelli, Levy, Webster, and Malet would have been popular choices of their contemporaries. These Victorian authors wrote best-selling novels, short stories, and poetry about romance and [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with 1800s, A Brief Summary in Plain Language of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women, A Woman Sold, Amy Levy, Augusta Webster, Barbara Bodichon, Britain, Charlotte Brontë, Countess of Malmesbury, courtship, disability, economics, eugenics, family, flirtation, Flora Annie Steel, Jane Austen, Kristin Lehner, Lady Jeune, Lucas Malet, Margaret Wynman, Marie Corelli, marriage, Mary St. Leger Kingsley, Mathilde Blind, mercenary marriage, My Flirtations, poetry, poets, Richard Calmady, social history, Tarantella: A Romance, The History of Richard Calmady: A Romance, The Modern Marriage Market, Victorian, website reviews, weddings, women's history, women's rights
One of the topics that comes up a lot among historical writers is what research books are essential. If you ask your top 10 favorite authors, you’d probably end up with a pretty impressive research library (and I’d love to see other authors tell us about their Must Have Books in the comments). Here are mine. I think these books [...]
Filed under Behind the Scenes · Tagged with 1700s, 20000 Years of Fashion, and Marriage in England 1500-1800, archetypes, aristocracy, arranged marriage, children, clubs, courtship, divorce, domestic life, economic marriages, England, Enlightenment, family, fashion, food, François Boucher, gentlemen, Georgian, Hannah Glasse, Hardwicke Marriage Act, illegitimacy, inheritance, Isobel Carr, law, Lawrence Stone, love, Mark Bence-Jones, marriage, Middle Ages, mourning, Peerage Law in England, peerages, Randolph Trumbach, Regency, remarriage, research, Road to Divorce, Season, servants, sex, Sharon Laudermilk, Sir Francis Beaufort Palmer, social history, social mobility, statistics, Teresa Hamlin, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, The British Aristocracy, The Family, The Family Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800, The Regency Companion, The Rise of the Egalitarian Family: Aristocratic Kinship and Domestic Relations in Eighteenth-Century England, the ton, theatres, titles, upper class, values, Victorian, wives, worldbuilding
As a long-time romance reader, a romance author, and a publisher, I figured I had a pretty good handle on what constituted a good romance, so when I was asked to be the guest editor of Best Lesbian Romance 2009 (Cleis Press), I expected the task to be straightforward. I’ve just recently turned in the manuscript for Best Lesbian Romance [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with attraction, Best Lesbian Romance, Bold Stroke Books, catharsis, challenges, cheating, Cleis Press, conflict, connection, consummation, declaration, editing, expectations, first love, GLBT, HEA, HFN, lesbian romance, longtime couple, lying, marriage, meeting, paranormal romance, pleasure, Radclyffe, rape, readability, reader acceptance, resolution, reunion, rules, sexuality, social history, subgenres, transformation, Trust, urban fantasy, women's history, YA
Rejecting the necessity of marriage, Joni Mitchell sang on 1971′s Blue, “We don’t need no piece of paper from the city hall, keeping us tied and true.” Referring to her romance with onetime love Graham Nash, Mitchell offered a striking break from the recent past, when a piece of paper from city hall, along with an engagement ring, a wedding [...]
Filed under Talking About Romance · Tagged with 1970s, Blue, Bruce Springsteen, Carly Simon, Carole King, cohabitation, Graham Nash, hookups, Joni Mitchell, Judy Kutulas, Karen Dunak, Mary, music, My Old Man, social history, taboos, terminology, That's the Way I Always Heard That It Should Be, The River, Thunder Road
The International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR) was created to encourage scholars to study representations of romantic love in global popular culture—through the lenses of literature studies, social history, popular culture studies, business analysis, and anthropology. I recently asked the organization’s president, Sarah Frantz, and the editor of its journal, Eric Selinger, about the beginnings of the [...]
