I think often that 1790-1810 fashions are just all grouped under
Regency, just because the general public is supposedly too dumb to know
what Revolutionary, Directorie, or Empire fashion is.
I can hear the pitch now: "Hey, just group it all under Regency, because
enough people will think "Regency Novel" or Jane Austen or something if
they are sophisticated enough to know what Regency roughly means."
And snickers from us who know that "Regency" is 1810-1820 strictly
speaking. Or might even ask which "Regency"
I am not a romance fan but: Regency romance novelists do in fact
interpret the "Regency" period (sometimes calling it "extended Regency")
as roughly 1790 or 1800 up to 1830 or even 1840. That is not because
most of them are unaware of the dates when the Prince Regent performed
that office, or because they think their readers are ignorant, or
because they are trying to deceive them. It's because "Regency romance"
is a strictly a marketing label for a specific fiction publishing genre.
When readers buy something marketed as a Regency romance, they expect
to read a certain kind of novel with certain kinds of characters, plots,
settings, etc. They may well know when the actual Regency period was,
but in this context they could care less. They're looking for a
specific kind of entertainment, not a history lesson.
Fran
Lavolta Press
http://www.lavoltapress.com
_______________________________________________
h-costume mailing list
[email protected]
http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
