In celebration of both Nicola Cornick’s latest release, The Last Rake in London, and Mills & Boon’s 100th anniversary, I was delighted to have the opportunity to conduct and interview with this talented author.

From her official bio:

Nicola was born in Yorkshire and spent the first eighteen years of her life there. She credits these early years with having a formative effect on her writers’ imagination in several ways. Firstly she went to school in the eighteenth century dower house that once belonged to the Earls of Harewood. In such auspicious surroundings her love of history and writing flourished, encouraged by some wonderful teachers. She also spent hours walking on the moors that inspired the Brontes and devoured a diet of costume dramas and historical novels. It was during this time that she developed a love of choral music and sang with various choirs that toured the UK and Europe.

In 2006 Nicola was awarded a Masters degree with distinction in Public History at Ruskin College, Oxford for her dissertation on heroes. She is currently researching the history of the National Trust property Ashdown House, in Oxfordshire, where she works as a guide. She also works in a second hand bookshop, which is like letting a chocolate addict loose in a sweet shop Her other interests are wildlife and conservation, music, reading and training guide dog puppies.

Nicola has written 26 historical romances for Harlequin Mills and Boon and HQN Books. She has been short-listed for the RWA RITA® Award, nominated twice for the RNA Romance Prize and Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice awards, and has won the LORIES Award of Excellence.

Let’s start by getting to know you better. I notice on your website that you work for Ashdown House (I’m green with envy). Care to share the background of the home and your work? How has your work in the manor home influenced your writing?

Thank you very much for inviting me to talk to you today and also for asking about Ashdown House! It is one of the great passions of my life, along with my writing and my family (not necessarily in that order!) Ashdown was built in the seventeenth century by the chivalrous and heroic cavalier William, First Earl of Craven. He was a loyal supporter of Elizabeth of Bohemia, the Winter Queen, and he intended the house to be a home for her but sadly she died before it was completed. She left her portrait collection to William Craven as a thank you for the devoted service he had given to her. It is an amazing experience for me to be able to show visitors around the house and the portrait collection, and to talk to them about the Craven family.

One of the later Earls of Craven married Cornelia Martin, an American heiress. She was only sixteen years old when they met and they had a sumptuous wedding in New York. The Cravens had started out as a fabulously wealthy family, the third richest in England, but by the end of the nineteenth century, when the marriage took place, they were heavily mortgaged. Cornelia transformed the family fortunes and also transformed the Craven mansion houses and their grounds with her money and immaculate taste and style. I would love to write her story one day.

Working at Ashdown has been inspirational for my writing. The history of the house and the era in which it was built fascinate me. I set one of my books, Lord Greville’s Captive, during the English Civil War. One of my favourite occupations is visiting historic houses and soaking up the atmosphere. I always come away bubbling with ideas for stories!

Though the majority of historical romance is set in 19th century Britain, the genre is dominated by American writers. What has been your experience as a British writer of British-set historical romance?

It wasn’t until I was published in the US that I realised how popular the Regency genre was with US and readers and authors. As a reader it was a marvellous discovery for me as I had run through all the UK-published regencies and was desperate for more. You can imagine how excited I felt on discovering such a thriving Regency historical romance genre in the US! The quality of the writing is so high and there is an energy and excitement about US-published historicals that I find makes them huge fun to read.

As a British writer I think it’s true to say that the US is a very difficult market to break into because the competition is so tough and the standard of the writing so high. I think I have been very, very fortunate to be published in the US as well as the UK and to be able to build up a readership that seems to enjoy my “English voice” and get my sense of humour! These days I do think that the UK and US markets have moved much closer together, the US books are available in the UK via the internet and the two readerships talk to each other a lot more on internet loops and groups.

For those unfamiliar with your work, how would you describe your novels?
I’d say they are intensely emotional and pretty hot historicals!

What are some of the themes that draw you to historical romance?
Mmm, that’s an interesting one. I’m not sure that I was consciously aware of any themes drawing me in when I started writing. It was such an instinctive thing and I didn’t stop to analyse it. Later on I became fascinated by similarities and differences throughout history. I like exploring whether human emotions are universal, regardless of the age and place we live. I also like looking at themes such as celebrity, which sound so modern and yet have parallels throughout history. In Lord of Scandal, for example, I was looking at the cult of celebrity in the Regency period and in The Earl’s Prize I explored what it might be like to be a Regency lottery winner.

What authors and/or books have inspired you to be the writer you are today?
Gosh, where do I start? There are so many wonderful authors whose writing I have found inspirational since I was a child. My all time favourites are Jane Austen, Dodie Smith and Robert Neill, whose wonderful historical Mist Over Pendle was hugely influential on me when I was in my teens and is still on my keeper shelf. I also went through a period of devouring time shift novels: Barbara Erskine and James Long (whose book Ferney is one of the best timeshift books ever in my opinion) and Susanna Kearsley.

In terms of Regency romance, is there anyone who comes to reading or writing that without being inspired by Georgette Heyer? Devil’s Cub and The Talisman Ring remain my favourites, up against some pretty stiff competition! Alice Chetwynd Ley was an author whose Regencies I discovered in the 1970s and whose books I still adore. I’d better stop there – I think I could talk endlessly about the authors who have inspired me!

What made you accept the offer to write a novel set in 1908 for Mills and Boon’s 100th anniversary?
I was intrigued and also rather apprehensive when Mills & Boon asked me to write a book set in 1908 as part of their centenary celebrations. I had never set a book in that era before and it was also a very long time since I had studied the Edwardian period so I wasn’t 100% sure I was qualified to do the job! In the end I accepted because I thought I would enjoy the stimulation of writing a book set in a different era and also because I had a very personal connection with 1908; my grandmother, who died earlier this year, would have celebrated her 100th birthday last month so 1908 was “her” year too.

I’ve been studying the Edwardian era for the past five years, and still find new things every day that fascinate me. As you researched The Last Rake in London, what were some things that caught your attention?
I think that the thing that struck me very hard was that some aspects of the society and culture seemed very modern and familiar whilst others seemed utterly alien and divided from the present by an enormous gulf of years and experience. Technology was further advanced than I had realised – I was astonished to discover, for example, that some of the London Underground was up and running and that it was already called “The Tube” as it is today. The other thing that fascinated me was the fight for women’s suffrage, which I had studied a little as part of my MA course at Ruskin College, Oxford. I am someone who believes in exercising her right to vote but when I was reminded of the struggle my forbears had gone through to gain me that right, it was very humbling.

Did you find any similarities between the Regency era and the Edwardian era?
The more I read up on the Edwardian period, the more similarities I noticed. Both eras are known for the dazzling opulence of high society, the lavish country house parties and the glittering London Season but beneath that seethes layers of poverty and violence and deprivation. In both cases the extremes of affluence and poverty were very marked. I think that the more you study it, the more the parallels become apparent.

What resources did you find most helpful for this period?
I started off by watching some costume dramas set in the period, such as the Duchess of Duke Street and Upstairs Downstairs. I felt that would get me into the right mindset and give me a feel for the period. It was great to rediscover those series as they were programmes I had enjoyed in my youth. I also drew on my memories of some of the National Trust properties that I had visited that had Edwardian interiors, such as Lindisfarne Castle, which although it was originally a Tudor fortress was redesigned by Lutyens in 1903.

Once I felt that I had absorbed something of the atmosphere of the period I turned to my reading. Some of the books I enjoyed the most and found the most useful were:

The Edwardians by Roy Hattersley

The Edwardian Country House by Juliet Gardiner

Victorian and Edwardian London by A R Hope Moncrieff

Anything else you’d like to add?
Only to thank you very much for inviting me to blog on Edwardian Promenade and to say that I wish I had found the site before I wrote the book. It’s fascinating and I’ll be returning often. Thank you!

The Last Rake of London can be purchased from amazon, and from eharlequin.

January 2012: The Last Rake in London has been reissued as Dauntsey Park: The Last Rake in London

Without fail, after the sunshine and bustle of summer months spent in exclusive summer resorts dotting the New England coast, New York Society repaired to their country homes in Connecticut or more likely, the Berkshires, in autumn. Following this social calendar also, was the future chronicler of this tight-knit, wealthy circle, Edith Wharton. It is here Wharton built what she considered her “first real home.”

The Mount was to be a writer’s retreat and also a place for entertaining distinguished guests like Henry James, the Vanderbilts or her neighbors at Ventfort Hall, the George Morgans. Inspired by the 17th century seat of Lord Brownlow, Belton House, and classical Italian and French architecture, she used the principles detailed in her first book, The Decoration of Houses (1897), when she designed the house. Accordingly, she stressed that “good architectural expression included order, scale, and harmony.” On a plot of 113 acres, the house overlooked Laurel Lake, with spectacular views to the Berkshire Hills and beyond, its striking white stucco exterior set off by black shutters and rose from a foundation of coarse field stone. Three stories at its entry elevation, this main house is augmented by Georgian Revival gatehouse and stable, and a greenhouse, while the garden side was of two stories, with an opening onto the large, raised stone terrace overlooking the grounds.

A visitor to the house would enter from a courtyard, then ascend a flight of steps to the main floor where the principle spaces–library, drawing room, dining room and sitting room–would open onto a terrace which offered that spectacular view of the lake and the hills. From this terrace, a Palladian staircase led to a “lime walk” of linden trees, which connected the two formal gardens on the estate.

The gardens were Wharton’s own labor of love, expressing the ideas of her 1904 release, Italian Villas and Their Gardens, envisioning her gardens as an elegant series of outdoor rooms. Designed and constructed between 1901 and 1907, they are the only surviving landscape elements she designed in the United States. After the “lime walk,” one was a walled Italian garden with walkways and a lion’s head fountain, given minimal plantings, so that it had “a charm independent of the seasons.”

Contrasting this was the flower garden filled to the brim with petunias, phlox, snapdragons, stocks, penstemons and hollyhocks, and featured a dolphin fountain and a latticework niche. To complete the landscaping was a rock garden, for which Wharton searched out native varieties of sweet ferns. To form a gradual transition from the formal plantings to the landscape beyond, clipped hedges and trees followed Wharton’s principle that “each step away from architecture was a nearer approach to nature.”

It was here Edith Wharton wrote several of her novels, including The House of Mirth, the first of many chronicles of the true nature of old New York, and entertained the cream of American literary society, including her close friend, the novelist Henry James. But this haven failed to completely soothe Wharton’s restless spirit; acerbated by Teddy Wharton’s alcoholism and general dissipation, she sought refuge in Europe and by 1910, the Wharton’s had separated. After selling The Mount in 1911, they finally divorced in 1913 and Wharton remained primarily in Europe, where she continued to write, publishing such masterpieces as her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Age of Innocence and her final, incomplete manuscript, The Buccaneers, before passing away in 1937.

In the meantime, The Mount was passed from owner to owner, first a private residence, then a girls’ dormitory for the Foxhollow School, and the site of the theatre company Shakespeare & Company. It was finally purchased by Edith Wharton Restoration, which has restored much of the property to its original condition. Currently open from May to October for visitors and tours, The Mount unfortunately faces foreclosure after 106 years of existence. Despite this hovering dark cloud, the estate nonetheless retains the elegant, precise charm of Wharton’s imagination.

Further Reading:
The Mount: Edith Wharton’s Estate and Gardens
The Mount: Edith Wharton and the American Resistance
The Victory Garden: The Mount; Edith Wharton’s House & Gardens

One of the world’s premiere automobile brands, Rolls Royce conjures the image of wealth, class and elegance. Founded in 1906 by Henry Royce and Charles Stewart Rolls, the firm soon became entwined with the 2nd Baron Montagu of Beaulieu, Conservative MP and motoring enthusiast, and the Hampshire village of Beaulieu, the location of his ancestral home, Beaulieu Abbey. By the early 1900s, the Rolls Royce quickly outpaced its competitors as the motorcar for the wealthy and sophisticated–no doubt because of its costliness (the average price of a car in chassis form was around £650 and the Silver Ghost cost ₤1,154!)–and the series of motor trials which convinced those who took up the automobile for sporting purposes that the Rolls Royce was reliable, looked good and drove fast.

The motorcar was here to stay despite protestations from the rural districts, coachmen and other citizens alarmed by the emergence of the horse-powered vehicle over the horse, but many automobile manufacturers and enthusiasts found it prudent to capture the support of lawmakers, preferably the highest in the land–Parliament. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu was a powerful ally. Friend of the King, and founder and editor of The Car Illustrated magazine, his support, among others, of the 1903 Motor Car Bill raised the speed limit to 20 mph and implemented the registration of all motorcars and motorists. Lord Montagu raised the profile of motoring by introducing King Edward to the sport, appearing at many of the first motor rallies and raised the profile of the Rolls Royce when the mascot he commissioned was presented by its sculptor to the company–the Spirit of Ecstasy.

The early motor car featured a radiator cap on its hood/bonnet, but by 1910, the hood ornament/car mascot became fashionable. Responding to customers who felt a firm as prestigious as Rolls Royce should feature its own luxurious mascot, and concerned their customers were affixing inappropriate ornaments to their cars in its absence, Claude Johnson, the managing director of Rolls-Royce, was asked to commission something suitably dignified and graceful. He turned to sculptor Charles Sykes, asking him to produce a mascot which embodied “the spirit of the Rolls-Royce, namely, speed with silence, absence of vibration, the mysterious harnessing of great energy and a beautiful living organism of superb grace…” Years previously, Sykes had been asked to create a mascot for Lord Montagu’s Silver Ghost, and he submitted a modified version of it to Rolls-Royce in February of 1911.

What was listed initially listed as an optional extra, only to become a standard fitting in the early 1920′s, was no ordinary car mascot; the silver sculpture of a flying lady had a past. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu had commissioned this mascot as an emblem not of wealth and luxury, but of love. The subject, Eleanor Velasco Thornton, was a young woman hired as his secretary in 1902, and the two fell quickly in love. But the baron was married and Miss Thornton was barred from being his partner not only because of his matrimonial bonds but also by her much lower social status. The two nonetheless were inseparable for the next decade, Eleanor bearing his child and continuing her work with him on The Car Illustrated. To commemorate their secret love, Eleanor modeled for Montagu’s personal hood ornament, and Sykes crafted a figurine of her in fluttering robes, pressing a finger against her lips – to symbolize the secrets of their love. The figurine was christened The Whisper.

Tragedy struck in 1915 when their voyage aboard the SS Persia, on which they were traveling through the Mediterranean on the way to India, was torpedoed by a German U-boat. There was no time to get to a lifeboat and as they made for the decks on the listing ship, “Montagu had Eleanor in his arms, the next they were hit by a wall of water and she was gone.” He survived and made his way home to read his own obituary in the Times. The baron passed away fourteen years later and with him, the secret story behind Rolls-Royce’s iconic emblem.

Happily, the tale of the star-crossed lovers lives on today, as it has been announced that Batman Begins actor Christian Bale has been tapped to star in The Silver Ghost, which will tell the story of the thirteen year affair between John Montagu, who later became Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, and Eleanor Thornton, his secretary.

Further Reading:
Agony and the Ecstasy: The great Rolls-Royce love story
Wings of Desire: the secret love affair that inspired Rolls-Royce’s flying lady