Histor y of the romantic novel
Ashbourne WI
THE monthly meeting took place on Thursday, October 11 and members were welcomed by Lois Wilkes, the treasurer.
The speaker for the evening was Julia Ibbotson and her talk was entitled ‘A Fine Romance.’
Julia is an author of romantic fiction specialising in medieval language, literature and history. She has a PHD in linguistics and is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association.
Julia first worked in Ghana, West Africa, where she spent an exciting time teaching and nursing.
She wrote her first book at the age of 10 but then became a schoolteacher, lecturer and researcher.
Julia’s first book was written for children. Entitled SCARS, it was a fantasy medieval timeslip.
Her second book - ‘The Old Rectory – Escape to a Country Kitchen’ - is a memoir of her move from Derbyshire to Staffordshire Moors and centres around the kitchen, the heart of the home, of her house in Staffordshire, and her feeling for all the people who had used and worked in the old kitchen over the years.
Julia included some historical recipes in her book. She then went on to write the Drumbeats trilogy which begins in Ghana in the 1960s.
To the question, what constitutes a romantic novel? Julia’s response was any of the following – rom com, chick lit, historical, time-slip, literary classics, cosy crime, thrillers, romantic suspense, fantasy sci-fi, cowboy stories.
But she said there must be a romantic element in the story. She said it all started with Shakespeare in 1590 and ‘Romeo and Juliette,’ before which time literature was mostly religious.
Later on there was, for example, Jane Austen, who wrote ‘Pride and Prejudice’ in 1813 and ‘Emma’ in 1815.
There is the theme of romance, marriage and social class but also lies, deception, judgement, irony, realism and social commentary and women’s place in society. The same applies to the novels of Charles Dickens.
Romantic literature in the 1800s included Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre’ and Emily Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights.’
1869 saw Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace,’ a mighty tome with several romantic situations.
The 20th century saw Georgette Heyer, who popularised the trend of 18th-century regency romance and it is still being written today.
The 1930s saw Mills and Boon, light escapism romance published during the periods of war, and in the 1950s there was Catherine Cookson. It was a period of mass-market publishing of affordable paperbacks.
There have been big changes in publishing recently thanks to Amazon, Kindle, and e-books.
The vote of thanks was given by treasurer, Barbara Jones, who said that Julia’s presentation had given her the wish to read again some of the classics that she mentioned, and thanked her for a very entertaining talk.
The next meeting will be on Thursday, November 8. It is the annual meeting in St John’s Church Hall, Auction Close, Ashbourne DE6 1GQ and starts at 7.30pm.