The Scandalous Regency Era Criminal Conversation Case of Aston v. Elliot
(Image via Wellcome Library.)
In January of 1818, on the second page of a small Irish newspaper, was a brief article with the sensational headline: “Projected Divorce in High Life.” This case, which would soon become notorious in both England and France, was not, in fact, a divorce. It was an action for criminal conversation – a tort, long extinct, in which an aggrieved husband could make a claim for damages against the lover of his adulterous spouse. These sorts of cases were always deliciously scandalous, and none more so than that of Aston v. Elliot – a case which involved noblemen, prostitutes, syphilis, a veteran of Waterloo, and some of the highest ranking members of the beau monde.[…]Continue Reading
A Soldier Writes Home: Letters from the Georgian Era through World War II
“The field of battle is a festival of honour; a sublime pageant. But this is war!”
Sir Robert Ker Porter, 1809.
Whether it is touched upon in conversation between those characters safe on the home front or dealt with directly via a character who has been in the military or is still serving abroad, war is a part of many historical novels. Indeed, there aren’t many fans of Georgian and Regency fiction who could not recite to you the salient facts of the Battles of Trafalgar or Waterloo. However, what makes us, as readers, invested in the characters does not come down to a mere recitation of facts on a timeline. It comes down to emotional authenticity.[…]Continue Reading