Category: Politics
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Unexpected Moments of Reaching Out
One scene has kept me coming back to George Eliot’s Middlemarch for fifty years. Dorothea, a young and engaging woman, has married an older man, clergyman Mr. Casaubon, out of an intellectual and religious ardor for his scholarship. After just eighteen months, she realizes that she is trapped in a loveless marriage with a third-rate…
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The Tolpuddle Martyrs, Changing the Face of Employment Rights in Victorian England
This year is the 185th anniversary of when six Dorset farm labourers were sent to an Australian penal colony, but their ‘crimes’ helped change the face of employment rights for generations to come – and it all began in the small village of Tolpuddle. Tolpuddle is a village near Dorchester in Dorset. During the years…
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How Did Austen Feel About the Slave Trade?
Emma and Mansfield Park both mention the slave trade. What is Austen saying there?
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Miss Austen—No Politician, She
On the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, she remains a touchstone for politics for many people. We find that white supremacists are co-opting the English author in support of a racial dictatorship, shocked opponents are claiming that true readers are “rational, compassionate, liberal-minded people,” and conservatives are chiding Janeites for assuming that great literature…
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York Castle’s Role in the Final Chapter of “Lyon in Disguise” from Dragonblade Publishing (Arriving 17 December 2025)
The final chapter of Lyon in Disguise, which releases December 17 and is currently on preorder, is set around the York, England, and specifically York Castle. At the time the story is set, meaning late 1812 and early 1813, York Castle was used as a prison and a place for hanging of criminals. The last…
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John Oswald, a Scottish Adventurer
John Oswald had been born in Edinburgh in 1760, a son of either a blacksmith or an innkeeper. It is said that it was his father who gave him his love of writing and literature. That is surprising, because neither profession is usually associated with such passions. On the other hand, late 18th century had…
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The first (and only) female historian in Georgian England
Georgian England is usually more associated with powdered wigs and aristocratic scandals than radical or revolutionary ideals. However, there were thinkers back then who supported the latter most ardently – and one of them was Catherine Macauley. Little is known about her early life, apart from the fact that she grew up with her brother…
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The Upcoming Release of “Lyon’s Obsession” from Dragonblade Publishing and How the 1797 Restriction Act Plays into the Plot
Lyon’s Obsession will release on 17 September 2025. It is the second of a five-books romantic suspense/mystery series that I am writing for Dragonblade Publishing. Books 2 and 3 are connected because the hero of book 2 is the brother of the heroine of book 3 is his sister. I have set the series between…
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A Taxing Subject for Americans—and for Austen, Her Peers
April is tax month in the U.S. for most people, so this month’s blog will cover the topic. For the British of Jane Austen’s time, as well as for modern citizens, taxes were both necessary for the realm and a drain on the populace. (My fellow Always Austen author, Don Jacobson, took on the topic…
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What did Regency landowners actually do?
When reading Regency-set fiction, we are used to encountering mentions of the hero owning estate of a certain number of acres, or an estate bringing him X amount per year. However, what did those rolling acres represent in practice, and, most importantly, how did one manage to make them bring one that yearly income? Well,…