Passion & Principle: The Loves and Lives of Regency Women

by Jane Aiken Hodge

In a rule-governed society where a woman is a chattel of her father or her husband, romantic love is a game played for high stakes. This book shows how women strove for love in the colourful, politically turbulent Regency era. The unfortunate daughters of George III are part of this social history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

Published July 1, 1996

About the author

Jane Aiken Hodge was born in the USA, brought up in the UK and read English at Oxford. She received a master's degree from Radcliffe College, Harvard University.

Before her books became her living she worked as a civil servant, journalist, publishers' reader and a reviewer.

She has written lives of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer as well as a book about women in the Regency period, PASSION AND PRINCIPLE. But her main output has been over twenty historical novels set in the eighteenth century, including POLONAISE, THE LOST GARDEN, and SAVANNAH PURCHASE, the beloved third volume of a trilogy set during and after the American War of Independence. More recently she has written novels for Severn House Publishers.

She enjoys the borderland between mystery and novel, is pleased to be classed as a feminist writer, and is glad that there is neither a glass ceiling nor a retiring age in the writers' world. She was the daughter of Conrad Aiken and sister of Joan Aiken.

Reviews

[Elizabeth Grant · Rating 2 out of 5]

"This book is intended as a pleasure cruise, not a learned work," the author explains in her introductory note. Fair enough. All the same, The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England by Amanda Vickery is far more entertaining and more informative, too.

Passion & Principle must be the only book I own that has no turned-down corners, no sticky notes stuck to its pages, no pencilled marks or comments in the margins, except for this: "Is 'highly-sexed' the only attribute for young women?!?"

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I was looking for books on Amazon, one of its reviewers made the comment that this book didn't contain 'anything new'. It made me stop and think twice before buying it, but on weighing it up against the other comments, which mainly seemed positive, I decided to go ahead anyway... mostly because I'd been browsing for over two hours and was in dire want of a sandwich and a cup of tea.

Having now read this book, I must admit to seeing their point.

To someone who has read (reasonably) extensively on this era/subject, it does feel a little like a re-hash. Obviously, the subject is a popular and well-covered one and it is becoming harder all the time to find someone with anything new to say on the matter. But in all honesty, I am a big enough fan of all things Regency related to be able to stand reading about the same thing over and over again... if it is written well and made interesting. Which is where this book falls down.

It isn't badly written, it's just a little flat. It has that anonymous, remote feel to it that you get from reading a Wikipedia entry - interesting enough, but too lifeless to constitute a 'good read'. The information is presented clearly and concisely - maybe a little too much so for my taste. And there is a slightly hurried feel to it, especially in the last two or three chapters - or maybe that came from my own impatience to be done with it? More importantly, there is no wry twist of a smile in the author's voice, no glimmer of humour at all in fact - or any other emotion for that matter. And yet, this was an age of extremes, seemingly made to inspire a surplus of attitudes. I know some writers of non-fiction subscribe to the school of thought that you should give the facts and nothing else, but that's where textbooks come from and that's why school lessons can be so incredibly dull. If you feel strongly enough about something to actually go to the trouble of writing a book about it - I think you're entitled, and even expected, to put a little of yourself into it. Believe me, it makes it infinitely more interesting to the reader.

The only thing I actively disliked was the author's slight habit of indulging in seemingly glib supposition. It can be fun and interesting to ponder on what might have been under different circumstances but, given its historical context, it can only ever be a moot point at the best of times. Having briefly discussed the life of Maria Edgeworth in barely a page, the author ends with the line 'If she had married Edelcrantz, she would very likely have died in childbirth like Mary Wollstonecraft.' - what is the point of such a statement? It feels like a lazy way of ending a segment to me, and as such, niggles. Maybe it's being over-emotional, but given the frustrating, unfulfilled and unhappy lives of some of the women discussed, it seems rather heartless to sum one up in such a fashion. Again, I was left with the impression that the author was not entirely connected, or empathetic , with her subject - which I'm sure was not the case. I'm not a fan of Ms Edgeworth's literature, but I think she deserves more than being reduced to the status of polystyrene packing chips, forlornly padding out the rest of the book. It is not an isolated case either (the section on Mary Shelley was particularly trying at times) but the one that annoyed me most.

Also - there are some nice illustrations (I always like to look at the illustrations first), I just wish they had been reproduced in colour; the dull black & white seemed only to emphasise the somewhat lacklustre tone of the book in general.

So, in summary:

If you are a Regency n00b, new to the subject matter, then I would recommend this book as a good, concise introduction to the era and some of its key players. But if, like me, you've read a fair bit already then I would have to say 'don't bother'. I will be keeping 'Passion & Principle' by Jane Aiken Hodge, because it's a nice book, just not one I can get wildly excited about.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

To me it felt more like an introduction to some Georgian women than a full-fledged book in itself. The biographies (grouped in somewhat thematic chapters) are short, nothing ground-breaking but an easy and nice way to meet interesting (upper class, mostly) women - and if someone catches your interest here the best thing would be to get a biography of that specific woman (and in many, of not most, cases such books exist).

But the women are in many case interesting and it is inspiring to keep on reading on the subject.

[Nightwitch · Rating 3 out of 5]

I concur with other readers who said this book is a useful introduction, but it is neither in-depth nor particularly scholarly; the overall tone is chatty and the author zooms through so many people that it is often hard to keep up, particularly since they all seem to be named Caroline and Charlotte and George, and people's titles change right, left, and sideways given that the book is ordered thematically rather than chronologically. Many of the women discussed herein deserve biographies of their own; some of them have them. If you know anything about anyone covered in this book, you won't learn anything new, but if you don't, you'll have a new research topic.

[Penny Hampson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of many of the most well known female society characters of the long Regency period (1780-1820). Not a scholarly work but based on good research and has a useful bibliography for those wishing to read in more depth.

[Joana Starnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very pleasant albeit rather light read. It's not informative in a scholastic and / or detailed sort of way, but the style is warm and quite pleasant, with a slight sense of light-hearted gossip about 20-odd females from various walks of life (from the Spences sisters - the future Duchess of Devonshire and Lady Bessborough respectively - to Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Sara Coleridge).

[Holding Name · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this a second time to disentangle who everyone was (some family trees would have been helpful) and a third time to look up further information on the main and secondary individuals. The stories of George III's children, the Lennox sisters and Harriet Cavendish were particularly interesting.

[Julia Lose · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting, easy to read and follow.

[I-Read-That-Too]

Light and readable, fast read, but some facts annoyingly exaggerated or oversimplified.