‘ve mentioned before that this is something like a vacation for me. As in, I don’t have to work. I decided to take advantage of this not-working time by doing something even more fun. In this case, that means: Going to London.

So far, I’ve hit up Fortnum & Mason’s and Hatchard’s (they’re right next door to each other), two shops where my characters might have visited. I’ve visited Hyde Park and gone boating on the Serpentine. My characters might well have done those things as well. I’ve had scones and clotted cream and tea (in the US, scones are typically quick breads: raised with baking powder or baking soda. Of course, my novel is set in 1840, and bicarbonate of soda was only just beginning to make a splash then. So I try to get the scones here that are yeast-raised, because those are closer to period).
The trip isn’t long enough to do all the things I want to do. I want to visit the town where my hero grew up and spend days sitting in a coffee shop, listening to people talk, so that I can get a feel for the local accent. I want to visit Cambridge, and maybe go to Brighton. I also want to go to Scotland and Ireland. But the truth of the matter is that there is no way to visit the England my characters lived in. I am, ostensibly, doing “research”–but how much research can I really do?

London is considerably cleaner now than it was in those days. Coal is a heating method of the past today, and tomorrow–literally tomorrow–they’re going to ban smoking in bars and restaurants. Streets are paved and regularly cleaned. Horses make guest appearances on Rotten Row in Hyde Park, but they’re generally a vehicle of the past. Not all the changes have been good: I was ejected from Hyde Park yesterday as they investigated a bomb scare. Even in the social unrest that accompanied the 1840s, the potential for significant loss of life was never so grave.

Nonetheless, I’d still rather live now than in the 1840s. I suspect there are very few people who would go back in time–not even to the times where they would be waited on hand and foot. So what is it that we find so compelling about that historical period? Is it escapism? Is it an attempt to live in the past? Or is it something else entirely?

If you dig historical romance, why do you think it is that you like it? And where would you most like to go to perform your “research”?