Popular Culture Review Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1994 | Page 91

Magic Refiendes

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"ton," or the first stare of society, though some characters will have
nwre town-bronze than others.
Regency novels are about holding out for love, and their heroes,
male or female, in fact may have given up on personal happiness.
The underlying question, whether it is okay to marry for love, is
always answered yes, and those who make a love match are
rewarded with wealth and status as well as happiness. Regencies
are a cozy form that ends in a marriage, though many also include a
mystery along with a romance. As a narrow form. Regencies are
vulnerable to exhausting their possibilities. It is perhaps for this
reason that they make a good choice for hybridizing with other, more
resilient frameworks such as fantasy.
The correspondences between the two frameworks are already
obvious—nobility and servants, special language and detail, rituals of
magic and social behavior, and themes of personal choice. Just as
someone generally opposes magic as anathema, someone-family or
guardians-opposes the love match, or the lovers themselves may
hesitate. The similarities in theme and elements make combinations
a likely choice for fantasy writers and several have taken advantage
of the possibilities.
Both Wrede and Edgerton have been successful fantasy writers
before adapting Regency elements. Wrede had published a series of
interlocking novels set in a pretechnological and multicultural world
which has gender and cultural issues about magic. Edgerton had
published the Green Lion trilogy centered in court intrigue, opposition
to magic, and traditional elements such as shape-changing, and has
since continued with a fourth novel in this world.
It would be natural to assume that fantasy is the primary
framework for both authors, but the two have blended Regency
elements to different degrees. In Sorcery & Cecelia (1988), Wrede and
her co-author, fantasy writer Caroline Stevermer, adopted a fullscale Regency plot told as a novel of letters. Kate, who makes her
social debut in London, and Cecie, her cousin still in the country,
correspond about a magical mystery that engulfs them both. It is
Cecelia's letters from home that chiefly further the magic plot,
while Kate's engagement to the mysterious Marquis of Schofield
launches the romance. The London letters naturally report on fashion,
slang, and custom. An afterword details how the novel was created as
a "Letter Game" between the two writers, with Wrede choosing a