Defining Fantasy of Manners
Someone just asked, and here's what I wrote back:
Fantasy of Manners refers to work with its roots in the social comedy of writers like Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde and Georgette Heyer, rather than the heroic and mythic tales that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien and his followers. It is usually, though not always, urban rather than rural.
There is, of course, a lot more I could say on the subject - I was, after all, Present at the Creation (of the Theory & Nomenclature, not just the lit. - and I hope someday some grad student does right by us all. I am willing to serve if called.
But I like what I wrote, in part because it has a certain Barbara Ninde Byfield air.
Fantasy of Manners refers to work with its roots in the social comedy of writers like Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde and Georgette Heyer, rather than the heroic and mythic tales that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien and his followers. It is usually, though not always, urban rather than rural.
There is, of course, a lot more I could say on the subject - I was, after all, Present at the Creation (of the Theory & Nomenclature, not just the lit. - and I hope someday some grad student does right by us all. I am willing to serve if called.
But I like what I wrote, in part because it has a certain Barbara Ninde Byfield air.