This morning/yesterday evening (timezones are tricky!), we held our first Skype meeting of 2014. After discussions of turkey and pie (and snowmen!!), we moved on to planning our next app update (in about 3-4 weeks), which will include a kazillion bug fixes and lots more trivia and hangman questions. And then we thought, “Hey, we shouldn’t be hogging all the fun—maybe we should share it with our players!”
And so, we’re now asking you to contribute to the game by letting us know your favourite quotations from the Regency era (1811-1820). Simply comment on this blog post, and we’ll try to include it in the next version! For those who wish to go beyond the Regency, we’re open to anything from the long eighteenth century (roughly 1688-1815), as long as the quote is something that might feasibly be experienced by a Regency audience. For example, version A of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”, published in 1817, would be great; version B, discovered in 1976, would be a little amiss.
Hint: It’s from Austen’s Persuasion.
Although we adore Jane Austen quotations, please don’t feel limited by her works—there’s a whole range of popular writing Jane Austen and her contemporaries might have read. Some of these writers include: Maria Edgeworth, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Moore, Walter Scott, William Blake, Matthew Gregory Lewis, Ann Radcliffe, Sydney Owenson/Lady Morgan, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Fanny Burney, Mary Shelley, and I think I’ll stop now before I fully reveal my nerdiness…
Before sharing your quotes, please do check the comments to make sure they haven’t already been posted. We know some quotes are a lot more popular than others, but we don’t want to make the less popular ones feel sad and overlooked! If you know anyone (iOS gamer or no) who’s a long eighteenth century walking dictionary, please share this with them, too!
When you’re ready, please submit your quotations in the following format:
Quotation
Author/writer — title (year of publication)
Here’s an example:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
Jane Austen — Pride and Prejudice (1813)
This format will super helpful for when we fiddle with the coding, and will also help us wean out duplicates (of which we hope there will be none)!
Post your quotes by Sunday, 26 January (Australia Day!) in order for them to be included in the next update. Thanks for helping us, and we look forward to your submissions!
(And for those who might be wondering if it’s possible to contribute to the trivia questions as well: yes indeedy! We’re fine-tuning the submission process and will have something up soon!)
Hey, can’t wait for the Regency Love updates! 🙂 Some quotes for your consideration:
With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.
Mary Shelley — Frankenstein (1818)
How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.
Mary Shelley — Frankenstein (1818)
Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike.
Mary Shelley — Frankenstein (1818)
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
John Donne — No Man Is An Island (1624)
Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world.
Jane Austen — Persuasion (1818)
Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.
William Shakespeare ― Twelfth Night (1602)
^ not really Regency but would have been read by a Regency audience?
I love your app so much and I can’t wait for the updates!
You have covered most of my favorite Jane Austen/regency quotes already but I do love this one although it’s probably much too long:
“Every young lady may feel for my heroine in this critical moment, for every young lady has at some time or other known the same agitation. All have been, or at least all have believed themselves to be, in danger from the pursuit of someone whom they wished to avoid; and all have been anxious for the attentions of someone whom they wished to please.”
Jane Austen – Northanger Abbey (1817)
Thank you again for such a wonderful game!
Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.
Henry Fielding – Love in Several Masques (1728)
Some folks rail against other folks, because other folks have what some folks would be glad of
Henry Fielding – Joseph Andrews (1742)
His designs were strictly honorable, as the phrase is; that is, to rob a lady of her fortune by way of marriage.
Henry Fielding – The History of Tom Jones (1749)
Hairbreadth missings of happiness look like the insults of fortune.
Henry Fielding – The History of Tom Jones (1749)
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and forever!
Sir Walter Scott – The Lady of the Lake (1810)
Where’s the coward that would not dare
To fight for such a land?
Sir Walter Scott – Marmion (1808)
And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.
Thomas Moore – Irish Melodies (early 1800s – couldn’t find the exact date “Oh Breathe Not His Name” was written)
Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.
Lord Byron – Monody on the Death of Sheridan (1816)
Knowledge is not happiness, and science but a n exchange of ignorance for that which is another kind of ignorance.
Lord Byron – Manfred 1817
She was a woman who spent her days in sitting, nicely dressed, on a sofa, doing some long piece of needlework, of little use and no beauty, thinking more of her pug than her children, but very indulgent to the latter when it did not put herself to inconvenience…
Jane Austen – Mansfield Park 1814
What are men to rocks and mountains?
Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice (1813)
I don’t have a quote but I have a question. Will you be making Mr. Graham or any other men considerable bachelors soon? I’ve played the games four times since purchasing a couple days ago and have completed all possible endings to my knowledge. I’d like to play this again without repeating my past endings. I really do enjoy this game.