A Taxonomy of Rakes

Show Notes

In the spirit of excess and self-indulgence, the rakes inspect our own characters. What is a historical romance rake, and can they be categorized by type? Join us as we discuss Byronic rakes, malevolent seducers, charming rakes, loquacious weirdos, and so much more. This is a fun one with lots of recommendations, so ignore your gambling debts and hop in your curricle, we're on our way to the Hellfire Club! 

Books From This Episode

Devil’s Daughter by Lisa Kleypas

The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan

A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant

The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas

Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins

Ruthless by Anne Stuart

The Flesh and the Devil by Teresa Denys

To Have & to Hold by Patricia Gaffney

Cold-hearted Rake by Lisa Kleypas

The Villain by Victoria Vale

The Dove by Victoria Vale

Seven Nights in a Rogue’s Bed by Anna Campbell

Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas

No Good Duke Goes Unpunished by Sarah MacLean

Black Silk by Judith Ivory

The Ruin of a Rake by Cat Sebastian

The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham

The Rake by Mary Jo Putney

Scandal by Carolyn Jewel

The Lotus Palace by Jeannie Lin

The Perks of Loving a Wallflower by Erica Ridley

His at Night by Sherry Thomas

Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

Notorious Pleasures by Elizabeth Hoyt

Three Nights of Sin by Anne Mallory

References

The Dangerous Lover: Gothic Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-Century Seduction Narrative by Deborah Lutz

The Lives of the English Rake by Fergus Linnane

Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women edited by Jayne Ann Krentz

A Parody of Love: The Narrative Uses of Rape in Popular Romance by Angela R. Toscano

Transcript

Chels: Welcome to Reformed Rakes, a historical romance podcast that is uniquely susceptible to widows and spinsters. My name is Chels, I’m the writer of the romance Substack The Loose Cravat, a book collector, and a BookToker under the username chels_ebooks.

Emma: I'm Emma I'm a Law Library, and writing about justice and romance on the sub-stack Restorative Romance and I'm also on book talk under the name emmkick.

Beth: My name is Beth and I’m on booktok under the name bethhaymondreads.

Chels: Today, we're going to talk about one of historical romances favorite type of characters, the Rake. Emma. I'm going to hand it to you to give us the etymology of the word.

Emma: So rake is short for “rake hell.” It comes from the phrase to rake hell, meaning to search through with a literal rake, like the kind you would use for leaves. You're searching through hell for your behaviors. So to rake hell becomes rakehell becomes rake. And a rake is just like a fashionable man who is promiscuous and indulgent in his behaviors.

Chels: Beth is going to read an explanation of who, exactly is a rake from The Lives of English Rakes by Fergus Linanne.

Beth: “He was usually a cynical exploiter of women, often a reckless gambler, sometimes a touchy egoist quick to take offense and to seek redress in duels. He could be a good friend and a bad enemy. He was often aristocratic and sometimes rich. He spent his life in a frenzy of sexual pursuits, gambling, drinking, duels and brawls. He treated his equals with cold disdain and his inferiors with dangerous contempt.”

Chels: In historical romance, rake is often a shorthand for an archetype. If an author calls a character a rake, you get a general idea of what their personality is going to be like and what type of journey they’re going to go on to find love. That said, not all rakes are built the same. There are charming rakes, evil rakes, and rakes that drink themselves into oblivion. There are rakes that use their aristocratic power as a cudgel, and rakes that go along to get along.

There’s room for all types in historical romance, so that’s why, in this episode, we are going to attempt to categorize every type of historical romance rake.

Chels: Before we get started with identifying and categorizing rakes, let's talk a little bit more generally. When I say the word rake, is there a character that comes to your mind first?

Beth: My recency bias is showing here, but Sebastian To Have and To Hold. We will be talking about him here. And fondly Courtenay from Ruin of a Rake.

Emma: I think, for me, maybe, unfortunately, I think of Lisa Klapus's rakes, who, I think, were the first ones that I read that did things that I sort of found unforgivable, at least in terms of reforming or reformed rakes.

But I also think of Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels and The Last Hellion, because I use Dain and Vere as sort of yardsticks for my rakes, especially because there are 2 different flavors. One hates his dad and one hates himself.

[LAUGHTER]

Beth: Chels?

Chels: Is this going to surprise you? For me, it’s Graham from Black Silk. It's kind of like that, like thing when you're queer. A lot of times people are like: do you have a crush on this person, or do you want to be this person? And that's kind of like how I feel about like. I want to be Graham, I think.

Beth: Right

Chels: And so Graham is kind of like always in my mind. I identify so strongly with him.

Beth: Graham is a good rake to aspire to. so good taste. Honestly.

Chels: Thank you.

Emma: Yes, I feel like the way Chels feels about Graham is the way I feel about Harry Styles. Graham is the only hero I've ever thought of Harry Styles in connection with I'm like, do I want to like, look like him, or do I want to date him. I definitely want to dress like him either way. Yeah Graham is Harry Styles.

Chels: You told me you were like Grandma's hairy styles plus 10 years, and I was like…

Emma: all the rings!

Chels: ….Oh, my gosh! He absolutely is. So! Why do you think rakes are so prevalent in historical romance?

Emma: They're so fun right? like they're they're we want someone to have done something bad in a fun way, and I think most rakes fit into that category. We're going to talk about some that do things that are bad things, and not a fun way or bad things that are unforgivable. But the sort of prototypical rate in is indulging in a thing often often behaviors that maybe would not be

reviled today, but sort of because of the ton. in the book that we're reading, the society doesn't like them in the book that we're reading. So it's kind of like they're they're cheeky and fun on a a sort of base level. But then this one has to get pushed to the extremes.

Beth: Yeah, it's kind of in line with what I was thinking. And then also they have a fun, character journey, because they often start off in like this not so great place. And then, by the end of the book, it's really satisfying to watch them change especially. And I think this is kind of particular to romance, because there's so much dual point of view where you can also view the sturdy through someone else's eyes often. So it's an interesting perspective to get, I think.

Chels: Yeah, I had. “Rakes are fun with three explanation marks.” I think I agree! Yeah, I mean, like you're asking the reformed rakes.

Beth: it's about the journey.

Chels: Yeah, I feel like the question might been bit silly, but it’s cool, it’s cool. Emma's gonna kick us off with our first type of rake which is named after us, not the other way around.

Emma: The reformed rake, that’s us! The saying “reformed rakes make the best husbands” is often including in Regency romances--Violet Bridgerton says in in the first season of Bridgerton (though that’s actually cribbed from The Viscount Who Loved Me), but the phrase dates back to at least 1748, where it appeared in the preface of Clarissa by Samuel Richardson. But Richardson is actually warning against the aphorism--the plot of Clarissa suggests that there is no reforming a rake, outside of his death.

Most rakes reform somewhat over the course of their respective books--this is the narrative thrust of redemption. But some rakes start their romances reformed and have to work to repair a reputation that no longer reflects their inner selves or the place they occupy in society.

Narratively, I think in order for this to happen, there usually has to be some history, whether the reader or heroine is immediately fully privy to it or not. Both of my examples involve this sort of shared history, with different knowledge bases about the rake between the heroine and the reader.

My favorite example of a rake (though I might call him a failed rake) who is fully reformed at the beginning of his book is West Ravenel of Lisa Kleypas’ Ravenel series. The younger brother of the new Earl of Trentham, we meet West in Devon’s book and he is the good-time brother who is confused by Devon’s sudden taking up of the duty that he inherits. But while Devon was very very good at being a rake, West was not great at it--he struggles with over indulgence of all his vices and gains a reputation more for buffoonery than suave seduction.The first four books are filled with moments where West steps up as a friend to the women in his life--plus the country seat of the title that Devon inherit gives West a place away from his London vices to practice being not a wreck. A big part of West’s redemption is his new occupation: land manager for the Eversby Priory estate. The London wreck takes to farming like a fish to water--the redemptive power of land management is a big theme for Kleypas.

But when we get to his book, he is confronted with a kind of origin of his worst self--the widow of a bullying victim from his school days is now his cousin-in-law and they have to spend the week together for the wedding. For so much of the series, the only female reflections of West’s self back to him have been new acquired family members who adore him, but Phoebe has thought the worst of him since childhood, when she heard stories from her sweetheart about his schoolyard bully.

West’s reformation is complete by the time the book starts--but he first has to restore his reputation with Phoebe and then the main conflict between the couple centers on his lingering reputation and what that would mean for her two sons and any future children they have.

The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan also establishes a history of a reformed rake through a series. In a series centered on a group that calls themselves the Brothers Sinister, this book is the third in the series and features the last member of the group, Sebastian Malheur, and the honorary member, Violet, Countess of Cambury. Sebastian and Violet have known each other since they were children and been best friends for as long. Violet is prickly, both by nature and a result of her marriage to the Earl at a fairly young age.

Sebastian has a long reputation as a rake, which serves Violet’s purpose, which is using him as a cover for the publication of her scientific research about reproduction and genes. Sebastian’s sexual reputation is not damaged by him talking about mating and reproduction in academic settings. But at the beginning of the book, his brother puts his foot down about Sebastian’s access to his nephew, so Sebastian wants to give up the scheme.

Violet does not grasp the reasons for Sebastian’s willingness to go along with the scheme from the beginning--he’s been in love with her their entire lives. Slightly younger than her, he could not propose in earnest before she was married (though he did try).

We don’t see Sebastian do rakish things--he’s not cavorting with other women, the third act conflict does not come from a regression into his rake-self. Instead both Sebastian and Violet have to learn to trust their experiences over each other’s reputation, so that they can get to a place of understanding and equilibrium.

Chels: What is it about reformed rakes and land management?

[LAUGHTER]

Emma: He's not suited to London like, how are we gonna fix him? It's like he needs to become a farmer.

Chels: I think of Theo from A Lady Awakened.

Beth: I was just gonna say that. Go ahead.

Chels: I also think cause like I think of him as like cut from the West cloth, like in the fact that it's like you. You're kind of fucking up here, man, like you need to go to the country.

Emma: It's something about very English, and very, very conservative in a way, I think Cecilia Grants take on it is less conservative than Kleypas’. But something about returning to the land is this very like…this will fix the problems, like London is bad. That's where people go to become rakes.

Lisa Kleypas has at least 2. Leo Hathaway is also like this, like once they put him in charge of the house. He's like I'm gonna stop being an alcoholic, which is what West does. Suddenly the alcoholism is no longer an issue. Something about like tilling the land, and like having a task in front of you, which I think, yeah, the I think, the occupation especially. In The Countess Conspiracy, it’s kind of the opposite, like Sebastian has been given this occupation that suits his rakishness, and now he wants to give up the occupation. So Milan sort of turns that, like that, like industry on its head of like how that relates to the reformed rakishness/reputation.

Chels: Yeah. And like when they're managing land, it's not just that they're managing land and getting good at it. They also have to be innovative and a type of way like it is my remembering that correctly, West has some sort of like new farm equipment,

Emma: They're they're always like interested…because I’m a rake and I’m learning the industry, I'm like willing to take up like a mechanical…I can’t even think of a farm tool.

Beth: That’s how far removed we are.

Chels: A literal rake?

Emma: It's like because they're because they're a renegade in their like London life. They're somehow more suited for Victorian Land management, because they need to be like this combination of industry and farming. They're going to keep… I think Elizabeth Hoyt has some books like this, too, but actually one of rake that we were going to talk about later with a different type of rake. Notorious Pleasures also deals with the rake, who’s willing to take on technology. So yeah, something about rakes and mechanics.

Beth: One thing I wanted to say about reformed like a reformed rake is so often I will see people like complaining about a character is bad or like, why is this character in this book, or is doing bad things? And i'm like, as we constantly harp on, I’m like this person has to start in like a not good place, and it's funny to me because I feel like a lot of people really love the reformed rake especially. But I’m like we need a reformation to actually kind of happen.

Emma: I don't think it's a coincidence that the two… I love both Devil's Daughter’s. I didn't even say West Books name it's Devil's Daughter is his title, but he's in the whole series.I don't think it's a coincidence that both of those books that I enjoy are books where it's a part of a series. I think there are reformed rakes where there’s a sense that, like something happened to them in the past. But if it's not part of the series. I'm way less interested in someone who starts as a reformed rake.

That these are much more successful for me as a reader, when you sort of see them doing the reformation in the earlier parts of the series. And you're like, okay. now, it's time for them to have a romance. That’s much more interesting than someone who just starts as like. Oh, he has a rakish reputation. But we don't ever never actually get to see it.

Beth: Yeah, like, what is your character? It's just like a flat line.

Chels: Yeah. And then, even like, even if they are reformed, or once they do reform, which is something that kind of comes up in like the reformed rake characters, is that, like they still have the like lingering effects of their reputation, that they kind of have to manage like in their own sense of so forth, sometimes, and sometimes in their partner's eyes. So it it does still kind of create conflict either way.

Yeah, we are pro rakes, we’re for pro rakes, if you can’t tell.

Beth: Rakes in full rake mode. Okay, I'll move on to the next section

We call this rake “the charmer.” This character often has a charming facade to hide who they really are. Now, charming characters don’t all have a facade, but a charming rake often operates this way. They’ve created a persona based on their charm or charisma, so much of the book is interrogating the origins or reasons for the persona. They might even be so charming no one would level the rake charge at them.

I’m honestly surprised we don’t have more Sherry Thomas on this episode, but I’ll start with The Luckiest Lady in London.

One of the most charming rakes, Felix Rivendale, has styled himself as the Ideal Gentleman. Now his story begins with his parents’ terrible marriage and his decision to never put himself at the mercy of someone else through love. His plan is to marry when he’s forty to someone who’s not bright so he can control them.

Felix is well-liked in society, and he’s definitely a prize on the marriage market. When he first meets Louisa Cantwell, she gets an accurate measure of him fairly quickly. “A true gentleman would have kept that observation to himself. But she already knew that he was no gentleman — he must have sold his soul to the devil for everyone else to continue to think of him as the epitome of gentlemanliness.” (67) Felix initially offers for her to be his mistress and she declines. Propelled by his feelings, and little understanding of those feelings, he proposes marriage and she accepts.

After their marriage, Felix re-orients himself back to the Ideal Gentleman persona since he’s alarmed by how much he does for Louisa. He hasn’t done the work yet of internal interrogation and he harms Louisa in reverting to his facade.

Now I have another example but it’s a little different from the Ideal Gentleman and it’s Forbidden by Beverly Jenkins.

Rhine Fontaine, a formerly enslaved man, is passing for white in the small-town Nevada. He rescues Eddy Carmichael from the desert heat after she’s been robbed, again, and nurses her back to health. Rhine purposely leverages his privilege so he can do good for the black community. Unlike Felix whose facade grants him emotional distance for fear of falling in love, Rhine’s facade is anchored in survival. He’s charming because he needs to be charming to placate the people around him. Jenkins references his time as an enslaved person and how he had to adopt a mask as he endured the “daily slights and ill treatment as if he were made of wood.”

Falling for Eddy, a black woman, someone who looks like she’s outside of his race, makes him question what he’s given up. He’s engaged to a shallow, white woman in town and he wonders if he can marry a racist. Have kids with someone who would inevitably pass that hate to their children. He’s well-liked in the black community, but obviously can’t acknowledge them as such.

Jenkins shows us that Rhine has a lot to gain by re-integrating into his community while not shying away from the repercussions of it.

While I’ve used two examples of charming facades, I think other charming rakes are genuinely charming and it’s not a mask. After I gave evidence to the contrary. I just thought it was interesting that both of characters, they’re being charming for different reasons.

Chels: Yeah. So I guess, starting with the luckiest lady in London. The thing that I remember about that and always makes me laugh, is just like how weird it was when Louisa and Felix are kind of like seeing each other for who they really are. I believe it was just like something like totally benign that Felix was. He was like, oh, she's not responding the way that she's supposed to via my concerted efforts, and therefore I need to win her over completely.

Beth: Yeah. And it's funny, because, like she almost immediately thinks that he's seen right through her, and that's why she is so like takes a step back like she doesn't want to get close to him because she's like oh, he sees me for who I am, because she doesn't have a lot of money.

She is..she's not like a social climber, the truest sense like she's doing it because she's kind of the best chance her family has. So that's really why she's on the marriage market, and she sees Felix as someone way way outside like he's not gonna…I think she sees him for who he is, and she's like, I cannot get this guy. So i'm just gonna ignore him.

Emma: Yeah, I think, for both of these. It's, I think. Again we talked about dual POV of a a little bit, with how that functions for rakes I just read, Forbidden for the first time. And something that I was surprised at is how often Rhine sort of doesn't realize the consequences of what he's doing like he, as he's like flirting with Eddy. He's not really thinking about the consequences for her, because he sort of is so used to living as a white man.

And for a while, for when I was reading it I thought like, oh, it's weird that this is like not coming up for him, but it's like I think the dual pov works where it's like, yeah, like, sometimes when you are living a facade, you you sort of like, lose yourself a little bit, and that's really explored in Forbidden.. and I think it comes up for Felix as well. But, like he meets this other person who does see him, for who he is, and he trusts sort of explain himself to her for both of them.

It's like the Dual POV sort of shifts, and it really both books feel like a very like limited dual pov, like neither rake is really aware of their whole feelings, or the consequences of all their actions, or how it will affect someone else. The sort of facade that they're living in like Felix thinks that he could just marry someone and just control her like that's a sort of objective stance that he has, you know, like that's a very cruel thing to think. And I don't know if he actually would have followed through with it. But that's the world he's operating in.

And similarly with Rhine. He thinks that he can sort of like white knuckle it and marry this racist woman. It's like that would that would be an untenable situation for him, but because he's been living this aside. They both think that they could do this thing, and the dual POV really serves that because you you're reminded how limited sort of their own view to serve this facade. It’s untenable!

Beth: Yeah, I think that's why I didn't like Rhine as much like he's not an unlikable character, but the the times that he puts Eddy in danger by his presence I was like, do you? What are you doing? And I think as I was preparing for this episode, it made me reevaluate him a little bit more. He's been a step removed from his community. He doesn't

Emma: He's forgotten what the danger that he's putting her in because he passes, and she doesn't.

Beth: There’s someone else in the community that is interested in Eddy like comes up to him, and it's like What are you doing, man? And I was rooting for that guy!

Emma: I loved him!

Beth: Yeah, Rhine what are you doing? But I’m glad he does like reintegrate back in this the community. Yeah go ahead.

Chels: when you're talking about like Rhine’s fiance, I was kind of like, what is he gaining from this scenario? Because, like if I'm remembering correctly like he was just as well established as this woman's father. So it wasn't really like it was going to give him an up or kind of anything. So it kind of went on longer than I was expecting it to, just because, there didn't really seem like so much of an upside for him. But I think it also could just be because, like he's just like he's doing kind of like what he thinks he should be doing, based on, like the way that he's been living

Emma: Living the facade, it is like he doesn’t think he can live a full life. Felix is similar, he's not even interested in, like an equitable marriage of convenience, which is sort of what is sort of how they fall into the relationship, in the Luckiest Lady. He's interested in a marriage where he would control his younger wife. So it's like neither of them, I think, can conceptualize an equitable relationship because they're living as like half selves.

Beth: Yeah

Chels: Felix seems quite purposeless, too. And then I think that's kind of like why Louisa could easily clock him for what he was. She's got her mayonnaise hair and her bust enhancer. She's she's so familiar with artifice.

Beth: Yeah, she spots it in someone else pretty quick. She's like, Hmm. We're doing the same thing. Actually. Do you want to move on to loquacious weirdo?

Chels: Yeah, this is my favorite, it’s also coincidentally, the longest section that we have. Yes, I'll be candid that I created this category with Anne Stuart in mind, because pretty much all of her heroes that I've read could be referred to as loquacious weirdos.

I’ll be candid in that I created this category with Anne Stuart in mind, because pretty much all of her heroes that I’ve read could be referred to as “loquacious weirdos.” Their intentions are similar to the malevolent seducer, which we’ll get to later, but any bad act is vastly overshadowed by their incessant villainous monologuing and innate showmanship.

There’s a 90s essay anthology of writing on romance by romance writers, which I’ll multiple times in this episode, by romance authors, called Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women. Anne Stuart’s essay, called “Legends of Seductive Elegance” is particularly illuminating. This is what she says about her heroes:

“This is no truck driver with ready fists. This is a man of murderous elegance, Cary Grant in Notorious, a man who knows the rules and ignores them. A man whose sense of honor and decency is almost nonexistent. A man with a dark midnight of the soul. The heroine can either bring light into the darkness or risk suffocating in the blackness of his all-encompassing despair… There is no room for gentle couplings beneath a starry sky. Each coming together must have the resonance of eternity.”

Stuart also wrote vampire romances, and her essay is about the dangerous lover, the vampiric myth, but as you can tell by her quote there is a significant element of performance. Her heroes are men who “know the rules and ignore them,” but they’re also going to tell you, in elaborate, excruciating detail, that they’re ignoring the rules. There’s no room for subtext, but honestly you don’t want it here, because the loquacious weirdo has such a fun way with words.

So my first book is Ruthless by Anne Stuart. As I mentioned, I can slot pretty much any of Stuart’s heroes into the loquacious weirdo category, including the vengeful Nicholas Blackthorne in A Rose at Midnight and the bloodthirsty Killoran in To Love a Dark Lord. Here, I’m going to focus on Viscount Rohan from the book Ruthless.

So Viscount Rohan runs a Hellfire Club type gathering called “Heavenly Host,” and when we meet him he’s bored out of his mind by the depravity around him. Drugs, orgies, violence – he’s seen it all, and he’s become immune to salacious spectacle.

Elinor, the heroine, lives with her mother and sister in abject poverty. Elinor’s mother is cruel to Elinor and exceedingly irresponsible with money and has a sexually transmitted disease that is killing her and causing her to act even more erratically, so Elinor, although she’s very young, is the caretaker of the family. When Elinor’s mother disappears with much-needed funds to attend a party at Heavenly host, Elinor goes after her. She’s accosted by security and brought to Viscount Rohan, who takes an immediate interest in Elinor. She’s not particularly sheltered because of how poor she is, but she’s still a very young woman and a virgin. She’s sharp-tongued, clever, and has what Rohan repeatedly calls “a nose of consequence” that keeps her from being beautiful but makes her visually arresting.

Rohan wants Elinor, and his strategy is basically to overwhelm her with unwanted gifts, show up where she’s going to be, and talk and talk and talk. When he’s first warning her about how evil he is, he says, “Don’t look so horrified, sweeting. Surely you don’t mistake my interest in you as any humanitarian behavior on my part. I don’t give a damn if your mother dies, and I don’t let myself be distracted from my activities unless there’s something I want more. That would be you.”

Out of all of the Anne Stuart books to pick from to represent the loquacious weirdo, I picked Ruthless because it’s my favorite, and also because there’s a moment where Stuart lampshades Rohan’s monologue. This is quote comes after a scene where Rohan teaches Elinor how to pleasure herself:

“That’s all I’m going to get, isn’t it, ma petit? I expect you to want more, but you’d never admit to it. I shall now endeavor to catch some much-needed sleep and spare you maidenly blushes, unless you’d consider having a second lesson. No? I thought not. I have two more days of carousing left and at my advanced age I need my strength.” He smiled at her with angelic innocence. “Cat got your tongue, my pet?”

And then, Elinor responds with: “If you sleep you’ll stop talking, which would be a blessing.”

[LAUGHTER]

I’m always waiting for an Anne Stuart heroine to say that.

Beth: That’s funny!

Chels: And then the next book is one of my favorite book, The Flesh and the Devil by Teresa Denys. The Flesh and the Devil is a bodice ripper and gothic romance set in Spain post-inquisition. Felipe from The Flesh and the Devil is one of the most memorable historical romance characters I’ve ever read because everything he says is extremely metal. When we meet him he’s a servant, but you know that something is a bit off, because everyone, including his employers, are a little bit unsettled and intimidated by him. His love interest, Juana, is set to marry the duque, the man that Felipe works for but Juana has been in love with her childhood sweetheart, Jaime.

When Jaime comes to rescue Juana, there’s a scene where he leads her on a path through mud. He won’t touch her or carry her, as it’s improper, so Juana gets soaked. Later, Felipe taunts Juana about Jaime’s chivalry, and she says, “He would not touch me for fear of blemishing my honor. You would not understand that.”

He responds: “I have lived in Spain since I was twelve years old, Juana, and I know your codes well enough, but I do not condone them when they lead to folly. Your doctors will not tend a dying girl if she is not of birth high enough to suit them, and then they vie with each other to take the news of her death to greater folk… Your priests will torture any man or woman in the name of testing their fath, but they will not kill; they are too merciful. They abandon their victims to the secular arm to mete out death, but it is the Church herself that swallows the lands and goods that come with them. Your nobles cluster about the King, squandering all they have while their lands starve, and call it privilege; and a man will allow a woman to wade through mire because to touch her is against etiquette.”

Unlike Anne Stuart’s loquacious weirdos, Felipe’s diatribes have a more poignant social and political commentary. He exists in a liminal space between servant and aristocrat, and has a rather horrifying backstory thanks to the cruelty of the Church during the inquisition. So there’s this perspective, and everything he says is more cutting, but that doesn’t stop him from waxing poetic about how monstrous he is. This is my favorite quote from the entire book, it’s Felipe’s roundabout way of declaring his love for Juana:

“Kindness is a painless thing to give, and easy, a sop to those you do not need. Friendship and kindness have nought to do with this. I am not kind to the air I breathe—nor the food I eat— nor to you.”

Beth: It's very metal.

Chels: It's so. Metal.

Beth: I’m like dang.

Chels: The showmanship is really what sets it apart from any other type of rake, like no rakes talk like this.

Emma: And the thing with rakes is you're begging them to like articulate something you're like. Oh, like they're the likestrong, silent type, and they never, never articulating their feelings. It's like well. Do you really want them to say what they're feeling, because sometimes it's really weird.

Chels: It's so weird.

Beth: I like Anne Stuart’s essay like the quote you read, like “murderous elegance,” like what

Beth: But while you were like explaining this category. I think, one character dynamic that I really like, I think a lot of people like is, and I feel like this fits with the loquacious weirdos, where you have, like your dark, darker character and characters and the light, and just like where they cross so like, who compromises and answering those questions is, can turn into a very interesting story.

Emma: Yeah, and I love that she mentioned Cary Grant in Notorious, which is like my favorite, Alfred Hitchcock movie. But I also love that she sort of links Cary Grant in that movie to like a villainous hero because he in the movie is much. If you, if you watch it without that perspective, like he, he very easily could be like the hero. He's not the the villain of the movie. He's the romantic lead. But he's also very manipulative, and like controlling in a way that like could be read straight, or could be read in the sort of like this archetype of villainous hero, who does bad things to the heroine. Because the heroine in that movie, Ingrid Bergman also, I think, could be considered like almost a Rakess. She reminds me a lot of Sera in The Rakess, when we talk about her later, who is indulgent and trying to recover herself.

What happens when, like a Rakess meets a loquacious weirdo. It's kind of Notorious.

Chels: What I really love about this is that it kind of goes a little bit against the show, don't tell so much so, but it's it's it's it's really about like how fun and amazing and like kind of how much dialogue can move the story forward!

Beth: Well, I think telling works when the actions line up with what the character is saying, so it's not like, never tell. I think it’s so nice, and I don't think this is what you're saying. I'm just like jumping off of it. But I think sometimes get people get so hung up on showing. But I'm like…telling is still good. I think people get, will say that this book was bad that it was telling, instead of showing, is when your characters actions are not matching up, like with what they're saying like, i'm telling you one way I that i'm this one way, but I’m acting completely opposite. And it's not like there you can tell that they're lying or something. Sorry go ahead Emma.

Emma: But yeah, also in romance. It's like even if there's a disconnect between how the character is describing themselves and their own motivations because of the dual POV and the focus on the relationship, it’s like that's also an interesting tension that can be intentional rather than like a mismatch.

But it's yeah that it makes sense for a kind of like our miscommunication episode. It's like this: this is a genre about relationships like, how do you? You're talking to each other. There's gonna be some telling. But how does that telling match up or mismatch with the actions that you you take? And like resolving those two things.

Beth: I feel like this kind of character it's not like. I feel like other rake arcs there is going to come to a point where a lot of them are reformed at the end. But I don't think this is going to be the end point for a lot of these characters. It's just that like they are, they make the relationship work. That's that's the end goal. Yeah, I think you definitely got like the spirit of it.

So like, Anne Stuart and of course Teresa Denys, who wrote The Flesh and The Devil, like they’re primarily interest in like … Anne Stuart’s books are kind of like on the tip of bodice rippers like I don't think you would even call them that, but they're definitely a lot heavier and darker, and they're not…Anne Stuart does not want to reform her characters and wants to drag her characters kind of like to the same level, and that's kind of like I think kind of like a theme of Gothic romance in general is that it's not necessarily like, “how do these characters become good together?” It's kind of like. How do these characters realize that, like actually, they are on the same level?

Maybe a little bit, and maybe a way that they didn't expect to be so. The Flesh and the Devil is actually really good example of that, because Juana has all of these ideas about honor and morality, and then Felipe, which, like, as you can tell from his first big monologue that I read like he has like a lot of political reasons, thatt's just like poking a hole in her balloon. But like Juana when she she wants to get back to your family, she wants to be a fancy lady. She wants to get out of this situation, and, like her reconciling her love of Felipe, and she never has any illusions about who or what Felipe, he's a bad person like he's as metal as he sounds. He's like he's a very bad person, but like her, her. The end arc of her love story is her realizing that they are the one in the same.

And I think that's a very Gothic romance thing. I think that the loquacious weirdo like in general, like because it's you have so much fun where you start. Why would you want to kind of leave this this level.

Beth: And speaking of not great people.

Emma: Yeah. So we're gonna talk about another sort of bad guy rake on the malevolent seducer. I would describe a malevolent seducer as a hero whose interests are in extreme opposition to the heroine, particularly when it comes to her livelihood or sense of self.

Sebastian Verlaine of To Have & To Hold is a rake who seduces to enact harm, push boundaries and gain information. This book is a bodice ripper since Sebastian does assault heroine Rachel. He is a viscount who serves as a magistrate. He takes Rachel into his home after she is arrested for vagrancy, post release from prison for killing her husband, with the seemingly understood condition that he will take advantage of her.

Angela Toscano in her article “A Parody of Love: the Narrative Uses of Rape in Popular Romance” calls the assault by Sebastian in this book an “inquistional” rape. She distinguishes “rape of coercion” from other types of rape in popular romance by saying “In the Rape of Coercion, the hero wants a response from the heroine because it is in her dialogue with him that her identity is revealed. But instead of waiting for her freely to speak to him the hero forces the heroine to respond to his sexual and verbal assault.”

I think this sort of information gathering is key to the “malevolent seducer” type, whether that initial seduction is characterized as coercive or consensual. In To Have & To Hold, Sebastian is fascinated by Rachel’s locked mind--she refuses to disclose information about her accusation of murder or the details of abuse she suffered during her first marriage.

Toscano suggests that Sebastian, and I’m extending this to all malevolent seducers, experiences a metaphorical death when he engages in this probing violence--the death of his Self, since he is admitting that he wants knowledge of the Other. The whole article is really good and we’ll link it in the show notes. I think a non-bodice ripper example of the malevolent seducer is Devon Ravenel of Cold-Hearted Rake, West Ravenel’s older brother. He and Sebastian have a lot in common--fascination with the love interest’s past, which includes an abusive marriage, control over where the heroine is living and an initial extreme disinterest in the responsibility that accompanies their title. Devon and Kathleen’s relationship is not characterized as coercive, but he is seducing her while he has interest in extreme opposition to her own (he is wants to sell Eversby Priory, she wants to stay, she is worried about his discovering the non consummation of her marriage, which could lose her rights to the dower).

Devon is trying to make sense of his new role as earl and what that means for his relationship to people including women. His seduction of Kathleen is sort of this discovery of how he relates to women and how he gains information about her past and first marriage. Does Chels want to talk about John Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons?

Chels: I do want to talk about John Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons!

I think in my mind he’s like the malevolent seducer because, kind of as you mentioned, the malevolent seducer, they're kind of the worst case scenario when it comes to rakes they're not up front about anything. There's an extra level of coercion and manipulation that goes with them…he has a vastly different goal than the heroine. And so he has to convince her that it's okay, or that like just to go along, or to do something to rope them in.

And I think like that's kind of like what makes To Have and To Hold so hard to read and parts, but also just like so kind of compelling is the way that Patricia Gaffney makes it so clear. I think that that's kind of really the strength of To Have and To Hold that she wants you to be aware that Sebastian is 100% aware and 100% intentional about what he's doing. And then Rachel also knows that she doesn't really have a choice that she's being manipulated into this like a very specific circumstance.

Not just with the initial manipulation which is Sebastian getting Rachel into his home, but like the continuous manipulations, the way that he puts her in situations that would make her uncomfortable to test your boundaries and to push and pull at her.

Emma: Yeah. And I think the power dynamic of the level malevolent seducer makes sense like why it's so often this like information gathering seduction. Because in this extreme power, dynamic where you sort of take the gender roles of historical romance, and push them to their extreme, often the heroine is rotating power by keeping information up from the hero, like Kathleen, not telling Devon that her first relationship was unconsummated.

That it's like this is a big like vulnerability for her, because she could be like legally kicked out of the house if it was turned out that the marriage wasn't real, and Rachel like it is like this sort of self protection of where she just doesn't trust anyone to know about the circumstances of the abuse of her first marriage, that the rakes only get that information once they've established like trust and sort of had to either seduce it them sort of malevolently, or demonstrated some sort of earning of the trust.

But that they're probing the heroines for like access, for the one thing that they wouldn't normally have access to like. They have access to their bodies. They have access to power over them, but they don't have access to their minds and like the secrets that they keep.

Beth: Yeah, I think that's a really good point, and you can definitely see it in To Have and To Hold in Rachel's story, because when people discovered what happened with her first husband, like the abuse that he routed on her, that's kind of what landed her in jail. They're like. Well, clearly she's a suspect because she was treated so badly, so I can understand the extreme reaction, on top of being in jail for 10 years, and all the trauma she separate there to hold on to that information because it was used against her in the past.

Chels: When we went through malevolent seducers, none of us brought up what is most likely the most common scenario of the malevolent seducer, which is a rake sleeping with someone's sister for revenge in general. Even so, there's the dark romance, erotic historic romance, from Victoria Vale, The Villain and The Dove, that kind a take on the setup of, Emma, you mentioned Seven Nights in a Rogue’s Bed by Anna Campbell. It's like it's like. What if that was actually a real setup? That’s this duology--it takes it to the natural conclusion where the heroine is coerced into sleeping with, and staying with the hero as part of the hero's revenge scheme against her brother. But even historical romances that aren't dark romances or bodice shippers like that that are more kind of like in the Lisa Kleypas, or that is actually at least like this. It's like McKennsa from Lisa Kleypas’ Again the Magic he where he has, like a half baked revenge plot against a Aline, includes seducing her.

Emma: “I hate her so much like I have to fall. I have to fall in love with her!

Chels: When I was reading that I was like, what was your revenge plan exactly? But the revenge is usually like a man in the family had done something wrong, and, like you have to get revenge. And so you're gonna sleep with their sister.

Emma: Yeah, something about I do think about Mckenna as like, how does Mckenna fit into Lisa Kleypas rakes. I don't know if Kleypas would call Mckenna a rake.

Chels: He’s not, really?

Emma: Because it's like pointed, and it's something about that where it's like Mckenna we kind of like it does the Kleypas thing where he like. He's like “Oh, I've had so many lovers, like I’m so tall!”

[LAUGHTER]

Emma: but his like rakishness is not something that he has to overcome. It's like he he's so like revenge focused. I don't know if, like, maybe the pointed revenge to me. Maybe i'm like siphoning that away from rakishness. But maybe there's like a different maybe rogue is the word for that, but it does seem like a it's like a cousin category for me.

Because Mckenna is not pleasant to be around either, he’s so miserable because he's had this like revenge on his mind for so long. He intimidates everyone. So something about the like charming aspect of a rake seems also missing for McKenna.

Chels: Yeah, and I don't think he would necessarily be like if he was full rake. I don't think that he would necessarily be a very good malevolent seducer, because I think to be frank, I love Mckenna. Yes, I don't know if I love McKenna, but I love this book. I don't think he's clever enough to be. I think

Emma: That’s why the revenge doesn't make any sense he's like, I'm gonna ruin her life by like falling in love in with her?

There’s a Sarah MacLean book where the plan of revenge is to buy someone dresses. It’s the green cover, the one, what is that one called where she frames him for murder? One Good Duke…One Good Earl Deserves Another.

The plan is he's like I'm gonna pay for her clothes, and it's like this is gonna get my revenge on her. It's like that's not a very good plan.

Chels: I mean it’s! Yeah!

Emma: I guess it’s romantic?

Beth: No Good Duke Goes Unpunished. It’s the green cover.

Emma: The titles in books, I never remember them. But yeah, Mckenna's plan is similar in that vein where it's like, i'm gonna i'm gonna kill her with kindness and romance.

Chels: Yeah, he he showed up with the best intentions, but he needed the worst.

Beth: I'm sorry. I just don't even understand that plan. Which is why I’m not commenting. I'm like what? Just buy her dresses.

Emma: He's gonna harm her by like controlling her. But the control that's very is mostly in in like giving her favors.

Beth: Indulging her.

Emma: Which is not unlike McKenna's plan. I guess he's like I'm going to embarrass her by making her fall in love with me again, not thinking that he would also fall in love with her again.

Beth: Okay, I can get on that. I want you to be absolutely horrible. So unless he’s like burning those dresses.

Emma: McKenna, he does embarrass her a lot. So McKenna is a little more, he does follow through.

Beth: So maybe let’s do the Byronic rake?

Chels: Yes. According to Deborah Lutz in The Dangerous Lover: Gothic Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-Century Seduction Narrative: “The Byronic figure eroticizes the voyager so important to the imagination of Western culture…The Byronic hero, particularly the Giaour and Childe Harold, remains disenchanted and always astray; he has no place in the domesticity of society.”

I see the Byronic hero as a wanderer: he’s in some sort of liminal space where permanency feels unreachable, where he feels unmoored. Childe Harold is often referred to as being like Byron himself, an aesthetic traveler (“but none did love him”), The Giaour ends his poem in self-exile.

So the end of every rake romance is that the rake is no longer a rake, he’s discovered monogamy or has sobered up, but for a Byronic hero to get his happy ending, which is a requirement of genre romance, he needs to be housed, he needs to find a sense of permanency, and that’s accomplished through romantic love. To quote Lutz again: “Love creates a dwelling place in space and time, filling it up so that it becomes reachable, permeable, pliable.”

Black Silk by Judith Ivory is a Victorian historical romance, and the central relationship is between Graham Wessit, the Earl of Netham, and Submit Channing Downes, the young widow of Graham’s former caretaker.

Graham was orphaned as a child and taken in by Henry Channing Downes, the Marquess of Motmarche. He was a beautiful boy which kind of got him into trouble, so he had to be scrappier and tougher, he had to lean into his aesthetic and embrace it. Graham wasn’t more troublesome than most aristocratic children, but Henry, his caretaker, was unbelievably harsh on him. This is the beginning of a disconnect: the way that Graham sees himself, which is a sort of aimless but affable man with a ruthless charm and artistic interests, with how he is judged, first by Henry, then the world: a villain, a reckless seducer, a criminal.

Graham is the center of a very public trial, and then later he is the clear-inspiration for a serial called The Rake of Ronmoor, which exacerbates and villainizes real events from Graham’s life. The public perception of Graham does not match up with his own. He tells his mistress, “You are making love to a myth. The English upper-class rake.”

Graham’s love story is incredibly complicated, because Submit, his love interest, is the widow of the man that loathed him and arguably cast Graham into this mythical role. Submit’s main challenge, aside from reconciling her feelings about Graham who she thinks she’s not supposed to or allowed to love, is about her inheritance. Henry, who was ever spiteful, gave Submit all of his properties, which was a grave insult to his illegitimate son, William. William is taking Submit to court over the will because he wants her main estate, Motmarche.

People might take me to task for being too literal here with “housed and restored,” but historical romance loves houses and estates and I think the connection is valid. Motmarche is hotly contested, but in the end it ends up going to neither William nor Submit, but to Graham.

So we’ve spoken several times about The Ruin of a Rake so I don’t want to overdo it, but Courtenay is a wonderful example of a Byronic rake, and he has a lot in common with Graham.

Courtney is a wanderer: when the book starts he’s returned to England after years of traveling with his sister and nephew. Like Graham, Courteney is also being maligned in fiction: Graham is the lecherous rake in The Rake of Ronmoor, and Courtenay is the devilish seducer in The Brigand Prince. Interestingly, they’re both being maligned in print by their love interest. Submit takes up writing The Rake of Ronmoor after Henry dies, and Julian is the secret author of The Brigand Prince. They’re both reputationally harmed by their love interests!

Courtenay also has his own housing problem: his mother, who hates him, is living on his estate. Courtenay needs that house: once he’s bolstered his reputation enough to be involved in his nephew’s life again, he plans to rent the house to his brother-in-law, Laurence from The Laurence Browne Affair, so he can be closer to his nephew. Julian aids in the restoration here: he’s a natural problem-solver and is able to help Courtenay bolster up the nerve to oust his mother and take responsibility over his neglected tenants.

Chels: So I think that like when we're talking about “ housed and restored” It's like there's like the physical houses in these books but it's more about a sense of permanency, because Byronic rakes are above all else wanderers. At the end of their storyline, the end of their character arc what it looks like for them to get a happily ever after is for them to be settled, to go from feeling untethered to having this romantic love that brings them home.

Beth: One thing that struck me when you were talking, Chels, that the Byronic hero is a wanderer, and they do find this sense of permanency. But I feel like that permanency is that person. So it's like Courtenay is still…They still…are like at the end of the book, like he goes to London because he has his duties, and like the House of Lords, and then they do other traveling stuff. But, like Julien, is his home like that's a sense of permanency, I think, with Black Silk, there is like a location tied to it like with the house. But I don't know, that's just what a thought that came to me is like it could be your person that you find, depending on your Byronic rake.

Chels: Yeah, it has to be done through romantic love, like I think the houses come into play because it's historical romance, and because, like I started to kind of notice that in the Byronic stories, like, I think another one that I kind of categorized with this, which I didn't talk about, and I won't talk about at length with Devil in Winter, because, like St. Vincent, like he, it's not a literal house like he has Evie, his love interest, who is kind of like his purpose, but he also has the gaming hell like he has that sort of roots. So that's kind of what I've noticed in historical romanc, generally, when I see you Byronic rake like, there's and it could just be because there's a lot of properties, and we like to talk about properties.

But I think that it kind of like fits so well.

Beth: yeah, I think yeah, for sure. And then another idea is, I think, for Byronic rates: the reputation is a little bit, being used against them, or for like it's much more of a thing like it is with a lot of other rates and other stories we've talked about, but especially for the Byronic rake, where they literally have publications talking about them.

Emma: yeah, and Graham talks about this in Black Silk where it's like for some reason Graham is attached to this image, and he sort of like there are people around him who don't get the same reputation, and it's sort of like the snowball effective reputation where it's like Graham, is the fixation of these publications, the fixation of these rumors, while he's like keeping company with all these people who do just as bad things, and it's like true from what he's a child to when he's an adult. And it's like that's part of like the Byronic like what happens when a person becomes a myth, and that like disconnect. I’m also thinking about. I'm thinking about Roy from Ted Lasso.

I feel like he's in the realm of Byronic right? He also has a word where again, he's like dealing with like myth versus person, and like that, disconnect like, how do you? How do you deal with your reputation? And when you're like, when you outgrow your reputation, or you want to move past it?

Beth: Yeah, for sure, I love the Ted Lasso reference. Roy’s reputation, I think, is so much more than like growling at the camera, whereas the actual person is, he still is like that, but he's not for the people like he's kind of a softy actually.

Beth: anyway. Chels isn’t on the Ted Lasso train.

Chels: I don’t watch Ted Lasso, So I'm here. I'm like, let's talk about Black Silk because I love it. I finally got the chance!

Beth: So going from Ted Lasso, though, to another type of category, the Rakess.

The most obvious character to slot under the Rakess category is Seraphina from The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham. Peckham says in her author’s note that while working on a woman rake character, since most rakes are cis-gender men, she realized the feminized version of the rake was the ruined woman. At the same time, Peckham read Romantic Outlaws by Charlotte Gordon, the dual biography of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley. With these ideas, she infused Seraphina with a Wollsteoncraftian political ideology who embraced her ruination. Peckham doesn’t soften Sera’s rough edges, which I think another author may have been tempted to do.

At the beginning of the book, Sera approaches Adam and offers a sexual relationship to hold them through their summer in Cornwall. After a bit, he agrees. Like other rakes, she excels at at a one-dimensional relationship; however, when her relationship with Adam deepens, she struggles to convey her emotions. She’s over-reliant on alcohol to dull some of the pain she’s gone through. When she turns her cruelty on Adam, he leaves. He doesn’t want to watch her self-destruct. Like Chels’ said in their newsletter, when Sera “achieves sobriety she’s wistful about what she could have had, and relieved to realize that the breakup left Adam similarly devastated.”

A rakess goes through a similar character transformation that a rake will, unlike other rakes, though, is how society treats Sera. A poor reputation can mar anyone, but the stakes are different for Sera because of the double sexual standard between men and women. In one of Sera’s essays, she says, “Why should a single rumor doom a woman for the same sin for which men are excused?”

These societal factors impact her relationship with Adam. He worries about how Sera’s reputation will impact his two children. Her reputation affects how she fits in her community at large. The citizens of Cornwall want her gone from the area. Someone, we come to find out the man who ruined her, leaves dead birds to her house. And this kind of seems like a regular thing she encounters: “Seraphina Arden had received many letters in her lifetime. Letters mocking her appearance. Letters decrying her low morals. Letters wishing ill upon her health.”

Peckham’s exploration shows us the fundamentals of the rake and how, by changing one aspect, gender, it can open up new kinds of growth and how that person operates in society and is likewise treated by it.

Chels: I love the Rakess. And yeah, I think that, thinking about categories of Rakes, I know generally, rakes are gendered, Oh, I don't want to necessarily be like this is the woman rakes category, but, like, I think the Rakess really requires that because the consequences of being a ray cast. The consequences of being serfina are so demonstrably different than any other rake category like there's a gendered sexual violence that she is repeatedly at the center of like.

And ever her and Adam. They're conflicts the take on kind of a different tune, like so Seraphina's alcoholism is kind of what tanks her relationship with Adam, or at least kind of like the biggest factor of it, like her, leaning into like kind of like oblivion in order to push him away because she's worried about being so dependent on another person. And so you're kind of looking at it from that angle. But like if you're looking at it from gender from kind of like the opposite angle.

So, Adam, he works with the he works for Seraphina’s abuser essentially, and he finds that out later, and it's he's kind of in this weird position where, like he kind of has to kowtow. He kind of has to count out to this man who he doesn't like, and he doesn't respect, and he knows is kind of bad, but he has to provide for his kids. He has to, he’s in a different space than Sarafina, like he has to kind of…His journey is kind of like learning that he can't really wave that way, and so like kind of on both aspects, there is is a gender power aspect to it.

Emma: Yeah. And I think Peckham does a good job of like inverting like the rake, like archetype for Seraphina. It's not like, she's just engaging with sex like her Alcoholism is such a big part of her character, and also, like Beth, said, like the surface level relationship, and how that's like what she wants from Adam, to begin with because I think you could look at like oh, the opposite of a rake is a fallen woman.

Seraphina is not a fallen woman like her reputation has been ruined, but she's like moved on from that as like as like the way that she interacts with the world like people may think that she's ruined, but, like a ruination happens one time, like a rake, rakishness is like a perpetual thing, And she's continuing to engage in it, because I think you could have a heroin who's been ruined, and there's like dealing with the fallout of that, but that still wouldn't be a Rakess, it wouldn't be someone who is engaging with rakish behavior. It has to be the sort of like continued thing, and Sera is able to do that because of a certain level of privilege, and also, like her ability to like, make about money on her writing, because she is able to like it'd be independently wealthy, based on her career.

So it's different than a woman who has to like, make, do with her reputation after like a one time event of like a fallen woman. So it it's. It's not the the the rakishness continues beyond, just like the one time sexual encounter that would like create a ruined woman. So it is something different.

Beth: And I think, yeah, I think that's a really good point. And then, because it ends up being a series like, there's other characters that are in her orbit that are going to get books, but they're also there because they're like that's her community like she's able to, I think, continue in this rakish behavior. Like you, said she has a certain amount of privilege. She makes money from her writing, but she also has other people who are in the same like think the same way that she does. So she's able to keep living the lifestyle.

Chels: So the next category is dissipated rake. So as you might remember the quote from The Lives of the English Rake that lists out the vices of a rake: “sexual pursuits, gambling, drinking, duels and brawls.” Heavy drinking is pretty common with fictional rakes, but it’s not always problematized in the text. I want to be clear that when I’m talking about alcohol abuse I don’t see it as a character flaw. Addiction is not a moral failing, but it is something worth exploring in fiction. The dissipated rake has demons that alcohol exacerbates, and sobriety is a necessary component of his happily ever after.

The Rake by Mary Jo Putney is, for me, the quintessential dissipated rake story. Mary Jo Putney writes in Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women that, “Anyone familiar with addiction and twelve-step programs can read the book and see the hero, Reggie, go through the stages of denial, attempted reform and failure, and the final breakdown–the shattering of the will–that must be experienced before there can be a chance for spiritual and physical regeneration.” The Rake is a very spiritual story at its core, and it sort of clicked into place for me when I saw Mary Jo Putney refer to the twelve-step programs, the most common of which are Alcoholics Anonymous. AA is not a religious group per se, but it was spawned off of a Christian revivalist movement in the 1930s, the group frequently holds meetings in churches, and focus is on sort of recognizing your lack of control and surrendering to a higher power. This is very effective for a lot of people who go through the program, but is off-putting for others. I feel like, how you read The Rake is sort of tempered by this view as well: it’s a polarizing work but it has staying power because it resonates with a lot of people.

I’m not particularly religious, so I pulled something a bit different out of The Rake. Mary Jo Putney wrote that she wanted to actually see a rake have to answer for his drinking, and I think the reason she’s successful here is because Reggie does some truly awful things on page that we have to grapple with.

The romance in The Rake is between Reginald Davenport and Alys Weston. The book was initially titled The Rake and The Reformer, with Alys (who Reggie has nicknamed “Allie”) being *the reformer.* At the beginning of the story, Reggie, nicknamed “The Despair of the Davenports” is given the Strickland estate - his former home that has a lot of ghosts for him. Alys has been living at the estate and working as the land steward, a position she was able to get through some light deception. Alys is, rightfully, wary of Reggie, but they’re drawn to each other and their romance flourishes.

That is, until Reggie’s drinking becomes untenable. There’s violence in his drunken behavior: he breaks glasses, he looms over Alys. It feels like he’s on the brink of doing something unforgivable. In the book, Reggie makes the conscious choice to stop drinking for himself. He notes after his third-act breakup with Alys that “though he missed Allie hideously, he was not truly alone, had not been so since the night he had been broken and reborn.”

Scandal by Carolyn Jewel is a second chance romance where the entire book is a grovel. The romance is between the Earl of Banallt and Sophie, who is the widow of his former friend Tommy.

Carolyn Jewel uses a dual timeline to reveal Banallt’s before and after: the dissipated rake, and the man who has to piece together his life after the wreckage. Banallt is utterly, irrevocably in love with Sophie, but he knows that he’s blown his chance by his past behavior. His missteps with Sophie weren’t a direct result of his abuse of alcohol — he had the propensity for carelessness and cruelty already — but his drinking exacerbated these traits. In the early timeline, he first meets Sophie when he’s plastered, but even in his bleary-eyed state he still has a measure of control. They somehow form a friendship, but when Banallt learns of the death of his daughter he propositions Sophie and attempts to degrade her. She’s still married to her husband Tommy at this point, and Banallt knows how seriously she takes her wedding vows as it’s been a point of contention between them for some time.

When they meet again in present-day, Tommy has died and Sophie is a free woman. Banallt hopes he won’t feel anything, that he won’t be in knots at the mere sight of her. He is “dismayed beyond words” to realize that isn’t the case.

I think my biggest issue with The Rake is that Reggie’s sobriety is almost the happily ever after in a way that it overshadows the relationship. Banallt has stopped his heavy drinking in the second part of the timeline in Scandal: the rest of the book is him having to convince Sophie of the sincerity of his courtship, so in that they kind of a big difference.

Emma: Yeah, I’m glad we talked about this one. This is something that even in rakes books that I enjoy, I sometimes wish were discussed more directly. This is what a big issue that I have with Devil's Daughter and West Ravenel. Because he's very clearly characterized as an alcoholic

at the when he starts, the book like people are finding him, and he he's like unable to control himself, and people are worried about his drinking.

But the time we get to his book it just sort of becomes like a non issue like he doesn't it never really would like backs up on him, it at least in the way that it does in these books, where it it is like, treated like a health problem rather than just like a an indulgence. And it yeah, it's something that it's like it it sort of runs through so many rakes where there's this like reference to them drinking heavily, and they just suddenly stop like that, and it's just like a nonissue for them anymore. It's like that's not really how alcoholism works.

Beth: Oh, yeah, I don't know that much to say. This is a very good point, and I do agree. I feel like a lot of times. It's not addressed directly, or even within, like you brought up earlier that that's kind of like. Why, Emma, you brought up earlier that you like that we get a series, and like in the before series. Because Leo in the Hathaway series, he also struggles with that call, but by the time we get to his book he's kinda good like other things have been resolved before we get to that book, and then it's just him trying to win over.

Emma: I think, Leo. And in West both we, I think, like this: we characterize them as alcoholics, and then but there it differ. It doesn't seem to be like a like a health like disease for the for her. It's more of like an indulgence. I don't know if that's an unfair characterization. But yeah, in West does like he does indulge at the end of the book like after the third act break up he goes like it's plastered, and it's like oh, I shouldn’t have done that, and I think he doesn't. He doesn't drink in the books after the series after his book, but it's not dealt with as directly as The Rake which I have read. Which is it just is, it's dealt with like super directly.

Chels: So this isn't a rake book, but like kind of what i'm thinking of that you're talking about Leo, and you're talking about West is like another character who has abused alcohol in the past, and that at the beginning of his book like no longer does so, and that's a book. We just talk about the Duke of Harcastle in The Ruin of Evangeline Jones , and even then it, even though he's not abusing alcohol in that book. It's still kind of a more interesting part of his character, and it's kind of developed as part of his character more like the references. The fact that he has…it's unusual that he has water in his hip flask, and kind of kind of like laying out his logic, for why he has kind of moved on like his reasoning for that instead of it. Just kind of being like oh, I was bad then, and i'm good now, like there's kind of like more of a like he's still that person, but he has to kind of make certain choices to remain that person

Beth: Yeah I think you closed what we were trying to say, even thought isn’t part of that book. It's still motivating his character, still guiding his actions on what he's doing.

Emma: Yes, just sort of like extended West Ravenel fan fiction in my mind

Beth: You are the Premier Lisa Kleypas professional here.

Emma: Her biggest fan, her biggest enemy.

Beth: Okay. So our next rake…

Chels: Just say “This next rake is a rake off, this is a joke on the movie Face/Off.”

Emma: The podcast’s first John Woo reference.

Beth: So the rake/off character uses the rake persona as a distraction. One question worth investigating with this kind of rake is where does the persona end and the actual person begin? I find this highly relatable since a lot of social interactions we have are performances of a kind. Who brings out your true self? Who do you want to be your true self around?

In The Lotus Palace by Jeannie Lin, Bai Huang, the eldest son of a wealthy, noble family, flirts with the beautiful courtesan Mingyu although it’s her servant, Yueying he kisses in the dark. Yueying suspects there’s more to him, despite his terrible poetry to Mingyu. Bai Huang spies for his father so he pretends to be rakish and dumb although this tightrope walk blurs the lines, I should make it clear, he isn’t dumb, the rakish part is the tightrope. In a scene where he questions another courtesan about a murder, he thinks this about her: “She really was quite charming. If only it wasn’t an act. In truth, it was an act and it wasn’t. Just as he was a scoundrel and he wasn’t.”

Yueying figures much of Bai Huang’s behavior is a ruse. A cover for something more and that cover provides the initial hurdle to their relationship.

Similarly, we have another spy-ish character in The Perks of Loving a Wallflower by Erica Ridley. From Chels’ newsletter: “Tommy Wynchester from Erica Ridley’s The Perks of Loving a Wallflower has a host of disguises, but she’s remarkably comfortable wearing one in particular: that of charming rake Baron Vanderbean. As the baron, Tommy finally approaches her long-term crush, a bluestocking named Philippa, and they engage in a fake (but not that fake!) courtship.

Like Bai Huang with Yue-ying, Tommy wants Philippa to get to know her in truth, so she lets Philippa in on the ruse early. During one of their flirtations, Philippa tells Tommy that “you needn’t play the rake now, when no one can hear you.” Tommy’s response is devastating: “You can hear me.”

I haven’t even read that book and I was like “dang!”

Chels: A mic drop of a line! Okay. So yeah, I think this character is really fun in a lot of ways. So I think, like first of all, there's kind of like the obvious connection to the Scarlet Pimpernel, and I always think of also like Lord Vere, from His at Night, but he's not I don't really consider him a break, and he's disguised as rakish, because it’s too stupid.

Beth: because he's just pretending

Chels: I think there's like a level of like suaveness you need to meet, and like Lord Vere in His at Night by Sherry Thomas, he’s like literally dribbling food over there's the charm is minimal. But yeah, I think this is a really fun character and something that I've kind of noticed about like both with Bai Haung and Tommy from The Perks of Loving a Wallflower is that they both like kind of they. They're both spies or doing some sort of like spy type work. They're both under cover, but they both like, bring their love interests into the plot they both are kind of like.

maybe not, as under cover, for the majority of the book like it, it ends up being like there's a fun kind of mutuality to it in both cases that I think I really enjoyed.

Beth: Yeah, and I think pulling in the love interest is like speaking to that theme of “hey? I want you to see me beneath this persona,” because when they go, BaI Haung and Yue-ying long, they go on their little investigations together, and I love that. If you have like a lot of plot, it better be like you guys are detectives together for me to love it.

Yes, I think it's. It's pretty tight writing, I think, when you can pull them in, you get your investigation together. The characters are getting to know each other, and beneath that surface level. So it just all ties together neatly.

Emma: I think for pretending to be a rake, and also like that like line of like. Am I a rake? Am I? Is it? Is it a persona? It speaks to the benefits of being a rake? It's like this sort of the building of the archetype in the moment where it's like. We have people being referred to as rakes like in the actual Georgian and Regency period like level of access. It's like a rake is not necessarily just something that's condemned, or is sexy. It's like it's a level of charm that you get the benefit of this access to people, because in it's like that that can come naturally because you're charming, or because you're taking on this persona.

And so like we talk about reformed rakes like you want to leave the rakishness behind. But there is this boon that you get from being able to charm people, or like having that sort of mystery around you. So maybe you don't want to abandon all the rakish behaviors, or you don't actually have to reform from all those behaviors, especially if you're play acting in some ways or another.

Beth: I think it's a lot to do with what people expect from you as well like if you're just like

I'm a rake. I charm people. wWhat people expect from you is not gonna be as high. You can get away with more things. I think. So that's…you're right. I think there is some advantage to your rakish behavior, and we see that with these like spy characters who need access to people and not accounting for what they've been doing.

Chels: Yeah, like, and especially for I mean, I guess, for both of them, too, because, like Tommy, is pretending to be a man, and Bai Huang is pretending to be like kind of like a sillier version of himself, because he's still kind of like an aristocrat. But like you, you kind of have to get people off guard like you have to make them like. And then, of course, if you kind of have, you know the privilege of being seen is a wealthy man people kind of automatically assume that an intelligent which is kind of silly, So you have to kind of do that extra work to go against that in order to go a little bit more under the radar, which is kind of what makes this character a little bit a little bit goofy, but like in a really enjoyable way.

Beth: Yeah, I don't know if this is a good comparison. But I I did think of like Jack Sparrow like content warning for Johnny Depp---but that first movie was actually so refreshing. And it's because the reveal is he's actually very smart, like he's playing it up. So there, I think that type of character and even other settings, has a lot of appeal as well.

Emma: So this is our last type of rake, and it's superego rake, and I’m going to borrow again from Chels’ newsletter to explain the name of this.in Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory, the super ego is moralization. A drive for perfection. The superego instills a code of behavior learned by parents and society, and any infraction of those standards results in lingering guilt and shame. So super ego rake is tortured by a lack of balance obsessed with their own depravity, conscious of ways, they fall short of expectations and are armed with the health healthy does of self-pity. They're the David Foster. Wallace quote, fully embodied that there, there's that there's a lot of narcissism in self hatred.

Chels’ has Dain from Loretta Chase’s Lord of Scoundrels as a super ego rake in their taxonomy of race newsletter. And I think Dain’s assuredness that everyone is thinking about him all the time is central to the super ego rake. It's almost like a meta cognition break. What happens when you what happens when you live at a time where a rake is even a thing that someone can be, and you are actually sure this is all you can or could ever be.

I think, for Dane, the super ego rake, is almost like the opposite of the the Rake/Off where it's like. He's taking on this persona because he just assumes that's like all he can be. Everyone is characterizing Dane as a rake. So he's like this is, this is the only avenue that I have. It's not. It's a persona and a role that he's taking on. But it's like a limiting one rather than an expansive one.

In Notorious Pleasures by Elizabeth Hoyt, Griffin has a severe case of second son syndrome and is a rake on page--the heroine (slightly confusingly named Hero) walks in on him having sex in the first chapter. But Griffin’s reputation is really a framing issue--most of his rakish behavior is ultimately innocent and the worst part of his reputation is based on a falsehood that he does not correct out of loyalty to his family. Also the main behavior that the heroine takes issue with (owning a gin distillery) is in service of his family’s finances. But the justifications of Griffin’s reputation don’t change his self-image--he is a reprobate until he can prove to himself otherwise.

In Three Nights of Sin by Anne Mallory, Gabriel’s rakish behavior (and he definitely identifies as Bad and Rakish) is actually pretty evolved sexual politics--I think this kind of gets to some of the appeal of the rake, at least on one vector. He has a notable lack of fetishization of Marietta’s virginity--he is very matter of fact about it, almost reaching “virginity is a social construct” that many “feminist” romance novels don’t get to. But Gabriel is an underworld mover and shaker, protecting people who are harmed by legitimate systems. He is convinced that he cannot be compatible with Marietta because of his reputation and occupation, because he is so “wicked” and so “rakish.” But not unlike Dain, he is a rake in response to a world organized against him. Is a rake that is responding to a cruel, repressive and unfair world really a rake?

Beth: I really like that book. You just like talking about it again. I'm like I should reread it. Oh, sorry.

Chels: Yeah, that book is really really devastating. I'll move on to notorious pleasures, and something that like is not really super relevant. But I remember that always makes me laugh that you said about this book, Emma, is that Griffin invents child labor.

Emma: I like this book as far as Elizabeth Hoyt books goI I read those with quite a lot. I don't always love all the books, but this one is, the romance is really good, but then the solution to him owning the gin distillery is that he's going to employ children to like spin wool. It's also a Georgian book. So like factories don’t exist yet, and so like the children, are basically his like little machines. It's it's like totally a good thing? It's very strange.

Yeah, I thought this was an interesting one to end on, because it's like these rakes, who are rakes deemed by society, but also their behavior is not actually that bad, or, like their rakish behaviors, not bad, like Dain , does terrible things in Lord of Scoundrels, but they're not the things that make people think that he's a rake. It's like his mistreatment of his son, who’s he's like illegitimate child is like. That's the thing he needs to fix. It's not his like rakishness.

Also it's like nobody cares about Dain nearly as much as Dain cares about Dain, and I think Gabriel, Similarly, Gabriel's bad behavior, he's like he's trying to help people. He's try. And he also is like really evolved like his response to sex is is very novel, and Marietta is really surprised by it.

But it's like that, that, if like, that's what you would want. Someone now is to sort of have like a sort of nonplussed attitude about virginity. That's like. We would want that to happen, but at the time it's like makes him seem like he's bad or like reprobate.

Chels: So in Three Nights of Sin Gabriel's attitude towards Marietta is really aggressive. Like he is like he's like aggressively trying to make her feel worthless for like a lot of it So kind of like your initial perspective of him is kind of like. Oh, he's bad like the way that he's kind of perceived as being bad, the more you get to know him, and kind of like get to delve into like his reasoning. So you kind of like, actually, there's not really any reason why he should be particularly kind to Marietta kind of the same way that, like his behavior, like the things that have given him his rakish reputation like there's it's not really the way that it seems like there are kind of more heartbreaking reasonings behind it.

Emma: Yeah. And this one is like it is dual POV, I would think it's like an 80 20 split like it's much more with Marietta than it is with Gabriel. So you really aren’t getting his like explanation of like, why, he's doing these things. It's just Marietta responding to him. And so she has one view like, how do you respond to a rake who acts this way and it gets complicated through the relationship rather than complicated through his inner thoughts.

Beth: I have no thoughts. I like reading super ego tortured by like a balance. Dain’s just obsessed with himself and I love him for it.

Chels: I think the kind of like the main thing I always think of like the superego rake is that they they're just like they feel bad. They have this guilt, and they kind of like, and try to like, push through it, and to project something worse, to kind of get past that, and that's kind of like how I see, Dane. That's how how I kind of see Gabriel, too, even though they their reasonings are vastly different

Beth: trying to manage their own reputation by making you think the worst of them.

Chels: Gabriel, I think it's like more of a defense mechanism because it's like the way that his sexuality has been weaponized against him.

Beth: Oh, I just remembered that part of the book. Okay, yeah.

Chels: That book is really heavy, it’s so great.

Beth: That’s the first Anne Mallory I read, and I like, became obsessed with Anne Mallory afterwards.

Emma: She's such a range of like tone for her book.

Beth: Yeah, Bride Price is so vastly different in tone like like the setup. At least it's kind of heavy.

Chels: But I started on the crazy, grumpy sunshine.

Emma: My first one was the ghost one!

Chels: Oh, really, I love that one.

Emma: It's so wild

Beth: Well, that's a lot of recording. So we should wrap up.

Chels: Okay. So we definitely have covered a lot of rakes in this episode. So I hope that you maybe found a new favorite, or that you are going to engage in your own bad behavior.

Thank you so much for listening to Reformed Rakes. If you enjoy the podcast, you can find bonus content on our Patreon at Patreon.Com/ReformedRakes. You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram for show updates and inside jokes, the username for both is @ReformedRakes. Thank you again, and we’ll see you next time.