Period Drama Addiction: My Story

How about a post explaining how you got interested in period dramas and the Regency era in the first place? 
That was one of the post suggestions, so I figured I'd just stick it at the top here so you all know where I'm coming from. :)

First of all, I'm not the first person in my family to be interested in this sort of thing.  Both my older sisters would watch Jane Austen and some other based-on-classic-literature movies; but by the time I was old enough to understand them, neither sister lived at home anymore.

I started young with some of them, though, like Anne of Green Gables and the sequel.  For years I held those as my two favorite movies in the world, and they're among the top.  I've basically always been drawn to old-fashioned things, so it was only a matter of time before my interest in the genre blossomed.  Other movies I remember watching before learning about Jane Austen were A Little Princess (this one), The Secret Garden (this one), we watch some version of A Christmas Carol every Christmas Eve (usually this one or this one); I was somewhat acquainted with the TV show Road to Avonlea although didn't grow to love it until later.  Let's see, what else... a couple different versions of Heidi... Caddie Woodlawn, The Sound of Music (who doesn't watch that pretty early on?), episodes here and there of Little House on the Prairie.  I know there were others I can't remember right now, and I watched bits and pieces of some other things my parents or sister were watching, but those didn't have any significance for me.

So, my love of period dramas, and of course all things Jane Austen and Regency, began with my first viewing of Sense and Sensibility (1995).  One of my older sisters did introduce me to that, when she found out I'd never seen it; I was fourteen at the time. After that it was all uphill.  (The only thing that hindered me here and there was "Oh, I should probably read the book first..." I didn't usually end up having the patience to wait that long. :P)  I started by exploring most of the other JA adaptations, and started talking to both my sisters about various other period dramas to see if they could recommend them, so I'd watch those... there were some, like North & South and Cranford, that I remembered my mom watching sometime within the last year or two but for some reason I hadn't been interested. (Silly me.) After I started my blog, which was/is mainly about Jane Austen, I of course got into reading other similar blogs, and there found out about lots of other period dramas and through all this my knowledge of classic literature and authors also increased a lot. ;)  The same sister who introduced me to S&S kind of latched on to my interest and she'd have me over for sleepovers and we'd watch various adaptations after her kids were in bed... I remember one particular time I went over for a two-night caper and we watched Great Expectations (1999) one night and The Moonstone the next, and I was amused because the first had Molly (Justine Waddell) and the other had Cynthia (Keeley Hawes) from Wives and Daughters.  That was around the time the whole "Ooh, I recognize that person, they were in such-and-such!" was beginning. :D

The Moonstone

And now I've pretty much exhausted the available period dramas that don't contain something I object to... whenever I do find a new possibility, or a new one comes out, it is SO exciting.  Like, even when I found Death Comes to Pemberley on YouTube and I was all skeptical because, obviously this isn't going to be very Jane Austen-ish-- but inwardly I was kind of bouncing and going "newwww period dramaaaa! squeeeeeeeee!"

So yes.  I guess you could say I've been "hooked" for a while now. :)

Oh, and allow me to elaborate a little more on the Regency bit of the question... like I said, my interest in the time period came with my interest in Jane Austen, and finding out more about her life.  In fact, I've never actually studied the Regency period when it didn't have to do with Jane Austen-- and it usually does. ;)

So there you have it!