tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71497715303079883102024-03-20T08:08:51.277-04:00society nineteenSuzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comBlogger125125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-85843845855410387212023-09-02T15:56:00.005-04:002023-09-02T15:56:58.731-04:00So19 Reviews: LEARNED BY HEART by EMMA DONOGHUE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKzRcNVU7rEv8L0E4wwmgaGdT6kRFW3vxi2M4nD2v2EJ61D5Teh4Q9PdVSVZCtHr4YAbmXFNvCAap-kpV25zCUkD7kXKByYD4ncqCwRziLV92H647VXYiFnx0R_kEiU--8epV23lNzgafuE_2kNx1fTOSO9ErOrfriM0Gi5P6tXmOjnOWqaKDshVAAf8Sr/s1172/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-02%20at%203.32.16%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1172" data-original-width="752" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKzRcNVU7rEv8L0E4wwmgaGdT6kRFW3vxi2M4nD2v2EJ61D5Teh4Q9PdVSVZCtHr4YAbmXFNvCAap-kpV25zCUkD7kXKByYD4ncqCwRziLV92H647VXYiFnx0R_kEiU--8epV23lNzgafuE_2kNx1fTOSO9ErOrfriM0Gi5P6tXmOjnOWqaKDshVAAf8Sr/s320/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-02%20at%203.32.16%20PM.png" width="205" /></a></div>Though Emma Donoghue is best known for her contemporary novel <i>Room</i>, I follow her primarily for her superb historical fiction. <i>Slammerkin</i> (2000), <i>The Sealed Lette</i>r (2008), <i>Frog Music</i> (2014), and <i>The Wonder</i> (2106) are each quite different in topic and tone, yet all are fierce, brilliantly crafted novels that make marvelous fiction out of a solid grounding in historical fact. <br /><br />This time around, Donoghue bases an extraordinary novel on a mystery in the life of British landowner and diarist Anne Lister. You might not think that there are many mysteries left in Lister's life now that a significant group of excerpts from her five million (yep, that's million)-word journal, written partially in code, is available in well-done published editions. You might also doubt that there's much creative gold left in Lister's life now that she's been the subject of one film, one television series, two biographies and myriad other works. Happily—though not all that surprisingly, given Donoghue's talent—you would be wrong.<br /><br /><i>Learned by Heart </i>focuses primarily not on Lister herself but on Eliza Raine, the first of Lister's lovers. In 1805, the two met as teenagers in their Yorkshire boarding school; their relationship turned passionate before Lister departed the school in summer 1806. Raine, the daughter of an English father and a never-identified Indian mother, believed the two would be partners for life. Unfortunately, she was not the last of Lister's paramours to discover that Anne's heart was more passionate than predictable. Following the demise of their relationship, Raine's mental health deteriorated significantly enough to lead to her confinement in a small private asylum in 1814. It's impossible to retroactively diagnose her mental illness, if indeed she had one for some or all of her remaining 46 years; though it appears that she may have suffered from from some form of psychosis, there's no doubt that the combination of her taboo sexual desires and mixed race also led to her volatility being interpreted more harshly than they might have been for a racially "pure" and heterosexual young woman. <br /><br /><i>Learned by Heart</i> is structured in two interwoven threads. One traces the relationship between Raine and Lister; the other consists of letters written from Raine to her former lover from the asylum in which she is confined. The juxtaposition works beautifully. The more straightforward and literal narrative grounds readers. The letters, unreliable as they may (or may not) be, give the novel much of its poignancy, mystery and depth. Donoghue brings both women vividly and sympathetically to life; she does an equally excellent job evoking the settings and society in which they lived their equally, if differently, complex lives. <br /><br />In an Author's Note at the end of book, Donoghue speaks of becoming fascinated by Raine's story when she and her partner—a noted Lister scholar—spent time in the same building where Raine and Lister shared a room as schoolgirls. She wrote the first notes on what would become this novel in 1998, giving it an gestation period of some 25 years. Some books might grow stale or overwritten in a working timeframe that lengthy. Happily, <i>Learned by Heart</i> is not one of them.<div><br /></div><div>Find out more about the author and the book on Donoghue's <a href="https://www.emmadonoghue.com" target="_blank">website</a>. Emma Donoghue's <i>Learned By Heart</i> can be purchased on <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/learned-by-heart/18871897" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316564435" target="_blank">Amazon U.S.</a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Learned-Heart-Emma-Donoghue/dp/1035017768/" target="_blank">Amazon U.K.</a> </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf7VJlmvN9mZEKK1zUd7G1h5Ov_XpcEkizq1bQO7wul8RDdanWPv7rS6zQHUKraUbkfvnwNI3ogAKpjTPvtMxrfbt_v3iXMP7PKUNQxKwZVne_TagZfAgsJwils4H92T1JXbs7oeXU8lYiyVf9QdxwS1hSE1J9y2BxL6WGwRvJbRQqsMZ8uGIhBfuOR9qK/s844/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-02%20at%203.43.37%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="844" data-original-width="706" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf7VJlmvN9mZEKK1zUd7G1h5Ov_XpcEkizq1bQO7wul8RDdanWPv7rS6zQHUKraUbkfvnwNI3ogAKpjTPvtMxrfbt_v3iXMP7PKUNQxKwZVne_TagZfAgsJwils4H92T1JXbs7oeXU8lYiyVf9QdxwS1hSE1J9y2BxL6WGwRvJbRQqsMZ8uGIhBfuOR9qK/w335-h400/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-02%20at%203.43.37%20PM.png" width="335" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Letter from Anne Lister to Eliza Raine,<br />courtesy of <a href="https://wyascatablogue.wordpress.com/exhibitions/anne-lister/anne-lister-love-life/" target="_blank">West Yorkshire Archive Service</a></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Kwom-CPns94wFw63NV_c3dLl1IozQc8JGEg9xsx56soYyXTOtfVpyHnr7xzrUWHsWM9y4NUx9IIxaxCWK7BP9mz0sn0C3Pmeq-pcn8lfx6Zy3gCy5Xn3e-qv3fNxjLj_39xsuJjE_YVPc_fivmLu_HFxnuXvHa2SRadjhmozKp7gABIj196oJETlVy2V/s844/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-02%20at%203.43.56%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="844" data-original-width="676" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Kwom-CPns94wFw63NV_c3dLl1IozQc8JGEg9xsx56soYyXTOtfVpyHnr7xzrUWHsWM9y4NUx9IIxaxCWK7BP9mz0sn0C3Pmeq-pcn8lfx6Zy3gCy5Xn3e-qv3fNxjLj_39xsuJjE_YVPc_fivmLu_HFxnuXvHa2SRadjhmozKp7gABIj196oJETlVy2V/w320-h400/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-02%20at%203.43.56%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Page from Anne Lister's coded diary,<br />courtesy of <a href="https://www.annelister.co.uk/">https://www.annelister.co.uk/</a></td></tr></tbody></table>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-90372650818167579752023-09-01T14:03:00.011-04:002023-09-04T11:49:22.124-04:00NEW THIS WEEK: August 28, 2023<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibg2Vi_d8WSa1no5eOlxfEEtRMtsVYVH1ziZqDoha_avZbrhoBZEMgHlg9ZYWrzmpX7450oi3pG3ArfurkVCj6B-OwdqhUY37SEom3CGEhtKH2yuKKegmrr7ssj0cLaMXzHqKcQVvK-DKlNjDO-6LhxlOFp3zl1n-W9QZrne7VqPOal5y81L6InTOi3V2Q/s1172/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-02%20at%203.32.16%20PM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1172" data-original-width="752" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibg2Vi_d8WSa1no5eOlxfEEtRMtsVYVH1ziZqDoha_avZbrhoBZEMgHlg9ZYWrzmpX7450oi3pG3ArfurkVCj6B-OwdqhUY37SEom3CGEhtKH2yuKKegmrr7ssj0cLaMXzHqKcQVvK-DKlNjDO-6LhxlOFp3zl1n-W9QZrne7VqPOal5y81L6InTOi3V2Q/w205-h320/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-02%20at%203.32.16%20PM.png" width="205" /></a></div>A new novel by Emma Donoghue is always a treat, particularly (to my mind, at least) when it takes the past as its inspiration. <i>Learned by Heart </i>weaves its magic from two historical figures: prolific diarist Anne Lister and Eliza Raine, her first of several lovers and the one about whom the least is known. The main action takes place in 1805, when the two women, just teenagers at the time, become roommates a Yorkshire boarding school. One of the book's two interwoven narratives traces the trajectory of their early lives, love, and separation; the other consists of letters Raine writes after the demise of their relationship, when she has developed mental health issues and been confined in a small private asylum. The novel has special appeal for readers fascinated by Lister (the subject of works including the HBO series <i>Gentleman Jack</i>) and the history of same-sex relationships in the 19th century. But its view of female friendships, women's lives, 19th-century racial and class assumptions, and heartbreak, among other themes, makes it a richly rewarding read whether or not lives like Lister's are your primary interest. Read our more detailed review of the book <a href="https://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2023/09/so19-reviews-learned-by-heart-by-emma.html">here</a> and find out more about the author and the book on Donoghue's informative <a href="https://www.emmadonoghue.com/">website</a>. <i>Learned By Heart </i>can be purchased on <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/learned-by-heart/18871897">Bookshop</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316564435">Amazon U.S.</a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Learned-Heart-Emma-Donoghue/dp/1035017768/">Amazon U.K.</a> <i>(8.29.23)</i><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHkWqEOtrHeLcPuZJVxfwQ5q9aVkSjK1DoKRDH_u9tiXIgomil5cUpbW_vHO9Yv3812mkgLZGAPTmwNU-EXDNjgnSI4jeG6FpGhJyNxkt6uV0OWbut6PBVRfMEbrXI8blU1pKxMegXmYCnRVknSl-CmQZfCkVmTHkZrE2PeH1l-WaurPac65cv8VV2zwPQ/s750/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-03%20at%202.16.42%20PM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHkWqEOtrHeLcPuZJVxfwQ5q9aVkSjK1DoKRDH_u9tiXIgomil5cUpbW_vHO9Yv3812mkgLZGAPTmwNU-EXDNjgnSI4jeG6FpGhJyNxkt6uV0OWbut6PBVRfMEbrXI8blU1pKxMegXmYCnRVknSl-CmQZfCkVmTHkZrE2PeH1l-WaurPac65cv8VV2zwPQ/s320/Screen%20Shot%202023-09-03%20at%202.16.42%20PM.png" width="213" /></a></div>This exploration of Ireland during the reign of Queen Victoria is an excellent treatment of the topic. Rather than exploring politics or Ireland's relationship with England in depth, Maxwell focuses on the social and cultural life of Ireland during the period. Ireland's complex religious and sectarian dynamics are deftly explained, as is the experience and aftermath of the Great Famine. That said, my favorite aspects of the book are those that convey what might be called the texture everyday life in Victorian Ireland. The colorful—and sometimes confounding—figures who shaped that life make succinct but vivid appearances, as do the huge changes in technology that characterized the era and transformed its work, class system, and landscape. Maxwell, a former officer at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, is an expert on Irish genealogy; Life in Victorian England displays his gift for placing individual lives in a broader context. Find out more about Dr. Maxwell and his other publications on the <a href="https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Ian-Maxwell/a/960" target="_blank">Pen & Sword website</a> and buy the book at <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/life-in-victorian-era-ireland-ian-maxwell/20007512" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>, <a href="https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Life-in-Victorian-Era-Ireland-Hardback/p/23692" target="_blank">Pen & Sword</a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Victorian-Era-Ireland-Maxwell/dp/1399042556/" target="_blank">Amazon U.K. </a><i>(UK publication date 8.30.23.)</i></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-80947765438546356862023-08-25T22:06:00.002-04:002023-08-27T23:08:13.822-04:00NEW THIS WEEK: August 22, 2023<div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-CAEfHj4p-POGZGj04w1L3SDv_vMdR-GzT-y6U5NJfjUSMON70Mfr1vK3JONjvknFLA6QrGwzHlh7uspE2Z-1nLE_Zv06ediqt1keEry8Yxtl48vmAvmxPs1ulzdliteELfCc73DcqecBNW4H-sY7jSd9z1I6MYqPZEYp7Xmos7Sp9KhgNv_Nofn57yNY/s750/Miss-Morton-and-the-Spirits-of-the-Underworld.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-CAEfHj4p-POGZGj04w1L3SDv_vMdR-GzT-y6U5NJfjUSMON70Mfr1vK3JONjvknFLA6QrGwzHlh7uspE2Z-1nLE_Zv06ediqt1keEry8Yxtl48vmAvmxPs1ulzdliteELfCc73DcqecBNW4H-sY7jSd9z1I6MYqPZEYp7Xmos7Sp9KhgNv_Nofn57yNY/w133-h200/Miss-Morton-and-the-Spirits-of-the-Underworld.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><b>Catherine Lloyd, <i>Miss Morton and the Spirits of the Underworld</i>: </b>The effervescent second Miss Morton mystery (following 2022's <i>Miss Morton and the English House Party</i>) is set in 1838 Britain. After her father dies with large debts, Lady Caroline Morton decides to earn her living rather than depend on affluent relations. Like many women of the era, she goes to work as a paid companion. Her employer, Mrs. Frogerton, has more money than social connections but hopes to introduce her daughter Dorothy to elite society. In this installment, Mrs. Frogerton brings Caroline along on a visit to medium Madame Lavinia. Curious about the woman's powers, Caroline brings her physician friend Oliver Harris along with her to another session. When Madame Lavinia is murdered soon thereafter, Harris is arrested and Caroline and Mrs. Frogerton must clear his name. Though the mystery is well-paced and -plotted, I have to confess that I read this series primarily for Mrs. Frogerton's warm, ebullient and eccentric presence. Dorothy's experiences in the high-society marriage market are amusing as well. Readers may also enjoy eight Lloyd's Kurland St. Mary mysteries. Find out more about the author and books on Lloyd's <a href="https://catherine-lloyd.com" target="_blank">website</a> and buy the book on <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/miss-morton-and-the-spirits-of-the-underworld-catherine-lloyd/19241261" target="_blank">Bookshop</a> or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1496740610/" target="_blank">Amazon</a>. (8.22.23)</div><br /><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI2apLfClSifI01u5aLU5v7AY5cvFpuJZ5hVXENQn5BFj2mLDZxHqDWn9Z1qWdYsTxW5251oHWph0pMbr3silJ0q4ntahAFPt7tZCaL9SuDdrVv1YKwD42YvnkewbTwBjTqD1IIzvja84yoCycKp_8mVSCkImabOAMuNMfXQJokEZNNUisVRup-oD8XS2i/s402/DONE.MacLean.Knockout.8.22.23.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="402" data-original-width="255" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI2apLfClSifI01u5aLU5v7AY5cvFpuJZ5hVXENQn5BFj2mLDZxHqDWn9Z1qWdYsTxW5251oHWph0pMbr3silJ0q4ntahAFPt7tZCaL9SuDdrVv1YKwD42YvnkewbTwBjTqD1IIzvja84yoCycKp_8mVSCkImabOAMuNMfXQJokEZNNUisVRup-oD8XS2i/w127-h200/DONE.MacLean.Knockout.8.22.23.png" width="127" /></a></div><b>Sarah MacLean, <i>Knockout:</i> </b>I was won over to Sarah MacLean's work when I read the self-description on her website. "I write books," she notes. "There's smooching in them." That same pithy, often irreverent voice is on full display in <i>Knockout,</i> the third of MacLean's Hell's Belles series (after <i>Bombshell </i>and <i>Heartbreaker</i>) along with a supersized helping of female fierceness and a series of explosions (some figurative, some not). In choosing <i>Knockout</i> as one of their best books of the summer, <i>Entertainment Weekly</i> noted that the "third Sarah MacLean makes righteous female rage oh-so-sexy and empowering. Her books have always buzzed with a feminist undercurrent, but she devours misogyny and sets fire to the patriarchy with her latest.” <i>Publishers Weekly </i>notes, "It’s a joy to revisit the Hell’s Belles; series fans and new readers alike will get a kick out of Imogen’s time in the spotlight." You can purchase the book on <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/knockout-a-hell-s-belles-novel-sarah-maclean/19257883" target="_blank">Bookshop</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Knockout-Hells-Belles-Novel/dp/0063056798/" target="_blank">Amazon</a> and find out more about MacLean and the Hell's Belles series on her <a href="https://www.sarahmaclean.net" target="_blank">website.</a> <i>(8.22.23)</i><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGgrWFNnEHrKYG8zledj7jV6ccts_kQ-LW-nr6rE1_DP7ZmFyXBPsBzZSLhgxEDPjlGlwj2dimzWSi5ytysD0IHQVDEgC9JNqATpnplRi3hbyesfPIOfdmergqUOexZXbi4PUXrFMksCNVLK95ml0Kyt5B-Y7gkzEJWq2mVVY-uLTAvwDmjbs8pKsv0LMj/s746/Screen%20Shot%202023-08-27%20at%2010.24.32%20PM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="746" data-original-width="490" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGgrWFNnEHrKYG8zledj7jV6ccts_kQ-LW-nr6rE1_DP7ZmFyXBPsBzZSLhgxEDPjlGlwj2dimzWSi5ytysD0IHQVDEgC9JNqATpnplRi3hbyesfPIOfdmergqUOexZXbi4PUXrFMksCNVLK95ml0Kyt5B-Y7gkzEJWq2mVVY-uLTAvwDmjbs8pKsv0LMj/w131-h200/Screen%20Shot%202023-08-27%20at%2010.24.32%20PM.png" width="131" /></a></div>Alyssa Maxwell, <i>Murder at the Elms</i>: </b>Alyssa Maxwell revisits turn-of-the-century Newport, Rhode Island with a new novel every August, and I'm one of the myriad readers who are glad she does. Each of her Gilded Newport novels centers on one of the town's "cottages" (by which is meant, enormous opulent mansions). This time around it's the Elms, a huge but elegant home inspired by French chateaux and built for coal magnate Edward Julius Berwind. The stately serenity of the home's design makes the perfect foil for the labor disputes, jewelry theft and murder that drive the mystery plot, and the Berwinds among other historical figures make convincing appearances. As always, Maxwell builds an intriguing plot from thoughtful historical research; on a lighter note, series fans will enjoy seeing journalist-sleuth Emma Cross now married to her longtime beau Derrick Andrews. <i>Kirkus</i> sums it up: "Combining mystery with real-life personalities from the Gilded Age makes for an entertaining and informative read." Purchase the novel at <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/murder-at-the-elms-alyssa-maxwell/19241133" target="_blank">Bookshop</a> or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Elms-Gilded-Newport-Mystery/dp/1496736192" target="_blank">Amazon</a> and discover more about Maxwell, this series, and her Lady's Maid series on her <a href="https://www.alyssamaxwell.com" target="_blank">website</a>. <i>(8.22.23)</i></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-57349108593060397792023-08-18T22:36:00.002-04:002023-08-28T11:54:32.613-04:00NEW THIS WEEK: August 15, 2023<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoWnf1yrogymKag4ndkNuMO5Tn2QtXsUKXZmbv1lwNH4KU_8uneliS6Mmekk7IFuRFEsoS_5E2HP50XVWonPFbs6SXoiI03zjwfKlA8H35j6pRA8jyma4RaNUcmy5CzJv3KRj7MJMMHW-4gq5_2m7uROm0Rk84hp6EvmVVv8miojUGkGOymx6Dqneu5hG9/s453/vampires.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="453" data-original-width="300" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoWnf1yrogymKag4ndkNuMO5Tn2QtXsUKXZmbv1lwNH4KU_8uneliS6Mmekk7IFuRFEsoS_5E2HP50XVWonPFbs6SXoiI03zjwfKlA8H35j6pRA8jyma4RaNUcmy5CzJv3KRj7MJMMHW-4gq5_2m7uROm0Rk84hp6EvmVVv8miojUGkGOymx6Dqneu5hG9/w133-h200/vampires.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>Isabel Cañas, V<i>ampires of El Norte</i>: </b>Set in the Rio Grande Valley in the 1840s, Cañas' second novel is an electrifying blend of horror and history. Among the book's many strengths is its brilliant exploration of monstrosity, which appears in both supernatural form and in the all too human oppression human beings visit on each other both individually and collectively; tellingly, the latter feels more damaging than the former. Cañas' book is at once a romance, a war narrative, a horror story, and an indictment of colonialism, strikingly different types of narratives she interweaves flawlessly. This is an immersive and original book. Its predecessor, <i>The Hacienda, </i>is also excellent. An added shout-out goes to Vi-An Nguyen's suitably dramatic jacket design, one of my favorite works of cover art this year and a creation that conveys the distinction and drama of Cañas' tale. You can purchase the book on <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/vampires-of-el-norte-isabel-canas/19378100" target="_blank">Bookshop</a> or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0593436725" target="_blank">Amazon</a> and find out more about the author and her work on her <a href="https://www.isabelcanas.com">website</a>. <i>(8.15.23) </i>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-39893262255619924342023-05-21T18:36:00.011-04:002023-05-21T20:30:18.366-04:00So19 Interviews: ALIS HAWKINS on A BITTER REMEDY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOSnPwxOBRseXCVeSoRFXaqHEoMexG281QyjyC7CTj_zKNAE-XYHKw0886iUizywrvK4LYG45ynjD6BDPWnorOKbjOlufY1DgE2Xq5LCsIR4q3CiMSaneimsUXt4BFMLvgAuxO1IHcZUk_-zjsLMdDqxWoqMArURBJRfxSxlxO6OtgKDHZlAmkbPjg3Q/s2835/ABitterRemedycover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2835" data-original-width="1842" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOSnPwxOBRseXCVeSoRFXaqHEoMexG281QyjyC7CTj_zKNAE-XYHKw0886iUizywrvK4LYG45ynjD6BDPWnorOKbjOlufY1DgE2Xq5LCsIR4q3CiMSaneimsUXt4BFMLvgAuxO1IHcZUk_-zjsLMdDqxWoqMArURBJRfxSxlxO6OtgKDHZlAmkbPjg3Q/s320/ABitterRemedycover.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>I love Alis Hawkins' Teifi Valley Coroner historical crime series featuring partially-sighted ex-barrister Harry Probert-Lloyd and his "chippy" assistant, John Davies. So I was delighted to see that she has a new series set in Oxford University and to talk to her about <i>A Bitter Remedy</i>, which was published by Canelo in March 2023 and introduces readers to young Welsh polymath Rhiannon Vaughan and Oxford don Basil Rice. Alis grew up in Ceredigion in west Wales and currently lives on the Welsh-English border. The Teifi Valley series is set in the area in which she grew up and has twice been shortlisted for the prestigious CWA Historical Dagger award. You can buy the book on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Bitter-Remedy-compelling-historical-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0BHH9WW72/" target="_blank">Amazon US</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bitter-Remedy-compelling-historical-Mysteries/dp/1800328575/" target="_blank">Amazon UK</a> and find out more about Alis on her <a href="https://alishawkins.co.uk" target="_blank">website</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/Alis_Hawkins" target="_blank">Twitter, </a> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/alishawkinsauthor/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AlisHawkinsAuthor/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> page. All that said, here's our conversation. <i>—Suzanne Fox</i><div><div><br /><b>Q. I was fascinated to see that your first novel also dealt with a university, though in a different fashion and time period(s). I see that you attended Oxford; could you talk a bit about why the university setting appeals to you as a fictional world—what possibilities for themes, tensions, or plots it offers?</b><br /><br />I had great fun in <i>Testament </i>inventing my own fictional university city—a third medieval university to go alongside Oxford and Cambridge. I called the city Salster and gave my fictional college an exciting backstory as a hotbed of Lollard (early Protestant) heretics! <span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br />Writing about a real city like Oxford is obviously a much bigger challenge and it was set for me by my publishers. They’d realized that I have a bit of a habit of writing about places which are important to me (the settings in my Teifi Valley Coroner books are all real places) so when we were discussing the possibility of my writing a new series with a female protagonist, they suggested Oxford as the setting. <br /><br />Now, for me, if you’re going to write historical crime fiction with a female protagonist, set in Oxford, there’s only one timeframe that’s going to interest you—the early 1880s at the beginning of the women’s college movement. That time and place ensures that your novel has a rich background of gender politics, first wave feminism, women’s suffrage campaigning, and opposition to female higher education. Perfect for creating the kind of conflict that’s meat and drink to a novelist.<br /><br />Enter my protagonist, Rhiannon ‘Non’ Vaughan, a young polymath from West Wales (from the Teifi Valley in fact, I just can’t help myself…) who’s come to Oxford to attend lectures. She hates the gender roles assigned to her by conventional, middle-class Oxford and rebels in every way she feels she can get away with, including getting embroiled in the investigation of the suspicious death of an undergraduate. In this, she works with her friend, Basil Rice who as well as being a Jesus College don, is a closeted gay man who has battles of his own to fight, not to mention secrets to keep.<br /><br /><b>Q. Your Teifi Valley stories take place in Wales. What inspired you to move countries, character types and milieus for this new novel?</b><br /><br />I’d written five novels in a row with young men as the main protagonists (the four Teifi Valley Coroner books and my Black Death psychological thriller, <i>The Black and the White</i>) and I was keen to write from the point of view of a female protagonist for a change. As I mentioned above, my publishers suggested Oxford and the rest, as they say, is history!<br /><br /><b>Q. The United Kingdom (and of course the world) changed so much between the1850s of the Teifi Valley novels and the 1880s of this one. Why did you choose 1881 as the focus for this series debut?</b><br /><br />The first two female halls, Somerville and Lady Margaret Hall, which eventually became constituent colleges of Oxford University, were both set up in 1879 so that young women could take advantage of the lecture series called ‘Lectures for Ladies’ which took place outside the University. Women weren’t admitted to lectures in the men-only colleges until a couple of years later and, because I knew I wanted to start the book with an argument between Non and preening undergraduate, I had to wait until it would be plausible for her to be in a college for a lecture!<br /><br />The beginnings of the women’s college movement were incredibly tentative with the organization that was eventually responsible for getting women admitted to full membership of the University of Oxford—the Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women in Oxford—playing a complex game of political chess with the University hierarchy, public opinion and the parents of clever middle-class girls who were keen to get a university education. And any kind of tension and conflict is great for crime novels.<br /><br /><b>Q. Oxford was, and I imagine still may be, a bastion of British intellectual, cultural, social, and even financial power. I loved the fact that Basil and Non are both part of Oxford and yet also outsiders there, marginalized—whether visibly or not—by some aspect of their identities. Could you talk a bit about how you developed their characters?</b><br /><br />Oh gosh, that’s a tough question. All the ‘how to write’ books tell you to plan your plots so that you know where your books are going, and draw up detailed character sketches so that you know your characters in depth are before you start, but I don’t do either of those things. I let the story develop as I write, and I wait for the characters to reveal themselves to me through their words, actions and reactions. <br /><br />Both Non and Basil leapt into life in their first scenes as if they were just waiting in the ether (or my subconscious) for me to discover them. That being said, both the ether and my subconscious are always full of ideas from all the research I’ve done, so some aspects of their characters arise from the historical context they live in. But your subconscious is also full of all the people you’ve ever known, with all their little inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies, and it’s that soup of research and lived experience from which your characters come. In an event I did recently, I likened it to the web of thoughts Dumbledore pulls from his head with the magical Pensieve—it’s all in there, you just need to draw it out and put it down on paper. Well, onscreen, actually.<br /><br />But, even before I started, I knew Non was going to be a feisty, rebellious, opinionated character who kicks against all the restrictions of middle-class Oxford life. Everything from having to wear certain sorts of clothes (she refuses to be corseted or to wear the pounds and pounds of underskirts that women wore in the 1880s to hide the fact that they had a lower anatomy) to being barred from lectures unless you were chaperoned! Part of Non’s personality arises from the fact that, unlike the other women who’ve come to Oxford to attend lectures, she hasn’t grown up in a middle class environment in England. She’s the only child of a sea captain who runs a coal boat up and down Cardigan Bay and, as such, she’s been allowed a lot of freedom, including the freedom to work as a deck hand on her father’s ship. That means that her experience of being a woman is very different from that of the genteel, respectable, middle class women she meets in Oxford and she has no interest in becoming one of them.<br /><br />As for Basil, he’s apparently much more in his element: an establishment man from a middle class family who was an undergraduate at Jesus college and is now a fellow at the same college. But he doesn’t feel comfortable in his own skin because he’s gay, which of course he has to keep secret. This means that he is on edge a lot of the time, hiding who he really is and trying to curry favor with people so that, if any suspicions arise about him, he will have allies to fight his corner. And this is what leads him to investigate Sidney Parker’s death—he feels he has to remain in good odor with the Principal of Jesus college. And, to be fair to Basil, as the boy’s tutor, he does feel some responsibility for Parker’s fate.<br /><br /><b>Q. I can’t bring myself to do this interview without touching on the Victorian medicines and medical theory that your book evokes so brilliantly. But it’s all so mind-boggling I don’t even know what to ask. What can one ask but: WTH? Natter a bit as you please on that one!</b><br /><br />The patent remedy industry which looms large in <i>A Bitter Remedy</i> was something I came across when I was researching the fourth book in my previous series, and I could see that it was full of plot potential. Every contemporary newspaper was chock-full of adverts for all kinds of remedies that were—slightly improbably—supposed to cure everything from gout to acne, ‘lassitude’ to heart disease. They were the kind of questionable claims that that tend to be caught by our spam filters these days.<br /><br />For instance, the innocuous-sounding Godfrey’s Cordial was supposed to ‘cure all the family’s ills’ including teething and disturbed sleep in infants. Well, it would definitely put them to sleep because it contained opium. In fact, many patent remedies did as it was virtually the only drug known to be useful at the time in relieving pain and suppressing other symptoms, like a persistent cough. TB anyone?<br /><br />Of course, in the 1880s, Britain had no Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency to oversee the production and promotion of drugs, nor an Advertising Standards Agency to ensure that all adverts were ‘legal, decent, honest and truthful.’ And of course, there was no Trades Descriptions Act, so the patent remedy sellers—some of whom (falsely) claimed Royal endorsement—could make the most outrageous claims for their pills, potions and powders and get away with it. </div><div><br />Here’s just one example of many. </div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhodH6tWOEWdFGxLxVjTXfHq_KBjhqSis2bhDpDw5g9eDN5sRpYsPJpT0X2qMEUWQLWvxAjIbkQXIn4atUqQap86qSGEEJsqouaGQqpjKlBBqMXJ4hdwPsAO95eQbdpuqDI3DW-uCGWhL_oo8v-DbrnJd8S5X99ThIA2YqQSQq6_jb17WfhYH-fplkr5g/s3000/Hawkins%20hop%20bitters.v2.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2400" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhodH6tWOEWdFGxLxVjTXfHq_KBjhqSis2bhDpDw5g9eDN5sRpYsPJpT0X2qMEUWQLWvxAjIbkQXIn4atUqQap86qSGEEJsqouaGQqpjKlBBqMXJ4hdwPsAO95eQbdpuqDI3DW-uCGWhL_oo8v-DbrnJd8S5X99ThIA2YqQSQq6_jb17WfhYH-fplkr5g/w512-h640/Hawkins%20hop%20bitters.v2.png" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">HOP BITTERS advertisement, <br />reassembled by Society Nineteen from text as provided by Alis Hawkins<br />and bottle from Hop Bitters ad appearing in<br /><span style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://newspapers.library.in.gov/?a=d&d=THWG18810929.1.7&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------" target="_blank"><i>Terre Haute Weekly Gazette, </i>29 September 1881</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><div>Some adverts, fearing that people might become wise to their claims after a bit, began printing snippets from letters of recommendation to back up their claims, but—you’ve guessed it—nobody was checking whether these letters were genuine!<br /><br />And, of course, if you’re going to produce remedies, then the next step is making sure that the public knows about disorders that only your particular remedy can cure. This is a central feature in A Bitter Remedy in which the patent remedy plot turns on the existence of ‘spermatorrhoea’, a disease which, according to some of the pamphlets written about it, pretty well all men suffered from. What a marketing department’s dream…!<br /><br /><b>Q. Many of the places, institutions and traditions of 19th-century Oxford still exist. Did you visit the city as part of your research for the book? Were there any moments, or for that matter any other elements of your research, that were especially helpful in bringing the novel alive in your imagination? </b><br /><br />As part of my research I was lucky enough to have the help of college archivists at Somerville and Jesus College. I’m always worried that when I talk about archives, people have this image of something dry, dusty and uninteresting—lots of old papers that nobody cares about—but that hasn’t been my experience at all.<br /><br />The Somerville archivist was kind enough to give me access to letters written by the very first female students Oxford and, because they were writing to their parents and siblings, those letters provide a fascinataing insight into the everyday lives and preoccupations of those young women. One of the most interesting sets of letters was from an American in her early twenties called Frances Sheldon. The things she noticed as an outsider were exactly the kind of things I needed to know as an outsider from the twenty-first century. She talks about the weather and the dust that blows about when it’s dry, the beautiful flowers coming up in window boxes on the little terraced houses in Jericho, the current fashion among young men for striped rowing jackets (what we’d now call blazers) and red, blue or white floppy felt hats, and the sudden proliferation of all kinds of bicycles and tricycles which even women ride—‘isn’t that a step?’ She also talks about how much cheaper it is to live in lodgings rather than in Somerville itself, which was also very helpful as Non doesn’t live in one of the halls but with a landlady. <br /><br />The archivist at Jesus college was also extremely helpful, answering questions like ‘when were the stables at Jesus last used to house horses, and when were they demolished?’ (I needed to put a dead body somewhere and disused stables seemed ideal.) ‘How much Welsh was spoken in college in the 1880s?’ (Jesus was, and still is, to some extent, Oxford’s ‘Welsh’ college.) ‘When was the main quad laid to grass rather than gravel?’ (In the official history of Jesus College, two dates are given and I wanted to know which was correct.) </div><div><br /></div><div>He was also kind enough to suggest a biography of the nineteenth century Principal of the college, Dr. D.H. Harper, who features in the book, and sent me scanned copies of some of the college’s official archives—governing body meetings where they talked about student discipline for example so that I could see some of the things the young men got up to. <br /><br /><b>Q. What are you working on currently—any new projects or news you’d like to share?</b><br /><br /><i>A Bitter Remedy</i> is the first in the Oxford Mysteries series. I’m currently working on the second book in the series. It as its background the spread of a scandalous and revolutionary organization called the Salvation Army (seriously, it was seen as absolutely shocking in its tactics when it was founded) and the opposition which sprang up to it in the form of the Skeleton Army. Any kind of conflict potentially leads to violence—this conflict regularly did—and that’s a great backdrop to murder…</div></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGc1P6a7rMIMPPl9mYdJvMAxksbbcm1YXur-kxuq_A2kJmxLMHRFhr4NsfOaWQw_Wnw2CmOigxH5Tm3tCAbjRHLZnd4tYznmCc5gdMg4c-RYbF17Ts1Jjqzdacvek1Y9lmkwDPXQmaphO-jslGdaXoY_VRhDbKupNra6L-ZY9mZ3J-xMrbAuBX-pT14Q/s3000/Hawkins%20hop%20bitters%20oxford.v2.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2400" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGc1P6a7rMIMPPl9mYdJvMAxksbbcm1YXur-kxuq_A2kJmxLMHRFhr4NsfOaWQw_Wnw2CmOigxH5Tm3tCAbjRHLZnd4tYznmCc5gdMg4c-RYbF17Ts1Jjqzdacvek1Y9lmkwDPXQmaphO-jslGdaXoY_VRhDbKupNra6L-ZY9mZ3J-xMrbAuBX-pT14Q/w512-h640/Hawkins%20hop%20bitters%20oxford.v2.png" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;">TOP: Somerville College, Oxford, in 1903,</span><br style="text-align: start;" /><span style="text-align: start;">courtesy of <i>Alden's Oxford Guide</i>, 1093, </span><span style="text-align: start;">via an Internet Archive version<br />of a copy in St. Michael's College Toronto </span><span style="text-align: start;">as shared by the </span><a href="https://victorianweb.org/art/architecture/oxford/somerville/1.html" style="text-align: start;">Victorian Web.</a><br />BOTTOM: Jesus College, Oxford, in 1837, courtesy of <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jesus_College_engraving_quadrangle_1837.JPG" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-7975226173407630062023-03-20T10:57:00.008-04:002023-03-20T11:22:50.326-04:00So19 Interviews: CHRIS NICKSON on the SIMON WESTOW MYSTERIES<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzyHD92cgNGH6gQIp2H7zWOTVYqkKPkli5vV2Rnap_n3JnYpneK_HfKSFwj_zw7xqEzZLHCXqgg9IL6oblxzMtCFi2yxGchuf1vQp3gCw4gHOZ4YO3IOo7fDZtBCo6JJSIkfuIpMhrm_hqMZTau8fHGnGG-8ocrQ5Hk0S9MrkMgn1umg3N3RHqUOp5Fg/s500/revised-dead-will-rise-the-2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="321" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzyHD92cgNGH6gQIp2H7zWOTVYqkKPkli5vV2Rnap_n3JnYpneK_HfKSFwj_zw7xqEzZLHCXqgg9IL6oblxzMtCFi2yxGchuf1vQp3gCw4gHOZ4YO3IOo7fDZtBCo6JJSIkfuIpMhrm_hqMZTau8fHGnGG-8ocrQ5Hk0S9MrkMgn1umg3N3RHqUOp5Fg/s320/revised-dead-will-rise-the-2.jpg" width="205" /></a></div>Chris Nickson will be familiar to So19 readers from our interviews on two of his Tom Harper novels, <i><a href="http://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2015/06/so19-talks-with-chris-nickson.html">Two Bronze Pennies</a></i> and <i><a href="https://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2020/03/so19-interview-chris-nickson-on-molten.html">The Molten City</a>. </i>The publication of his fifth Simon Westow mystery offers the chance to speak with him about a series set in the same city, but at a quite different time. Chris's first mystery series features Richard Nottingham, Constable of Leeds in the 1730s. Two books about 1950s private enquiry agent Dan Markham are also set in Leeds, as are the Tom Harper books and two Lottie Armstrong novels. It's clear that, as Chris says, Leeds is in his DNA. Find out more about Chris on his <a href="https://chrisnickson.co.uk" target="_blank">website</a> (which includes some great <a href="https://chrisnickson.co.uk/leeds-background-materials/" target="_blank">background materials on historic Leeds</a> as well as info on all of his books), <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisNickson2" target="_blank">Twitter page</a>, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/chrisnickson2/" target="_blank">Instagram.</a> Buy <i>The Dead Will Rise</i> on <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Will-Simon-Westow-mystery-ebook/dp/B0BFXCTM1H/" target="_blank">Amazon UK</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Will-Simon-Westow-mystery-ebook/dp/B0BFXCTM1H/" target="_blank">Amazon US</a>, and <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-dead-will-rise/18873940?ean=9781448310197" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>. With thanks to Chris for his time, here's our chat.</div><b><div><b><br /></b></div>Q. For those who aren’t yet familiar with you and your books, tell us a little about yourself.</b><br /><br />I write historical crime novels, mostly set in my hometown Leeds. I've always written, it seems, and for a long time made my living as a music journalist (while living in Seattle and after) and writing quickie unauthorized celebrity bios. All an excellent education for a novelist, it seems. <div><br />My passion for Leeds history began when I lived abroad, and remains now I'm back where I grew up. Thankfully. <span><a name='more'></a></span></div><div><br /><b>Q. We’ve spoken previously about your Tom Harper mysteries, the first of which opens in the 1890s. I’m excited to talk to you about your Simon Westow novels, which are set seventy years earlier. To start, tell us a little about the inspiration for this series. How and when did the idea for the series and its protagonist arise?</b><br /><br />Strangely, the idea rose from a phrase I came across in Robert Hughes' book, <i>The Fatal Shore</i>, about transporting convicts to Australia. The “hanging psalm.” I loved that. I'd been considering something with a thief-taker, and from there it fell into place.<br /><br /><b>Q. Talk a little about Leeds in the 1820s. Why did you choose to focus on that particular decade—what possibilities for mysteries, or just for fictional tensions, did it offer? </b><br /><br />The 1820s saw the Industrial Revolution in full swing here. Manufactories and workshops all over town. The start of the machine age, when there was plenty of innovation. But in many ways it was like the London Dickens described. Awful poverty, plenty of street children, starvation. That offers plenty of possibilities. A wider gap between rich and poor than in the time of my Richard Nottingham books, and a larger population—from six of seven thousand to well over 30,000. A place where faces were easily lost. It marked a good mid-point between Richard Nottingham and Tom Harper. It was also a time before Leeds had a real police force, just the night watch, ward inspectors and a chief—not good or efficient.<br /><br /><b>Q. Could you talk about one or two of the places in Leeds—streets, buildings, other structures—that still exist from this period and helped you imagine the novels’ world?</b><br /><br />There's so much in the way to streets that have remained unchanged for centuries in the city centre, at least in the layout, if not the buildings. Commercial Street was built at the start of the 1800s, and if you look up, you can see what the buildings were like, including the Leeds Library, the oldest subscription library in the UK, which has been in the same spot since 1808. And tiny streets like Green Dragon Yard and Butts Court still exist. Pitfall remains, a very short block running from The Calls down to the river like Leeds Bridge. That history is still all around me.<br /><br /><b>Q. Simon Westow, your protagonist, is a “thief-taker.” Could you talk a little about that job and how its characteristics—for example, the focus on missing property, the contact with those wealthy enough to pay personally for its return, or the lack of formal organizational structures that were instituted in later policing—open up story possibilities?</b><br /><br />Thief-takers were real, pretty much a cross between bounty hunters and private detectives in a country that didn't have an organized police force—outside the Bow Street Runners in London, who were the Scotland Yard of their day. Towns and cities had the night watch, led by a few inspectors and a constable. But the pair was terrible, so the quality was poor. Plenty of capital offences—around 200 on the statute books, although many of those convicted receive reprieves. <br /><br />When someone was robbed, or had a theft, they could put an advertisement in the local paper, offering a reward for the return on the items. A thief-taker would start hunting. If successful, they'd receive a fee. If the item didn't meet the threshold for a felony prosecution, the victim could take the offender to court at their own expense. No real incentive to pursue that.<br /><br />A number of thief-takers worked with thieves and developed a racket. Inevitable, really. Some ended up in prison and transported themselves. They existed in that murky area between crime and the law.<br /><br /><b>Q. A number of strong mystery series set in Regency England focus on aristocratic sleuths and milieus. In contrast, you gave both Simon Westow and his assistant Jane painfully insecure and impoverished backgrounds; in addition, the series as a whole explores the poverty and inequities of this period with searing vividness. Talk to us about that decision and/or task.</b><br /><br />I know nothing of the aristocracy or those with money. Leeds had a very small core of what might be called society, but that was focused more in the county, the rural areas, rather than a smoky, stinking town. <br /><br />I've always related more to the have-nots; I'm not sure why. Simon is a self-made man, living off his wits after a workhouse childhood. He understands poverty, he's lived it. It's natural that his sympathies would be with the poor and helpless. This was a time when the government was fearful. They passed the Six Acts, they'd clamped down on the Luddites, there had been the Cato Street conspiracy.<br /><br />Yet at the same time, there was an early commission into the way children were treated in factories. Spoiler: badly. Began work aged 6, worked 12 hours and more 6 days a week, were beaten and abused. Simon had worked his way up, but never forgotten where he began.<br /><br />My character Jane was raped by her father when she was eight, kicked out by her mother who'd rather have the security of a husband's wage. Learned to survive on the streets, with all that hardness that takes. These days we'd say she's on the spectrum, but she's learned to deal with things in her own way So she, too, has her sympathies.<br /><br /><b>Q. Simon’s assistant, Jane, is complex and fascinating. She’s as capable and resourceful as Tom Harper’s wife Annabelle, to name another strong woman in your writing, yet the two are also strikingly different. Could you talk about her character and how it’s developed? </b><br /><br />I don't know where Jane came from, but then I don't know how Annabelle appeared, either. I prefer to think I'm channeling them rather than creating them. The North has strong women, I've seen them all my life, so maybe it's natural that the characters are that way. In her own fashion, my mother was strong. Jane is extreme, more out of circumstance than anything. With a shawl over her head, she disappears into a crowd, she can follow without being seen. In a way, that's a comment on how society sees women, even today. But also that the shawl was ubiquitous for working-class women.<br /><br />In the books, Jane has finally found a home with Mrs. Shields, an old woman who lives in a semi-hidden place, an oasis of sorts, an idyll. She can finally relax and open up. She's learned to read and write, and she's devouring books. She'd learning numbers, things we take for granted, but weren't back then. She's growing up, yet still as deadly as before when she needs to be. I won't say more because I don't want to give too much away.<br /><br />But, like Annabelle in the Tom Harper books, she's the linchpin of the series. She's the one who has my heart.<br /><br />Q. The gripping plot of the just-published latest installment, The Dead Will Rise—the recipient of another of your well-deserved starred reviews from Publishers Weekly—finds a grieving father hiring Westow to locate a most unusual item. Could you give those who haven’t read it yet a bit of a preview?<br /><br />Until the Anatomy Act of 1832, the supply of bodies for medical students to practice dissection were very, very limited, not even a dozen in a year. There was a demand from students and professors and medical schools and anatomy schools, so there was profit in supplying them. The recently dead were sometimes dug up and supplied. Sent in boxes on coaches, remarkably. It was a good, if gruesome, living for some. And pretty safe. Bodies weren't property, so if a body-snatcher was caught, it was only a misdemeanor, which meant a few weeks or months in prison, at most. People began taking precautions to keep their dead relatives in the ground. Some, like Burke and Hare in Scotland, went too far, and began murdering to increase the supply, but they were probably rare. <br /><br />Simon is approached by a young engineer who's doing well to try and recover the body of a man who works for him. It's something new; he's used to dealing with things, not dead people. But as he starts to investigate, he learns that the gang have taken more than one body…bringing them to justice is going to been a brutal, deadly fight.<br /><br /><b>Q. Sadly for readers, your Tom Harper series is coming to a close with the next book…can we hope for more Simon Westows in the future? </b><br /><br />I sincerely hope so. I'm awaiting a decision from the publisher on the next one, which they've indicated they'll take, though I've yet to hear a confirmation. It's a very dark book. Very dark indeed. And I have faint plans for another to follow that, too. I'll miss Tom and Annabelle and Mary, all of them, but it was time…Simon and Jane and Rosie still have a path ahead of them, I believe. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIXRzT6uaBX27ZZfb-2IxO_w6tevOL_JoDjUUIpzFyPlUfnnYzlSH_22q60mlen26_0y1VlK_EyhbMZQYMUO9pRDPoL8fMDht6wpIvMjCMKy3agpgYrSJXXjozfe9iDTxmv7rtGT4JqgDO9xaT4c1437A7wcoujx6G4MmCjsUUmtCCG23GTfGqoaUpkg/s2560/flickrcc.tim%20green.Pitfall%20Str%20%20Leeds,%20near%20Leeds%20Bridge.2118513722_5b67bdfbe7_o.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="2560" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIXRzT6uaBX27ZZfb-2IxO_w6tevOL_JoDjUUIpzFyPlUfnnYzlSH_22q60mlen26_0y1VlK_EyhbMZQYMUO9pRDPoL8fMDht6wpIvMjCMKy3agpgYrSJXXjozfe9iDTxmv7rtGT4JqgDO9xaT4c1437A7wcoujx6G4MmCjsUUmtCCG23GTfGqoaUpkg/w400-h300/flickrcc.tim%20green.Pitfall%20Str%20%20Leeds,%20near%20Leeds%20Bridge.2118513722_5b67bdfbe7_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/atoach/2118513722/in/album-72157602785930748/" target="_blank">Pitfall Street, Leeds by Tim Green, 2007.</a><br />Creative Commons 2.0 image via Flickr.com</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /><br /> </div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-60719245335409764282023-01-10T21:10:00.005-05:002023-02-04T14:37:32.842-05:00Appearing this week: Kai Thomas' IN THE UPPER COUNTRY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJswPs-d3NvT4HS1VeoL9zbmn26pR_DDLjE931Z0UQBOfsemdLnWSJfuz1zFy0wLdK_HWZg2USzcXfngABcCsOilTpYACJzBhwWvFKKXux6dhzkJ59Is-38lnD2WLM-fD04iMlGUdmBsCUFG7UCUdCltxcyx42FmUfT_KqLQ9i663El8YTBpGEjDgt-w/s1088/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-26%20at%207.46.19%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1088" data-original-width="718" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJswPs-d3NvT4HS1VeoL9zbmn26pR_DDLjE931Z0UQBOfsemdLnWSJfuz1zFy0wLdK_HWZg2USzcXfngABcCsOilTpYACJzBhwWvFKKXux6dhzkJ59Is-38lnD2WLM-fD04iMlGUdmBsCUFG7UCUdCltxcyx42FmUfT_KqLQ9i663El8YTBpGEjDgt-w/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-26%20at%207.46.19%20PM.png" width="211" /></a></div><br />Very nice to see Kai Thomas's luminous In the Upper Country appear from Viking today. Check out our <a href="https://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2022/10/so19-previews-kai-thomass-in-upper.html">preview</a> of the book and, if you can, <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/90674-canadian-crossroads-pw-talks-with-kai-thomas.html" target="_blank">my conversation with Kai </a>in <i>Publishers Weekly</i>. <div><br /></div><div><br /><div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-48068575038862134052022-10-27T17:17:00.010-04:002023-02-04T14:37:56.156-05:00So19 Reviews: CLARA McKENNA'S MURDER AT THE MAJESTIC HOTEL<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibV3Ri_4jVJWa1YToGLxHZwfTmziz4aZ-J_X2t3Z0G6_85ZQ6svTGQ3iO46vGnIZk7taFdLHzOI6y6-X_mUqG9ssQBVuJyNAGMvCUxEzQp_WdPuBL1PRplrKwt6BO7dfU5QhStat1SKt8nQ-CvnwMY3qJ91om8vLPKbo54wm4MmZkaNDLaIbyK-BYrKA/s1066/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-27%20at%202.03.06%20PM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="1066" data-original-width="718" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibV3Ri_4jVJWa1YToGLxHZwfTmziz4aZ-J_X2t3Z0G6_85ZQ6svTGQ3iO46vGnIZk7taFdLHzOI6y6-X_mUqG9ssQBVuJyNAGMvCUxEzQp_WdPuBL1PRplrKwt6BO7dfU5QhStat1SKt8nQ-CvnwMY3qJ91om8vLPKbo54wm4MmZkaNDLaIbyK-BYrKA/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-27%20at%202.03.06%20PM.png" width="216" /></i></a></div>Clara McKenna's fourth Stella and Lyndy mystery appears this week from Kensington, and true to the series generally it's lively, well-plotted, and full of vivid period detail. This installment opens a day after the autumn 1905 wedding of the American heiress and British peer, who arrive at York's luxurious Majestic Hotel expecting a leisurely visit. To their consternation, the honeymoon suite they booked weeks before is occupied by confectionary king Horace Wingrove, who has persuaded his way into the booking with a sentimental story, a box of chocolates and a bribe. The newlyweds settle into the Royal Suite across the hall only to be awakened the next morning by the shrieks of the chambermaid who has just discovered Wingrove's strangely ruddy corpse. The ins and outs of the Majestic's heating system, the disappearance of the recipe for Wingrove's most popular chocolate, and a ceremonial visit to York by one of Queen Victoria's granddaughters all factor into the mystery, which is further complicated by some of the couple's quirky relations. Yorkshire's historic appeal is well depicted, but the new technologies such as telephones and electric lights are also given their due; Wingrove's business and products are inspired by the era's real Yorkshire-based confectionary companies, while a dangerous plot targeting Princess Ena reflects real threats to royalty, including Ena herself, during the period. Enriched by these turn-of-the-century issues, <i>Murder at the Majestic Hotel</i> is a fun cozy read for those chilly fall nights...but do make sure you have plenty of good chocolate at your side before you begin to read. You can buy the book on <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/murder-at-the-majestic-hotel/18846563?ean=9781496738189" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1496738187/" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, and <a href="https://www.indiebound.org" target="_blank">your local bookstore</a> and find out more about Clara on her <a href="http://www.claramckenna.com/index.html" target="_blank">website</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/claramckennaauthor" target="_blank">Facebook page,</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/claramckennaauthor/" target="_blank">Instagram</a>.<p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJO8dE0gkXxUpHx4gH5jstnbhc39dfy4cPtkkTEMWHddlvXzmSqTj3dKg1n_H4WbdDjzFp6JS8CUSmCb8Bzi_NK_LH4XWOPA7RohSHQL25ST7joheTJ0gY-q4WIBEqITBkS1tJVRLZL-i63QiD-PeXDdXiFiPTWMvYhHUS3U13RjZvyMVkqol_cZDcRQ/s1140/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-27%20at%205.07.21%20PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1140" data-original-width="844" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJO8dE0gkXxUpHx4gH5jstnbhc39dfy4cPtkkTEMWHddlvXzmSqTj3dKg1n_H4WbdDjzFp6JS8CUSmCb8Bzi_NK_LH4XWOPA7RohSHQL25ST7joheTJ0gY-q4WIBEqITBkS1tJVRLZL-i63QiD-PeXDdXiFiPTWMvYhHUS3U13RjZvyMVkqol_cZDcRQ/w296-h400/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-27%20at%205.07.21%20PM.png" width="296" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A contemporary image of a street, in York's Petergate<br />district, much like the view on the novel's cover.<br />Courtesy of <a href="https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/low-petergate-in-city-of-york-gm1301033200-393184033?phrase=Petergate%20York%20UK#" target="_blank">Alex McGregor, iStock Photo</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLl7QqUF2hAuvQTxKhUdH-T8V-glwRnvOK2z4wV904dTemN--qpUDM7ni_bzqIBwtbSO5Js8jWikeJYcgFTOQGrD0aywod5tAhnODpx0KTqgjOxIASeQMBjgdMLAb1zy5cJ6NAnLESH4mWFioK-o-26RZZmFeXGSZLiFaAgZ-gyBX_2nWj7vPGCevKKA/s828/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-27%20at%205.15.40%20PM.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="828" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLl7QqUF2hAuvQTxKhUdH-T8V-glwRnvOK2z4wV904dTemN--qpUDM7ni_bzqIBwtbSO5Js8jWikeJYcgFTOQGrD0aywod5tAhnODpx0KTqgjOxIASeQMBjgdMLAb1zy5cJ6NAnLESH4mWFioK-o-26RZZmFeXGSZLiFaAgZ-gyBX_2nWj7vPGCevKKA/w400-h260/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-27%20at%205.15.40%20PM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">York Minster features prominently in the story. <br />Engraving of York Cathedral by William Martin courtesy of the <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1958-0124-2" target="_blank">British Library</a>.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-23295144691052119122022-10-26T18:44:00.009-04:002022-10-27T11:12:08.841-04:00So19 Interviews: BRIAN MARTIN on FROM UNDERGROUND RAILROAD TO REBEL REFUGE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh32UBYxloNUpAbaKykvwoXC4hbBr0QcnDZoqSWyvIIAPK4PAps-EF3ZkWgHhZhull5_ShlL4WZ0HxfDnsprL5JCn88GBjfGTXis-z-OjtqgOQi5Ed3TppfvF8z0KDXVS2JGeiM38rxipmAU3g4irj86WCye0l4Y-EyOxriB18fMnsVLa3estPxtJbO4Q/s604/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-26%20at%205.53.37%20PM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh32UBYxloNUpAbaKykvwoXC4hbBr0QcnDZoqSWyvIIAPK4PAps-EF3ZkWgHhZhull5_ShlL4WZ0HxfDnsprL5JCn88GBjfGTXis-z-OjtqgOQi5Ed3TppfvF8z0KDXVS2JGeiM38rxipmAU3g4irj86WCye0l4Y-EyOxriB18fMnsVLa3estPxtJbO4Q/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-26%20at%205.53.37%20PM.png" width="212" /></a></div>Today I'm delighted to chat with <a href="https://ecwpress.com/products/from-underground-railroad-to-rebel-refuge?_pos=1&_sid=d1ea1fe62&_ss=r" target="_blank">Brian Martin</a> about his nonfiction book <i><a href="https://ecwpress.com/products/from-underground-railroad-to-rebel-refuge?_pos=1&_sid=d1ea1fe62&_ss=r" target="_blank">From Underground Railroad to Rebel Refuge: Canada and the Civil War</a></i>, published this week by our friends at the <a href="https://ecwpress.com/index" target="_blank">ECW Press</a>. Brian's book is a fascinating look at the people who crossed the Canadian border, moving in both directions, in the years before, during and after the Civil War. Combining detailed research with a flair for storytelling, Brian's book does full justice to its complex facts and colorful personalities. <i>From Underground Railroad to Rebel Refuge </i>amplified my understanding of the era, the war, and the meaningful, if also artificial, line of demarcation that is the U.S./Canada border. I was also moved by its broader evocation of the diverse ways in which people seek not only refuge, but places in which their particular talents and aspirations (whether admirable or not) can thrive. Like many strong works of history, the book is at once specific to a particular period and yet also timeless, speaking both to what changes and to what remains the same in the human experience.<div><br /></div><div>Brian Martin lives in London, Ontario, where he was a journalist for more than forty years, writing the stories of events and people across Southwestern Ontario. He has written ten books, two of them about true crimes, several biographies and baseball histories. During his journalism career, he sometimes wrote about the flight of enslaved Black persons to Southwestern Ontario and the communities they established. He only recently learned about the flight of former enslavers and Ku Klux Klan leaders who were among the Americans who found refuge in Canada. You follow Brian as <a href="https://www.facebook.com/chip.martin.581" target="_blank">Chip Martin on Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/ChipAtLarge" target="_blank">@ChipatLarge on Twitter</a> and buy the book on <a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/from-underground-railroad-to-rebel-refuge-canada-and-the-civil-war-brian-martin/18375824?ean=9781770416383" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Underground-Railroad-Rebel-Refuge-Canada/dp/1770416382/" target="_blank">Amazon U.S.</a> and its international sister sites, and <a href="https://www.indiebound.org" target="_blank">through your local bookstore</a>. All that said and with thanks to Brian for his kindness in speaking with me, here's our chat.</div><div><span></span><br /><b>Q. Tell us about the book’s inception and evolution.</b><br /><br />A friend in London who is an historian and an undertaker alerted me to the presence of more than a dozen headstones in a large London, Ontario cemetery in the city a bit more than two years ago. They were for prominent former citizens of South Carolina and their families. Two of those were members of the South Carolina legislature that voted to secede from the Union in late 1860, one of the triggers for the Civil War. These families also owned large plantations in the Charleston area that were worked by many enslaved persons. I was fascinated by their final resting place in Woodland Cemetery's “Millionaire’s Row” alongside the most prominent and wealthy families of London of the day. My research into that question prompted me to consider the bigger picture of migration to Canada before, during and after the Civil War, as well as the southbound traffic that also unfolded. The finished book is divided into three parts to address each of those aspects. <div><br /></div><div>Before the war, newcomers were primarily Black persons, both free and enslaved, who found new lives and freedom, primarily in Southwestern Ontario. During the war, London profited by selling to both sides of the conflict and its streets were filled with buyers, spies, plotters, and skedaddlers (draft dodgers) among others. After the war ended, former plantation owners like those buried in London were joined by Ku Klux Klan members. Confederate generals and others settled elsewhere, primarily in today’s Niagara-on-the-Lake. Former Confederate president Jefferson Davis lived in the Montreal area for a few years.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><div><br /><b>Q. Could you talk a bit about your research and writing process? </b><br /><br />My research invariably continues while I write in a bid to put more meat on the bone of my preliminary work. It was a bit more than a year between penning the first words and submitting my manuscript. I rely on books and historical documents I acquire or find online as well as online sources such as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com">Encyclopedia Britannica</a> and <a href="http://HistoryNet.com">HistoryNet.com</a>. The digitized papers on <a href="http://Newspapers.com">Newspapers.com</a> are invaluable for historical newspaper accounts.</div><div><br /></div><div>As I went along I found so many interesting characters that I decided to feature them prominently, rather than get bogged down in an academic-style treatment of events. As a journalist my favorite stories were always human interest ones. In a book like this, they bring history alive. </div><div><br /><b>Q. I’m embarrassed to say that I knew nothing about the Canadians who went to the States to fight in the Civil War until I interviewed Bob Kroll about another ECW publication, <i><a href="https://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2022/06/so19-interviews-bob-kroll-on-punishing.html" target="_blank">The Punishing Journey of Arthur Delaney</a></i>, earlier this year. I know it’s impossible to generalize, but could you give us a sense of some of the kinds of folks who made this choice, and why? </b><br /><br />No need to be embarrassed. There have been more than 60,000 books published about the Civil War, covering the events, leaders, battles, etc., but relatively few have addressed the flight of some 40,000 people who made their way north along the Underground Railroad or the roughly 20,000 Canadians who crossed the border to fight on both sides of the Civil War. </div><div><br /></div><div>The motives of that latter group were varied. Some wanted adventure, British soldiers sought greater pay and excitement in the Union Army, others wanted to practice medicine. Some Black men enlisted to fight for freedom for family members left behind. One woman was so determined to become a nurse for the North that she passed herself off as a man in order to do so. The extent of the southern migration is little known, even in Canada.<br /><br /><b>Q. As an American, I learned about the Underground Railroad but little about the lives of fugitive slaves after they found freedom in Canada. I wonder if you’d speak to that a bit: the kinds of places they ended up, the types of communities they built or settled in, the influence if any they had on Canadian culture and life?</b><br /><br />The roughly 40,000 Black men and women who fled slavery, as well as some formerly enslaved Black people who had already gained their freedom, decided to live either in communities they established on the fertile farmland of Southwestern Ontario, or in existing white communities. Those who chose to live in Black settlements had to first clear away the dense bush before beginning to farm. Others opted to integrate into existing communities in the southwestern part of Southwestern Ontario. That was a safe distance from Detroit, which was a major crossing point, although some, including Josiah Henson, crossed at Buffalo, to the east. </div><div><br /></div><div>I was familiar with the successful Black communities established in the area of Chatham, roughly midway between London and Detroit. The Elgin Settlement at Buxton was more successful than the one associated with Josiah Henson at Dresden. I was not aware, however, of the controversy among Black leaders about whether self-segregation or integration was their best course of action. I found that fascinating. Mary Ann Shadd, for instance, insisted on integration into existing communities, arguing that in the long term that would speed their integration into the wider Canadian society. Henson and others argued that establishing and operating Black settlements was the better option and would reduce the chance of friction with whites. Those who settled in predominantly white communities in significant numbers faced discrimination in education and work, unfortunately, but they persevered. About one third of the population of the town of Chatham consisted of Black people who faced some discrimination. But a Black school at Buxton was so good it attracted white children and led to the closure of a nearby all-white school. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's hard to assess the impact Black newcomers had on Canadian culture and life, to be honest. They were generally accepted and their lives were far better than the lives they left behind. Canadians are still trying to understand the impact of those who came to Canada expecting to find Canaan, the promised land. White settlers already in Canada could have done far better in welcoming and accepting them. And further study and books need to address that more fully than I was able to in my rather wide-ranging effort.<br /><br /><b>Q. I was fascinated to read that Canada also became a refuge for onetime Confederates and Ku Klux Klan members. Could you give readers a glimpse of the latter, including how these figures were received in Canadian communities?</b><br /><br />I learned about two leading members of the Ku Klux organization (not yet called the Klan) from northern South Carolina who were charged with murder and terrorism under Ku Klux Act of 1871. They were from the town of Yorkville (now called York). Both had served in the Confederate Army, one of them as a surgeon. The higher ranking man fled on horseback during his trial and made it to London, Ontario, before heading east to Niagara where Confederate generals had found safe haven after the war. The other, the surgeon, settled in London, where he became a well-liked doctor and high-ranking member of the Masons. Both men were well received in their communities, and both returned to the South when the political climate changed and whites were back in charge of South Carolina and other states by the end of Reconstruction. </div><div><br /></div><div>The departure of the doctor and his family after seven years in London prompted two large gatherings at which he was feted and his departure lamented. The former plantation owners were also accepted by London society, based on their burial amongst the city elite. I was troubled about the doctor’s stay in London and the “never mind about the murder of a Black man” mentality that apparently prevailed. But in its early days, this country needed newcomers and was generally tolerant. We accepted Black people, but also whites who killed and terrorized them.</div><div><br /><b>Q. The book is packed with such vivid and diverse historical figures. Are there one or two you found particularly intriguing?</b><br /><br />I loved the stories about the characters who deserted across the border at Niagara Falls, rather than stay and fight in the Civil War. But my favorite rogue is Bennett Young, the young Confederate who led the raid on St. Albans, Vermont, from Quebec. He announced from the front steps of his hotel in mid-afternoon that he was claiming the sleepy town for the Confederacy. Meanwhile, his associates robbed the bank and stole horses for their getaway. Young showed a remarkable amount of nerve in an act that has great cinematic possibilities. After the war, he returned to Kentucky where he was a prominent citizen and established Eastern Kentucky University. <br /><br /><b>Q. I’m hard-pressed to pick a favorite myself, but I certainly enjoyed “meeting” Josiah Henson, whose life helped inspire Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Could you talk briefly about the real Henson?</b><br /><br />I have been told by a couple of historians that I avoided the trap of overstating Henson’s accomplishments and character. He was a determined and successful man, but he was also rather vain and failed to provide the dynamic leadership needed by the Dawn Settlement at Dresden. Yes, he was received by Queen Victoria and by American President Rutherford B. Hayes, who recognized his contributions. The impact of Stowe’s book cannot be underestimated. It seems to have inspired Abraham Lincoln while he developed the Emancipation Proclamation. Stowe hinted that Henson was her model, but her story of Uncle Tom and his life is at odds with that of the real Henson, who himself wrote several autobiographies. <br /><br /><b>Q. If you had to sum up the role Canada played in the titanic struggle that took place just beyond its border, how would you describe that?</b><br /><br />Sometimes called "America's attic," Canada was a safe refuge during the troubled times of its great neighbor as the States grappled with slavery, war, and then the task of rebuilding a shattered nation. Because of its proximity and its need to attract newcomers, it was in a unique position to provide many things by Americans on both sides of the Civil War sought. But as I've mentioned, the border was also a two-way street. Given that only a few books have explored the stories of the people who crossed that divide and their reasons for doing so, I hope that my book will help open eyes on both sides of the border.<br /><br /><b>Q. What are you working on now? </b><br /><br />Thanks for asking. I'm 40,000 words into a book about a man known as Klondike Joe Boyle. He is a fascinating character who became wealthy during the Klondike Gold Rush and then tried, but failed, to bring his energy, creativity and drive to help the Canadian military during the First World War. </div><div><br /></div><div>Rejected as too old to serve in the army, he responded by raising, training and equipping a battalion of Yukon miners as a machine gun regiment to serve in the conflict. In response, Boyle was given the honorary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Canadian militia. Boyle then parlayed that ceremonial rank into action, working first with Americans, then with Russians and Romanians to keep the latter two countries in the Allied war effort by unsnarling their tangled transportation systems. He succeeded admirably and also managed to rescue the Crown jewels of Romania and its archives from Moscow, winning the gratitude and affection of the Queen of Romania, a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria. </div><div><br /></div><div>Boyle became an intimate of European royalty and worked with both the provisional Russian government and the Bolsheviks. He insisted on wearing a Canadian military uniform adorned with “Yukon” in gold despite his government telling him he was not authorized to wear a uniform or act as a regular army soldier. </div><div><br /></div><div>After the war, Boyle—who had served without pay—finally relented and reverted to civilian clothing. Upon being received by King George in England soon afterward, however, the king demanded to know why Boyle was in civilian dress. When Boyle explained, the king ordered him back into uniform, noting that if challenged by anyone, he should simply say that he was wearing it by direct order of the king himself. Soon afterward, George awarded him the DSO medal, an award intended for military officers. It was one of eight medals bestowed on Boyle for his service by four countries, England, France, Russia and Romania. </div><div><br /></div><div>In Canada, however, Boyle was considered a problem, because he wouldn’t follow orders or explain what he was doing during the war effort. He died, burned out, in England in 1923. Queen Marie of Romania provided the headstone, urn and flowers for his grave and ensured that the grave was tended for many years. In 1983, the Canadian government and military belatedly repatriated his remains to his hometown of Woodstock, Ontario. Sixty years after his death, Boyle finally received the honors befitting a national hero. The project doesn't have a publisher yet, but I'm looking forward to finding a house willing to help me share Joe Boyle's amazing true life story. </div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt -14.2pt; text-indent: 14.2pt;"><span style="color: #b0b86d; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt -14.2pt; text-indent: 14.2pt;"><span style="color: #b0c860; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNcGDS_O8u8XkdAfYNu0_VPzoIgnJ10J_9pKPMnZnNmfeRObv71QBJfKdPkpaxzviZt2kCTLIBceLi5w1joeirZCuRGBrgHnplEG7Y-DmRpF9DKpY288Z_re-wX_2fuvhhDSZP-jSa81DzWGDDAuTIO2ROXIhyvnwshXWtqIb780InFHWc06mM4Cx8sw/s2700/Underground%20Railroad%20map%20recolored%20with%20border.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="2700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNcGDS_O8u8XkdAfYNu0_VPzoIgnJ10J_9pKPMnZnNmfeRObv71QBJfKdPkpaxzviZt2kCTLIBceLi5w1joeirZCuRGBrgHnplEG7Y-DmRpF9DKpY288Z_re-wX_2fuvhhDSZP-jSa81DzWGDDAuTIO2ROXIhyvnwshXWtqIb780InFHWc06mM4Cx8sw/w640-h320/Underground%20Railroad%20map%20recolored%20with%20border.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span>"Underground" routes to Canada, showing the lines of travel of fugitive slaves. <br />Illustration to Wilbur Henry Siebert's 1898 book, <i>The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom.</i><br />Color-adjusted for clarity from <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/d64f0a80-4db6-0133-78eb-00505686d14e" target="_blank">original in the New York Public Library's Digital Collections</a>.</span></td></tr></tbody></table>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-84377869995634964962022-10-25T19:32:00.054-04:002022-10-26T20:00:15.855-04:00So19 Previews: Kai Thomas's IN THE UPPER COUNTRY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNpZIe72YCJvz6Kd5UAT6Y4KfrS2dDCuwrZRrNrgZAdqhWqjpXHkWIuEiLcO9fFQB7Mci77ISQzIJaXKIFGIkpi29ctGHBYnF6_OKqQ4kWRzP6N1w5_ebdNHpJ3oe-wD5wYWkkUjOifhOEvCBiNlfV1645HTXoAvnB6S_zrxU-VWRBwX5O_3fbbAKyiA/s1088/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-26%20at%207.46.19%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1088" data-original-width="718" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNpZIe72YCJvz6Kd5UAT6Y4KfrS2dDCuwrZRrNrgZAdqhWqjpXHkWIuEiLcO9fFQB7Mci77ISQzIJaXKIFGIkpi29ctGHBYnF6_OKqQ4kWRzP6N1w5_ebdNHpJ3oe-wD5wYWkkUjOifhOEvCBiNlfV1645HTXoAvnB6S_zrxU-VWRBwX5O_3fbbAKyiA/w211-h320/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-26%20at%207.46.19%20PM.png" width="211" /></a></div>I recently <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780593489505" target="_blank">reviewed Kai Thomas's excellent debut novel for <i>Publishers Weekly</i></a>, and had the additional pleasure of <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/90674-canadian-crossroads-pw-talks-with-kai-thomas.html" target="_blank">interviewing the author for the magazine</a>. (Some magazine contents are behind a paywall, so you may or may not be able to visit those links.) Appearing in January 2023, <i>In the Upper Country</i> probes freedom, family, and the interconnections between white, Black, and Indigenous communities in 1859 Canada. It centers on the meeting between Lensinda Martin, a reporter for the Coloured Canadian newspaper who lives in the Black village of Dunmore, and an elderly woman named Cash who arrives there via the Underground Railroad. As Cash and Lensinda talk, surprising links between their lives are revealed; the women’s own stories are enriched with threads involving Cash’s Indigenous husband, Black Canadians during the War of 1812, and the American enslaved people who have settled in Dunmore among others. Definitely worth putting on your list if you, like me, love striking prose, resonant women's stories, and nuanced depictions of the 19th century experience. Coincidentally, two recent So19 interviews also deal with books involving Canada and the Civil War; click on the book titles to read my chats with Bob Kroll, the author of the novel <a href="https://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2022/06/so19-interviews-bob-kroll-on-punishing.html" target="_blank"><i>The Punishing Journey of Arthur Delaney</i>,</a> and Brian Martin, whose nonfiction book is <i><a href="https://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2022/10/so19-interviews-brian-martin-on-from.html">From Underground Railroad to Rebel Refuge: Canada and the Civil War. </a></i>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-6673856597011815182022-06-10T11:12:00.059-04:002022-06-10T12:56:22.824-04:00So19 Interviews: BOB KROLL on THE PUNISHING JOURNEY OF ARTHUR DELANEY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5FRt7vkS3hhX8Rdtkz5ZoXp-gRkg4GDLvQSScadpbiRkcd5Trl8k4zVXkDOjhby2fn___5KNGBjFclilauIJ3Xb1-tyFtLFBWDMejAZVLZCIR8ebd_Qxs7idzmeuc7QCLW3FF3ieyTy1mypPG1pSAGAjX4-ZpuWb3RLPnYSbUchYlaCOXekeAF_j1jw/s400/kroll.9781770416338.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="259" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5FRt7vkS3hhX8Rdtkz5ZoXp-gRkg4GDLvQSScadpbiRkcd5Trl8k4zVXkDOjhby2fn___5KNGBjFclilauIJ3Xb1-tyFtLFBWDMejAZVLZCIR8ebd_Qxs7idzmeuc7QCLW3FF3ieyTy1mypPG1pSAGAjX4-ZpuWb3RLPnYSbUchYlaCOXekeAF_j1jw/s320/kroll.9781770416338.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>I’m pleased to share a chat with Bob Kroll, whose <i>The Punishing Journey of Arthur Delaney </i>appeared from ECW Press on June 7, 2022. Inspired by a little-known 19th century court case, the novel concerns a Canadian man who places his three children in an orphanage after the death of his wife. (Though it may surprise us today, this wasn’t an unusual decision for 19th- and even some 20th-century widowers without relatives or servants who could raise their families.) Delaney fights for the Union in America’s Civil War, spends three subsequent years incarcerated as a prisoner of war, and then works his way back to Canada. His mission now is to find his children, but both they and the orphanage are gone. Kroll’s narrative captures the complexity of family bonds and the challenges that confront us as we try to repair—or even just face—the mistakes we’ve made in the past. I loved the novel’s rich characters, haunting evocation of the Canadian landscape, and nuanced portrait of 19th-century life. You can check out <i>The Punishing Journey of Arthur Delaney</i> as well as Bob's other ECW titles on the press's <a href="https://ecwpress.com/products/punishing-journey-of-arthur-delaney" target="_blank">website</a> and buy the book through your <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781770416338" target="_blank">local independent bookstore</a> and platforms including <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-punishing-journey-of-arthur-delaney/9781770416338" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Punishing-Journey-Arthur-Delaney-Novel/dp/1770416331" target="_blank">Amazon US</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Punishing-Journey-Arthur-Delaney-Novel/dp/1770416331" target="_blank">Amazon Canada</a>. With warm thanks to Bob for his time and ECW for its always-efficient coordination, here’s our conversation.<br /><br /><b>Q. You’ve written in many forms and genres over your decades as an author. Could you give readers some background on your career? </b><br /><br />I studied history at Providence College and at the University of New Brunswick. I worked on farms and in the woods until embarking on a forty-year writing career. I cut my teeth writing television and radio ads, as well as history-based radio dramas for the Canadian Broadcasting Company. I wrote shipwreck documentaries for the Discovery Channel and docudramas for Canadian and American museums. I’ve published two anecdotal histories with Nimbus Publishing and three contemporary crime novels with ECW Press.<br /><br />I realized years ago the one thing I could do reasonably well was write. For better or for worse, I stayed at it for a long time.<div><span><a name='more'></a></span><span></span><br /><br /><b>Q. What made you choose to write a historical novel set in the 19th century this time around? Did the process or the time period offer any surprises as you wrote?</b><br /><br />Since I was in elementary school, the past has been my escape from time and space. My first adult book was a biography of Wyatt Earp. What people did in years gone by and how they did it has long intrigued me, so much so that in 1972 and 1973 I lived a 19th Century life in the woods outside Woodstock, New Brunswick. No electricity. No running water. Kerosene lamps and wood heat. It was all backbone and gristle. No surprise that all these years later I jumped at the opportunity to set a novel in the late 19th century. The additional research was pure joy. <br /><br /><b>Q. Halifax and Canada’s Maritime provinces are the settings for so much of your work. Could you talk a bit about that?</b><br /><br />I arrived in the Maritimes in May, 1970, and, though I had a fellowship in the history department at the University of New Brunswick, spent the summer digging graves. I learned more from the old fellow I worked with than I did from four years as an undergraduate. The dead we buried had stories. Murdock took the time to learn them. As we sat on the edge of a grave, dangling our feet and eating lunch, he told me a lot of them.<br /><br />The Maritime provinces have a quiet beauty about them. I never tired of canoeing the region’s lakes and rivers or hiking its woodlands. And I have not tired of the people I met here—gentle mostly, yet nail hard when they needed to be. Of course the ocean, vast and incomprehensible, has its own inspiration. The North Atlantic can get wild at times, throwing against the shore the worst of hurricane wind and crashing seas. Twenty or thirty foot swells. Sometimes fifty. Such uncontrolled majesty, suddenly quelled to flat calm, like a sleeping child. If that doesn’t churn the imagination, nothing will. <br /><br />I love it here. I cannot help writing about these provinces and their people.<br /><br /><b>Q. Your Acknowledgments references Arthur Delaney’s court case, suggesting that he was a real person. How did you run across him? </b><br /><br />In 1992, I was in the Archives of Nova Scotia researching court records from the 18th and 19th centuries when one of the archivists handed me a file and said I might find it interesting. That was my introduction to Arthur Delaney. His wife had died and he placed his three children in the care of an orphanage. When he realized the error of his ways, he tried to reclaim his children through the court only to discover, from a detectives’ report, they had been bonded out as farm hands and domestics and subsequently sold. Their whereabouts were unknown. What happened to Arthur Delaney? What happened to the children? These questions fired my imagination. After writing two or three chapters, I realized I was too immature to take this story into the emotional depths where it needed to go. Twenty years later, I picked up Delaney where I had left off. Details and circumstances changed, but the heart of the story beat loud and steady.<br /><br /><b>Q. From the moment he leaves his children at the orphanage, both Delaney and his children are subject to the decisions of Emma Golding, who runs the place with an iron hand. For me, she evoked what one might call the militant charity of the 19th century, in which help for and control of others become almost indistinguishable. </b><br /><br />For me, Emma Golding comes right out of a Roman Catholic elementary school. Sour looking nuns with switches and leather straps and two foot long rulers that welted the backs of hands. Weeds and thistles. I picked them and shaped them into a character.<br /><br /><b>Q. Your depictions of places, weather and work are quite spare, yet also exceptionally specific and convincing. How do you build the physical world through which your characters move? </b><br /><br />I try not to load up on description. It slows the forward progress of the story. Instead, I focus on the details that specifically define a location, or reflect a characteristic of an individual, one that is important to the telling. I try to put myself in a particular place within the time frame of the story. It helps that I have a lifetime of experiences to draw from. <br /><br />My writing is spare. Nouns and verbs. The occasional adjective or adverb. Maybe I just don’t know a lot of words, or can’t remember them, or prefer to keep it simple and direct.<br /><br /><b>Q. What are you working on now? </b><br /><br />I have three story lines that I’m playing with: two set in the 19th century, one in the early 20th century. They are still vague and slippery. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiph_yTUpe3_pkn3vjQVLtqQTkG1_nbXt5IMUb_D6bcSV_D_2jQk_5daCPr58kBGbvhhE3SHFg8sy9eEgbc8AZmGI9pZMV7zDgKboL4q-KJJ-Qibu5Ky4kffl8sqP_MSHxO5FOtv7RhNEvO_I8jyL98u82ckvyfpKEaIp9-c31kiyoEs3DTnAKlftbx_A/s2796/loc.halifax%201879.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1588" data-original-width="2796" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiph_yTUpe3_pkn3vjQVLtqQTkG1_nbXt5IMUb_D6bcSV_D_2jQk_5daCPr58kBGbvhhE3SHFg8sy9eEgbc8AZmGI9pZMV7zDgKboL4q-KJJ-Qibu5Ky4kffl8sqP_MSHxO5FOtv7RhNEvO_I8jyL98u82ckvyfpKEaIp9-c31kiyoEs3DTnAKlftbx_A/w640-h365/loc.halifax%201879.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(36, 36, 36); color: #242424; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div style="text-align: center;"> The city of Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1879, by Albert Ruger,</div></span><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(36, 36, 36); color: #242424; font-family: "Open Sans", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3424h.pm010710/?r=-0.198,-0.008,1.352,0.631,0" target="_blank">panoramic map courtesy of Library of Congress</a></span></div><div><br /></div></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-13971302574555210312022-04-06T23:20:00.003-04:002022-04-07T09:23:02.122-04:0019 ON 19: The British Library's UNTOLD LIVES BlogWritten by a variety of scholars, the British Library's <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/index.html" target="_blank"><i>Untold Live</i>s blog</a> highlights quirky historical moments, images, documents, and, of course, people in richly illustrated mini-essays that range from the heartbreaking to the hilarious. The list below synopsizes just a few of my favorite C19-related posts from this extraordinary resource.<div><br /><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju9niPVgPgLralTKo7MK5IdWRBlVZyCQdQA5JxM_uXicqXudrJzIReRu0ixeekAk1l8MZYzw-WJnq4Q7BqQNMVkDYQF8KUQC_S6cFUiIudjLrZ2Ft6_hRgWf5MhYL-f_bt7U4cVVBcTnmihmm_5rTVNRxySuqO2DY_1BKZu3g2FittsXT9USUxZI9Jng/s1003/Ross.Remarkable%20Iceberg.6a00d8341c464853ef01bb098fc79e970d.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1003" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju9niPVgPgLralTKo7MK5IdWRBlVZyCQdQA5JxM_uXicqXudrJzIReRu0ixeekAk1l8MZYzw-WJnq4Q7BqQNMVkDYQF8KUQC_S6cFUiIudjLrZ2Ft6_hRgWf5MhYL-f_bt7U4cVVBcTnmihmm_5rTVNRxySuqO2DY_1BKZu3g2FittsXT9USUxZI9Jng/w640-h490/Ross.Remarkable%20Iceberg.6a00d8341c464853ef01bb098fc79e970d.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /><div><br /></div><div>1. The <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2022/04/the-bookbinders-provident-asylum.html" target="_blank">Bookbinders' Provident Asylum</a> is built in 1843 to provide a refuge for aged and incapacitated book trade workers and their widows, as well as "females who have worked at the business for at least ten years." <span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /></div><div>2. Savvy self-promoter <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2016/03/professor-frederick-browne-help-of-the-hairless-victorian-blogger.html" target="_blank">"Professor" Frederick Browne</a> makes clever use of advertisements, handbills, and issues of Professor Browne's Toilet Almanack to publicize his hairdressing innovations, which included an "invisible peruke" and the "Concave Slanting Scurf Brush," a hairbrush designed on "peculiar and scientific principles" to free the hair of "dandriff."</div><div><div><br /></div><div>3. After challenging his uncle Joseph Mallord William Marshall's will, his namesake, the renowned painter J.M.W. Turner, inherits properties including a public house called <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2022/02/jmw-turner-artist-and-publican.html" target="_blank">The Ship and Bladebone</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>4. In 1866, Ira Aldridge, a Black tragedian, plays Othello in <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2022/01/ira-aldridge-in-ottoman-turkey.html" target="_blank">Istanbul's first English production of Othello</a>; though Alridge speaks in English, the rest of the cast performed in French.</div><div><br /></div><div>5. Attesting to the Victorian <a href="https://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/untoldlives/2015/12/fear-of-a-premature-burial.html" target="_blank">fear of premature burial</a>, Hans Christian Anderson keeps a note by his bedside assuring anyone who finds him that he was "merely in a state of suspended animation" and leaves instructions in his will that should he be deemed to be dead, his veins should be opened before burial just to make certain he's gone.</div><div><br /></div>6. When a man in a soiled white shirt arrives at a police station in Bombay, he can remember some facts about himself—he "had lived in Gibraltar for some time and knew a clergyman called Addison"—but not his name or where he had been. Possibly using information from the number on his shirt, <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2022/01/the-man-who-lost-his-memory-part-1.html" target="_blank">London's India Office eventually discovers his identity</a>.<div><br /></div><div>7. Born a mill worker's daughter under the name Annie Riley, <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2017/01/annie-de-montford-her-mind-governed-the-world.html" target="_blank">mesmerist Miss Anne de Montford</a>, billing herself as "the wonder of the age" and claiming that "mind governs the world," gives frequent public performances of her powers in the 1870s; like today's hypnotists, Annie often "created much merriment" by bidding the subjects under her command to perform "vagaries...of a most ludicrous character."</div><div><br /></div><div>8. <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2016/10/evanion-the-royal-conjuror-plays-with-fire.html" target="_blank">Conjurer Henry Evans Evanion</a>, whose advertisements of "Something New Under the Sun" promise "Startling and Extraordinary Illusions, Laughable Ventriloquial Effects, & Necromantic Effects," entertains a royal party by pulling items including a large bowl of fire from under his coat.<div><br /></div><div>9. The deaths of over fifty thousand men during the battlefield defeat of Napoleon's army in 1815 give denture makers a welcome supply of healthy young teeth to work with; for several decades, teeth stolen from the mouths of any dead soldier will be known as <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2013/07/smiling-with-dead-mens-teeth.html" target="_blank">"Waterloo Teeth."</a></div><div><br /></div><div>10. The <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2021/08/household-accounts-for-charles-and-charlotte-canning.html" target="_blank">1850-1851 household accounts</a> of Charles and Charlotte Canning, affluent residents of Mayfair, reveal expenditures including the purchases of a "silvered globe," a subscription to Hansard’s Parliamentary debates, a "patent wine cooler," dueling pistols, and "items such as quinine tooth powder... soap (both Pears and Castile) and sponges" acquired from J&E Atkinson of New Bond Street.</div><div><br /></div><div>11. <a href="https://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/untoldlives/2016/01/edward-lear-breaks-my-heart.html" target="_blank">Edward Lear's beloved feline, Foss</a>, "was evidently a lively cat who was caught shredding Lear's letters and stealing slices of toast from visitors." In another pet-related post, John McCosh, an East India Company surgeon in Assam in the 1830s, reports that his <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2016/08/the-surgeons-porcupine.html" target="_blank">pet porcupine</a> had "a large share of courage," adding that when confronted by the household's dogs, it just "ran to the nearest corner of the room and spreading out its quills, so as to fill the corner, looked back at its persecutors with cool contempt."</div><div><br /></div><div>12. Margaret Makepeace, the Lead Curator of the British Library's East India Company Records, rightly but politely describes the handwriting in a letter from Queen Victoria to her Secretary of State for India as <a href="https://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/untoldlives/2016/01/queen-victorias-handwriting.html" target="_blank">"challenging."</a> </div></div><div><br /></div>13. At an 1850 meeting of the Board of Poor Law Guardians for St Marylebone, a board member enquires if <a href="https://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/untoldlives/2016/04/the-curious-tale-of-the-pigeons-in-the-workhouse.html" target="_blank">pigeons</a> are being kept at the Marylebone Workhouse. Among the other revelations arising from the vigorous discussion that followed, which eventually led to fisticuffs in the street, it was discovered that late workhouse master James Jones had "kept the pigeons to send to the races to bring back speedy news of which horses had won so that safe bets could be made accordingly."</div><div><div><br /></div><div>14. The "Satirical" (as opposed to "Sentimental") section of E.M. Davies' <i><a href="http://access.bl.uk/item/pdf/lsidyv3a99752b?_ga=2.131205519.1447677163.1649291240-1464152344.1649291240" target="_blank">Love Lyrics and Valentines Verses for Young and Old</a></i> includes ditties entitled "To One Oblivious of the Letter H," "Mangling the Baby," "My Piscatorial Love," "How Are Your Poor Feet?" and "Lines to A Cod-Eyed Spinster." All, the author assures readers, will allow them to "indulge in a little harmless satire without descending to vulgarity." And speaking of pests, in the first edition of the <i><a href="https://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/untoldlives/2016/06/national-insect-week.html" target="_blank">Calcutta Journal of Natural History</a></i>, published in 1841, Oxford entomologist Frederick Hope solicits information on questions including number 38, "From what quarters chiefly do clouds of locusts come?"</div><div><br /></div><div>15. Born in 1879, book collector <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2019/02/the-dawes-bequest-of-erotica-so-sensitive-it-had-to-be-smuggled-in-at-dawn.html" target="_blank">Charles Reginald Dawes</a> (1879-1964) left most of his notable collection of erotica to the British Library. Apparently "the bequest was collected overnight and ‘carried reverently’ into the museum at six o’clock one summer morning."</div><div><br /></div><div>16. Published in 1813, Walter Thom’s <i><a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2016/07/walter-thoms-pedestrianism.html" target="_blank">Pedestrianism</a>; or An Account of the Performances of Celebrated Pedestrians during the last and present Century</i> celebrates the achievements of competitive walkers including Captain Barclay Allardice, who in 1809 walked 1,000 miles in 1,000 consecutive hours fitted out in gear including "strong shoes and lambs-wool stockings."</div><div><br /></div><div>17. While searching for the fabled Northwest Passage in 1818, Captain John Ross muses on the form, shape and power of ice and illustrates several truly <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2017/04/captain-ross-muses-on-the-ice.html" target="_blank">"remarkable icebergs."</a> </div><div><br /></div><div>18. Sailing to Borneo in 1855, 15-year-old <a href="https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2017/05/henry-nicholetts-voyage-to-calcutta.html" target="_blank">Henry Nicholetts </a>writes in his journal that "The ship rolling a good deal...tea cups tumbling over; legs of mutton bounding down the table; ladies falling into gentlemen’s arms."</div><div><br /></div><div>19. The 1890 publication <i>A guide to proper remedies for common ailments, and the use of surgical appliances. Designed expressly for persons going abroad, residents in India and the Colonies; heads of families; clergymen and others unable to obtain medical assistance</i> notes that <a href="https://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/untoldlives/2016/04/kirbys-coca-wine.html" target="_blank">Kirby's Cocoa Wine</a> is a "powerful sustainer of energy" and as such is particularly useful for "Clergymen, Public Speakers, and others, engaged in exhausting work of any kind." </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL27Bcl7fAIR0vEg8BAFezfvmbCvIFwiCNVOrTGQvcj22jb4iqUzrSVQRXlvkJB_xiArd84a-FnNz0QvvALNcfQCbuZseNrK0MV3pZQgK3hSHrMAmRvIIiH_a97UxefGSITmKEd_cpID9RYfJ7DdvNlWL4H-2ZGhtxpKfhXcoTKLConiEnLvIb-v_Vew/s1714/Screen%20Shot%202022-04-06%20at%2011.18.31%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1386" data-original-width="1714" height="518" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL27Bcl7fAIR0vEg8BAFezfvmbCvIFwiCNVOrTGQvcj22jb4iqUzrSVQRXlvkJB_xiArd84a-FnNz0QvvALNcfQCbuZseNrK0MV3pZQgK3hSHrMAmRvIIiH_a97UxefGSITmKEd_cpID9RYfJ7DdvNlWL4H-2ZGhtxpKfhXcoTKLConiEnLvIb-v_Vew/w640-h518/Screen%20Shot%202022-04-06%20at%2011.18.31%20PM.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-1308527271213554752022-03-28T18:20:00.008-04:002022-05-23T08:48:31.331-04:00So19 Interviews: ROBERT MORRISON on THE REGENCY YEARS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ZiwvDBw3YwlKAMbB-ZQf1Au_lZjmPwnM4HgUtMpoC39GlSEU-5hSx1k3MJ5ra3lMrv_KAwqrlldCEhXpJZK2D4P998UjrAD6Oge5j18G5OtT_cztnPGusRpuTGw0QKRzHNnRLphO31J3rwZ5zNFKIuJOO43hnEwVu3sGGA2bV-kRwm6GOFE2XDPqOQ/s800/Regency-Years-800.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="532" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ZiwvDBw3YwlKAMbB-ZQf1Au_lZjmPwnM4HgUtMpoC39GlSEU-5hSx1k3MJ5ra3lMrv_KAwqrlldCEhXpJZK2D4P998UjrAD6Oge5j18G5OtT_cztnPGusRpuTGw0QKRzHNnRLphO31J3rwZ5zNFKIuJOO43hnEwVu3sGGA2bV-kRwm6GOFE2XDPqOQ/s320/Regency-Years-800.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Today I’m delighted to share my conversation with biographer and literary critic Robert Morrison about his most recent book, <i>The Regency Years: During which Jane Austen Writes, Napoleon Fights, Byron Makes Love and Britain Becomes Modern</i>. My So19 essay on the book appears <a href="https://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2021/08/the-society-muses-robert-morrisons.html" style="background-color: white;">here</a>. My conversation with Rob about his edited and annotated edition of Jane Austen’s <i>Persuasion </i>appears <a href="http://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2016/03/so19-talks-with-robert-morrison.html">here</a> and our chat about his biography of Thomas De Quincey can be read <a href="http://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2015/01/so19-talks-with-robert-morrison.html">here</a>.<br /><br />Robert Morrison is British Academy Global Professor at Bath Spa University and Queen’s National Scholar at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. <i>The Regency Years </i>was shortlisted for the Historical Writers’ Association Crown Award and named by <i>The Economist</i> as one of its 2019 Books of the Year. Morrison’s biography of Thomas De Quincey, <i>The English Opium Eater</i>, was shortlisted for the James Tait Black prize. <span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674049741" target="_blank">His annotated edition of Jane Austen’s <i>Persuasion</i></a> appeared from Harvard University Press, and for Oxford University Press he edited <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/thomas-de-quincey-9780199676897?lang=en&cc=us#" target="_blank">a selection of De Quincey’s writings</a>.</span> You can hear Rob read from <i>The Regency <span style="background-color: white;">Years</span></i><span style="background-color: white;"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7EEHgg-u8k" target="_blank">here</a>, read his recent essay on Jane Austen and Netflix's <i>Bridgerton</i> <a href="https://lithub.com/just-how-much-is-jane-austen-a-precursor-to-bridgerton/" target="_blank">here</a>, and find out more about Rob and his work on his<a href="https://robertjhmorrison.com/ " target="_blank"> website</a>. <i>The Regency Years</i> is available for purchase through <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Regency-Years-Napoleon-Britain-Becomes/dp/0393249050/">Amazon.com</a>, <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/the-regency-years-during-which-jane-austen-writes-napoleon-fights-byron-makes-love-and-britain-becomes-modern/9780393358247">Bookshop.org</a>, or <a href="https://www.indiebound.org" target="_blank">your local bookstore</a>.</span><br /><br /><b><span style="color: #783f04;">Q. <i>The Regency Years </i>conveys a huge amount of information from a huge array of different sources. Before we jump into the content of the book, tell us a bit about your research and writing process.</span></b><br /><br />When I began the book I thought I knew the Regency period quite well. It is brief, beginning in 1811, when George III lapses permanently into some form of insanity, and ending in 1820, when George III dies and his eldest son, who had been ruling Britain as the Prince Regent, becomes George IV. The Regency falls right in the middle of the broader literary movement known as “Romanticism,” about which I have taught and researched and written for many years, and which is typically said to begin with the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 and to end at some point in the 1830s with the passage of the Reform Bill, or the rise of Charles Dickens, or the crowning of Queen Victoria. <a name='more'></a><br /><br />But when I started to do my research I quickly discovered that there were significant events (the War of 1812, for example, or the inventions of George Stephenson and Charles Babbage) that I needed to explore in more detail. Further, it was soon clear that writing about, say, John Keats as a major Romantic author was different from writing about him as a major Regency author. When Keats’s poetry is placed alongside the work of major Romantic writers like William Blake and William Wordsworth it looks one way. When it is placed alongside the work of major Regency writers like Walter Scott, William Hazlitt, and Jane Austen it looks another. The differences and similarities between these two perspectives are striking and often unexpected, and they certainly helped me to bring the contours of both periods more clearly into view. <br /><br />When conducting my research I just work with Word files—hundred and hundreds of Word files. In the case of <i>The Regency Years</i>, these files were grouped into two main categories: “people” and “events.” I went over and over these files, read some more, made connections, winnowed down, discarded and rethought, drew comparisons, read again, and gradually worked toward organizing the files into themes and then the themes into chapters. <i>I have to talk about Waterloo. Where does that go? I have to talk about Lord Byron’s poem Don Juan. Where does that go? All six of Austen’s published novels appeared in the Regency. Do I group them all together? Do I consider them separately? </i><br /><br />I spent about three years asking myself those kinds of questions, and trying to see my way toward a structure and an argument. Once I got there, the writing began, and for me that’s when the real rethinking and shedding and connecting starts to happen. Looking for the best way to put it all together is sometimes a bit daunting, but I’ve discovered that if you just keep pushing away at it, eventually it takes on a shape and, I hope, an energy and a depth.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: #783f04;">Q. As I mention in m<span style="background-color: white;">y<span> review</span></span> of <i>The Regency Years,</i> I particularly loved the way the book shared not only your vision of the Regency but its vision of itself. I often felt like I was eavesdropping on the most interesting guests at a wonderful party! Was this generous use of quoted material part of your plan from the start? How did you see this element as adding to the book’s meaning or usefulness?</span></b><br /><br />I did know from the start that I wanted to let Regency people speak for themselves in as many instances as possible, from the Royal family right down to people living rough in the streets. I also knew that I wanted Regency authors to speak on topics that we do not typically associate with them; that is, I knew I wanted Dorothy Wordsworth on the battlefield of Waterloo, William Wordsworth on emigration, Keats on the arctic, William Cobbett on boxing, Walter Scott on evangelicalism, Maria Edgeworth on roads, Lady Caroline Lamb on flagellation, Percy Shelley on the Luddite Riots, the Duke of Wellington on Almack’s Club, and so on.<br /><br />Part of the reason I made this decision was because some of the finest authors in the English language wrote during the Regency, and I was as ever distressingly aware that they could put the idea with far more force than I could. I have marveled for years, for example, at the pith and drama of William Hazlitt’s prose. “Though we are mighty fine fellows nowadays,” declared Robert Louis Stevenson in 1881, “we cannot write like Hazlitt.” Some of my favorite moments in the book are when Hazlitt describes the Brighton Pavilion, or watches Edmund Kean on stage for the first time, or looks at Thomas Lawrence’s remarkable portrait of the Regent. <br /><br />Allowing Regency women and men to speak for themselves, as you suggest, helps to bring the era to life, and I think in addition that it enabled me to build in the dual perspective you mention: the people of the Regency describe the world around them and I describe them describing the world around them. In terms of usefulness, my aim throughout was to illuminate both their world and ours. <br /><br />So much of the character of the period—especially its formalities and restraints—comes through in its language. Martin Amis is very good on this point. “Mr Darcy’s first name is Fitzwilliam, which is a nice name—but Elizabeth will never use it. She will call him ‘Mr Darcy’ or, occasionally, ‘My dear Mr Darcy’. You call your mother ‘Madam’ and your dad ‘Sir’….If it be the sixth of October, then ‘Michaelmas’ will have been celebrated ‘yesterday se’nnight’. ‘La’, what ‘extacies’ we were in!” Austen’s language—and the words of dozens of other people that I quote in the book—at once attracts us to the period and reveals our distance from it.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: #783f04;">Q. As an expert on Regency literature and history, you were thoroughly familiar with much of the material the book covers before you began writing it. Did anything particularly surprise you as you moved through the process of putting it all together?</span></b><br /><br />There was a good deal that surprised me as I started putting everything together. I think it is part of what almost invariably happens when you start digging around and down into the details and the neglected material and the overlooked asides. Nuances, complications, and paradoxes come into view, and the period starts to emerge in new lights and from different angles. It was an exhilarating part of the process and it convinced me that I had an idea worth pursuing. <br /><br />I didn’t realize the extent to which the engineer Thomas Telford transformed the Highlands of Scotland with a series of roads, bridges, canals, and harbors. I didn’t realize the extent to which Byron hated Wellington as a warmongering master of “a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art.” I didn’t realize the extent to which Dorothy Jordan commanded the Regency stage: in 1815 Leigh Hunt said that she was “not only the first living actress in comedy” but “the only actress…who can any way be reckoned great and original.”<br /><br />I didn’t realize the extent to which the Regency witnessed the peaks of government-orchestrated, mob-based homophobic violence. Same-sex love was one of the most explosive topics in Regency Britain, and it united groups from every class and background in a common cause of loathing and rabid persecution, as seen for example in the 1811 execution of two members of the so-called Vere Street coterie. Warned a German traveler to England in 1818: “The kiss of friendship between men is strictly avoided as inclining towards the sin regarded in England as more abominable than any other.” The punishment for a convicted “sodomite” was the pillory and then death by public hanging.<br /><br />Yet I also didn’t realize the extent to which the Regency marks the crucial moment in British history when writers—despite the routine execution of homosexual men and no doubt to some extent because of it—began a serious examination of the experiences, identities, and sensibilities of homosexuality. Jeremy Bentham produced a wide-ranging indictment of British attitudes toward same-sex love. He believed that England’s sodomy laws brought “death to a human creature” and “anguish to an innocent family,” and he systematically demolished the religious, legal, and historical claims of those who insisted it was “unnatural.” Anne Lister, who is often referred to as the “first modern lesbian,” wrote voluminous diaries in code in which she detailed her joyous and sometimes rakish experience of lesbianism. Her most cherished lover, Mary Belcombe, was concerned that their relationship was “unnatural.” Lister disagreed: “my conduct & feelings” are “surely natural to me inasmuch as they were not taught, not fictitious, but instinctive.” Throughout her diaries she writes with sophistication and largely without guilt, as she creates and then self-consciously embraces her own lesbian identity. <br /><br /><b><span style="color: #783f04;">Q. Your book’s subtitle suggests that the Regency ushered us into the modern age. Could you give those who haven’t yet read your book a brief overview of this point? </span></b><br /><br />I try when I write to show why the lives and literature of two centuries ago matter now. It is far from the only objective I have in mind, but I do think it is reasonable for readers to ask, for example, what is in an Austen novel that makes it worth reading now, and what has enabled it to maintain it relevance beyond its own historical moment. (My shortest answer is that falling in love today still means in many ways to fall in love <i>like</i> Elizabeth and Darcy.) <br /><br />Austen is only one of dozens of remarkable Regency women and men who did and wrote things that have left an indelible impression, and I wanted to write a book in which I brought these achievements together not only to show what a compact, elegant, and disturbing period the Regency was, but to demonstrate why what happened then profoundly shapes what happens now. <br /><br />The Regency witnessed the advent of the desiring, democratic, secular, commercial society that is for the first time recognizably our own. William Cobbett and Henry Hunt pioneered civil disobedience as a strategy that sought to raise political consciousness and that brought the peaceful demands of the many right to the door of the privileged few. Sir Humphry Davy and Michael Faraday invented the miner’s safety lamp, and demonstrated the powers of science to save lives and ameliorate the human condition. John Clare was among the first environmental activists and wrote compellingly of the intricate interrelationship between the human and the nonhuman worlds. David Brewster invented the kaleidoscope, the instant and immense popularity of which revealed the burgeoning powers of consumerism. <br /><br />Further, Charles Babbage was the first to imagine what would eventually become the modern computer. Pierce Egan established modern sports journalism. Percy Shelley championed secularism. Edmund Kean and Lord Byron were the first modern celebrities. Henry Raeburn and Thomas Lawrence painted the glamorous portraits that have made the Regency a byword for beauty and poise. John Constable produced timeless versions of rural England. J. M. W. Turner revolutionized British landscape art. Thomas De Quincey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge were the first to detail the soaring intellectual pleasures and vicious cycles of bodily pain brought on by opiate addiction. Mary Shelley created <i>Frankenstein</i> and John Polidori produced <i>The Vampyre</i>, the two most potent horror myths of the modern age. <br /><br /><b><span style="color: #783f04;">Q. <i>The Regency Years</i> evokes so many colorful, complex people. Are there any individuals whose lives or temperaments particularly appeal to you? What about them makes them especially interesting?</span></b><br /><br />I like the melancholy of the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon as he recalls one of his best Regency dinner parties: “How one ought to treasure such evenings, when life gives us so few of them.” I like William Henry Harrison, a future American president, for his honest assessment of the Indigenous leader Tecumseh: “he was one of those uncommon geniuses, which spring up occasionally to produce revolutions.” I like the <i>Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine</i> writer John Wilson for his celebration of a prize fight between a black man and a white man: “We saw before us two human beings—and our hearts beat for the cause of liberty all over the world.” I like Jane Austen for the strength and independence of her women: “He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.” I like the radical journalist Leigh Hunt for speaking truth to power: the Regent “was a violator of his word” and “a libertine over head and ears in debt and disgrace.”<br /><br />I like Sydney Smith, the Anglican clergyman and one of the founders of the <i>Edinburgh Review</i>. Austen may have used him as the model for Henry Tilney in <i>Northanger Abbey</i>. The Regency prized wits, and Smith was one of its greatest. When he heard two women shouting at each other across an alleyway, he observed that they would never agree, for they were “arguing from different premises.” Of his friend Henry Luttrell, Smith declared: “[His] idea of heaven is eating pâté de foie [gras] to the sound of trumpets.”<br /><br />I admire the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry because of her courage and kindness (one of her favorite words), and because her efforts genuinely seem to have made a difference in the lives of hundreds of female prisoners and their children who, before her interventions, were living dead-ended lives in intolerable conditions for minor crimes such as poaching a rabbit or cutting down a growing tree. “I hope you will endeavour to be very useful, and not spend all your time in pleasing yourselves,” she wrote to her children in 1813 after her first experience of Newgate prison.<br /><br />I have since my undergraduate days admired John Keats. Coleridge and Wordsworth both went to Cambridge. Percy Shelley was born into an affluent family. Byron was an aristocrat. Keats, on the other hand, did not go to university, had terrible struggles with debt and poor health, published work that was viciously condemned by contemporary reviewers, and died tragically early at just twenty-five. At the start of 1818 he had written little of significance. By the end of 1819 he had produced some of the finest poems in the English language, including “The Eve of St Agnes,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” and “Ode to Autumn.” It is a staggering pace of development and one of the most remarkable stories of the Regency. “The ‘Grecian Urn’ is unbearably beautiful,” observed the great American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, and “likewise with the ‘Nightingale,’ which I can never read through without tears in my eyes.”<br /><br /><b><span style="color: #783f04;">Q. One of my own surprises as I read had to do with Beau Brummell. I knew almost nothing about him beyond the fact that his name has become a sort of byword for a stylish man. I was fascinated by your description of him as a democratic figure and a sort of exemplar of self-invention, as well as the similarities between his impact and that of “influencers” today. </span></b><br /><br />I expect that, like many people who were teenagers in the 1970s, the first time I heard the name “Beau Brummell” was when Billy Joel sang his name in “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me.” When I was writing <i>The Regency Years,</i> though, I thought more often of another rock star, David Bowie, who like Brummell rose far above the class into which he was born, and who—again like Brummell—used a powerful sense of self-invention to transgress the boundaries of rank, fashion, and gender.<br /><br />Brummell was the foremost dandy of the Regency, and he presided over London’s chic West End as its acknowledged leader of fashion. His vision of the dandy was inspired by aristocratic ideals, as seen especially in his contempt for work, his commitment to metropolitan languor, and his powerful sense of exclusivity. Yet Brummell’s dandy was also, as you say, a democratic figure (the same might also be said of Bowie’s). Anyone could become a dandy. It was not about being born into the right family. It was about a different kind of aristocracy, a new, modern version that was founded in individual talent, mettle, and vision. <br /><br />Brummell was on an intimate footing with some of the richest women and men in Regency Britain. But he was also their nemesis. The traditional elites based their claims for superiority on birth, breeding, and education. Brummell showed them all up for shams. Social status, he demonstrated, was about performance rather than merit, and even someone from his much humbler origins could play the part as well as—or even better than—them. Byron, who knew a great deal himself about self-invention, was deeply impressed. When he ranked the “three great men of the nineteenth century,” he placed “himself third, Napoleon second, and Brummell first.” Through the sheer force of his personality and without Byron’s own aristocratic advantages, Brummell transformed himself into one of the most celebrated members of the Regency <i>haut ton</i>, and a fashion icon whose sense of style still influences the way men dress. <br /><br /><b><span style="color: #783f04;">Q. As I read the book, I was really struck by a paradox: The Regency saw myriad immensely gifted women doing interesting and important things, yet also really painful levels of female vulnerability, victimization and powerlessness. Fair reading?</span></b><br /><br />Sadly, yes, I think that is a fair reading. I set out consciously in the book to put women center-stage as often as possible. I wanted to bring forward a large female cast and then highlight what each of them accomplished as an individual. Their stories are, for me, a very large part of what makes the Regency so fascinating. <br /><br />I gave as much space as I could to famous names like Austen, Princess Caroline, Mary Shelley, and Lady Caroline Lamb. But I also tried to make room for women who are perhaps not as well known. Mary Linwood, an artist in needlework, established her own gallery in London, where she staged what one Regency visitor described as “perhaps the most extraordinary exhibition in the world.” Elizabeth O’Neill made her London debut at Covent Garden in 1814 in the role of Juliet, and Hazlitt almost immediately hailed her as “by far the most impressive tragic actress we have seen since Mrs Siddons.” Maria Graham spent two years in India, and took a keen interest in the country’s history, languages, literature, music, mythology, and religion, as she details in her <i>Journal of a Residence in India</i> (1812) and <i>Letters on India</i> (1814). Lady Hester Stanhope, travelling in 1813 with her rich and much younger lover, Michael Bruce, became the first European woman to reach Palmyra in Syria, where she was proclaimed “Queen of the Desert.”<br /><br />Yet for many other women in the Regency, life was misery. Nothing reveals the vicious and competitive side of the era like its thriving trade in prostitution. In 1811, the novelist James Lawrence estimated that within the last few years the total number of London prostitutes had risen from “fifty…to seventy thousand: so that every eighth female that we meet in the streets is a prostitute.” Some of the females driven by poverty into the trade were horrifyingly young. “Prostitution,” reported Pierce Egan, “is so profitable a business, and conducted so openly, that hundreds of persons keep houses of ill-fame, for the reception of girls not more than twelve and thirteen years of age.”<br /><br />Women—then as now—were also the victims of entrenched double standards that very often thwarted or diminished their lives. The Regency courtesan Julia Johnstone put the matter very plainly. “Man may commit an hundred deviations from the path of rectitude, yet he still can return....But woman, when she makes one false step, can retrieve it no more!” Byron makes the same point in <i>Don Juan</i> when he has the young and beautiful Donna Julia, trapped in a loveless marriage to an old philanderer, compare her monochromatic existence to the colorful world open to men like Don Juan: “Man’s love is of his life a thing apart, / ’Tis woman’s whole existence,” she tells him. Men have many options and many resources at their disposal, women “but one, / To love again, and be again undone.” Austen worried that <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> was “rather too light & bright & sparkling.” But as the Victorian novelist Margaret Oliphant knew, Austen wrote with a “stinging yet soft-voiced contempt,” and all her novels contain pressing questions about money, matrimony, class, powerlessness, spinsterhood, and the fate of women.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: #783f04;">Q. What are you up to, and working on, now?</span></b><br /><br />Like everyone, my life has been thoroughly disrupted by Covid. When the pandemic began, I was living in Bath, and working at Bath Spa University as a British Academy Global Professor. Over the last wo years I have continued (virtually) to work for and teach at Bath Spa. But I have done so from our home just outside Kingston, Ontario. I have now returned to Bath full time, and am looking very forward to seeing my students and colleagues again, and to diving back into the British archives.<br /><br />My biggest project right now is to produce a collected edition of the letters of the English essayist and opium addict Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859). De Quincey also lived in Bath, and published his most famous work, <i>Confessions of an English Opium-Eater</i>, two hundred years ago last year. There are various selected editions of De Quincey’s letters, but there has never been a collected edition. <br /><br />It’s a big project but one that I am finding immensely rewarding. De Quincey’s letters are scattered all over the world, and part of my work in the last year has been tracking down which letters are where, and who has what. So far I have found about 100 letters that I did not know existed before I began my research, and I think I am closing in on dozens more. It is very exciting to find a De Quincey letter that reveals a good deal about him that we did not know, and that has probably not been read by anyone for more than a century.<br /><br />The edition will be in two volumes and is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. The new material is fascinating and when gathered together in the new edition will I hope throw a great deal of new light on De Quincey’s life and works.Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-41989064384894138682022-03-26T21:55:00.036-04:002022-03-30T22:33:51.824-04:00So19 Art: A Startling Event in Regency London<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY66TtR8BQKAJqPWmnObxJh8iGvglflrlfe6cnhn0IP5kNh5954k98fJcailkatmJZiaQuwoaQLOh88BpxJm2bAeS70SFTmkeICNYnrtWbf2cg8XZdXJ3Zit4mzt6dgax4CuM-mt9l0uo7j7M2P-sjMzdqNLFxd__iBigKTb2t_UH45mtj2OT5dWcRgg/s3000/Regency%20Years%20Balloon%20with%20Frame.(c)%20Suzanne%20Fox%202021.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="3000" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY66TtR8BQKAJqPWmnObxJh8iGvglflrlfe6cnhn0IP5kNh5954k98fJcailkatmJZiaQuwoaQLOh88BpxJm2bAeS70SFTmkeICNYnrtWbf2cg8XZdXJ3Zit4mzt6dgax4CuM-mt9l0uo7j7M2P-sjMzdqNLFxd__iBigKTb2t_UH45mtj2OT5dWcRgg/w640-h512/Regency%20Years%20Balloon%20with%20Frame.(c)%20Suzanne%20Fox%202021.png" width="640" /></a></div><br />I made this image as a homage to <a href="https://robertjhmorrison.com" target="_blank">Rob Morrison's</a> <i>The Regency Years</i>, the subject of our <a href="https://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2022/03/so19-interviews-robert-morrison-on.html" target="_blank">latest interview</a>. The <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leicester_Square,_from_Ackermann%27s_Repository_of_Arts,_1812.jpg" target="_blank">view of Regency-era Leicester Square</a> is from the periodical commonly known as <i>Ackermann's Repository, </i>more properly the <i>Repository of arts, literature, commerce, manufactures, fashions, and politics. (</i>The Internet Archive has digitized a <a href="https://archive.org/search.php?query=The%20Repository%20of%20arts%2C%20literature%2C%20commerce%2C%20manufactures%2C%20fashions%20and%20politics%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts" target="_blank">number of volumes</a> should you want to browse this splendid publication.) The hot-air balloon I floated above the scene started as a <a href="https://www.rawpixel.com/image/410789" target="_blank">digitized version of a period engraving</a> before getting some additional decoration in the form of the book cover, which I placed into a circular frame and superimposed onto the balloon. An old wood frame and tongue-in-cheek caption seemed like the perfect finishing touches. Thanks to Rob for a spectacular book—and some delightful inspiration for an afternoon of art-making. <div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Regency-Years-Napoleon-Britain-Becomes-ebook/dp/B07DP7Z886/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="532" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvi8iCHVZFuuRJ76XtX7ng_M3AIr0o8e7sP4nLMh2b5f4cDUaHPiM03zdlwFnYckQabOojIg0BJ8DO6r1Dv2pHPhpmAxEvAbJLaBDg5y0u51_wa053DtIcKEQuggz0y2s_I0P96XHhkUOw4ttcV59ojhpkzUFK2Zc4PVS87bAGhG3xuJYeE44X-nHiWA/w266-h400/Regency-Years-800.jpg" width="266" /></a></div></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-87541669786523664042022-03-13T10:46:00.003-04:002022-03-13T10:56:13.687-04:00A So19 SPECIAL: a conversation between JULIE DOBROW and KIMBERLY A. HAMLINMost white women in the 19th century had one basic choice in life: whom to marry. Those who dared not marry or, worse, those who chose the wrong husband often faced dire consequences. The worst fate of all, however, was that of what the 19th century and some of the 20th called a fallen woman, the woman who had sex outside of marriage. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, things were starting to change for American women—especially for and because of those who were willing to defy convention—but the sexual double standard remained firmly in place.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiV0IAUf2_oX2FfKgykivfGvjHH2paipoYRUjjOpcHEU09dVoK5erJ0XKfaTXBQ76nWw9L7tAYllWUe59OkLUxv9260RsaemmFAQc2BBdJw481cml8uP4TOreE9EhBwnNAC4ZiIj7d42lfwVjQRjfKQi-4hyrOgSBTNygnMEkIYGPhuhPao13lJsV1l0g=s900" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiV0IAUf2_oX2FfKgykivfGvjHH2paipoYRUjjOpcHEU09dVoK5erJ0XKfaTXBQ76nWw9L7tAYllWUe59OkLUxv9260RsaemmFAQc2BBdJw481cml8uP4TOreE9EhBwnNAC4ZiIj7d42lfwVjQRjfKQi-4hyrOgSBTNygnMEkIYGPhuhPao13lJsV1l0g=w640-h320" width="640" /></a></div><div><br />Today, So19 is delighted to share a chat between biographers <a href="http://www.juliedobrow.com" target="_blank">Julie Dobrow</a> and <a href="http://www.kimberlyhamlin.com/author/" target="_blank">Kimberly Hamlin</a>, both of whom have written vivid biographies of fascinating women, tarred with the “fallen” brush, who were born in the 1850s. Their subjects probably didn’t meet, though Julie and Kimberly like to think that there could have been a chance encounter when each attended the Columbian World Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Whether or not they ever encountered each other, Julie and Kimberly are sure that they’d have had a lot to talk about—and I definitely concur.<br /><br />So19 readers will know Julie Dobrow from our review of her book <i>After Emily,</i> as well as the<a href="https://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2021/07/the-society-interviews-julie-dobrow-on.html"> lively interview </a>she was generous enough to give us on the book. Kimberly A. Hamlin is new to So19, but we'll be running interviewing Kimberly on her book <i><a href="http://www.kimberlyhamlin.com/author/writing/free-thinker/" target="_blank">Free Thinker</a></i> at the time of its softcover publication this summer. You can find brief bios of both Julie and Kimberly at the end of this piece—but before that, here’s their conversation. Enjoy!<div><br /><b><i><span style="color: #783f04;">JD:</span></i></b> It would make sense to start with a bit of background on our subjects.<br /><br /><span style="color: #783f04;"><b><i>KH:</i></b> </span>I agree. Why don’t you begin? <span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><span><b><i><span style="color: #783f04;">JD:</span></i></b> </span>Sure. To the extent that she is remembered today, <a href="http://www.juliedobrow.com/the-story/" target="_blank">Mabel Loomis Todd</a> (1856-1932) is known principally for one of two things: either as one of Emily Dickinson’s first editors, or as William Austin Dickinson’s (Emily’s older brother’s) lover. For Mabel, one of whose greatest ambitions in life was to be remembered as a writer, these most-recalled parts of her identity would have been quite ironic.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgjh3jS9HrO9ecJoFTSKhyv0jpIvnHEy8YyB6Oo0aowOycidS3q9oBugsxK7VaIBcAhIpGSxQCJTK0A-R_SAL79IRi4AiK2WHywJ5S2WcIZxI3QY-WPMauyDfcfedYPu7keMc6WQ2dSkvanUGG0b9LdovmhSsml-3yMG2l1_ckb7sKsht82sTKtswI23w=s1142" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1142" data-original-width="791" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgjh3jS9HrO9ecJoFTSKhyv0jpIvnHEy8YyB6Oo0aowOycidS3q9oBugsxK7VaIBcAhIpGSxQCJTK0A-R_SAL79IRi4AiK2WHywJ5S2WcIZxI3QY-WPMauyDfcfedYPu7keMc6WQ2dSkvanUGG0b9LdovmhSsml-3yMG2l1_ckb7sKsht82sTKtswI23w=s320" width="222" /></a></div>Mabel was an excellent musician—a fine pianist and singer who studied at the New England Conservatory. She was a skilled visual artist who painted in a number of media and once studied with storied Hudson River landscape artist Martin Johnson Heade. She was extremely engaged in the civic life of the college town of Amherst, Massachusetts, where her husband, David Peck Todd, was an astronomer and director of the Amherst College Observatory. She was an early land preservationist. And she was a writer who published poetry, prose and fiction, in addition to several hundred journalistic pieces published in many of the leading newspapers and magazines of her era.<br /><br />After her neighbor Emily Dickinson died in 1886 and left behind a treasure trove of poems almost no one outside her household knew existed, her surviving sister Lavinia sought to find someone to edit and publish these treasures. The job eventually came to Mabel who, because of her relationship with Austin, was well known to Lavinia. But Mabel was also someone with the skills to take on the massive job of decoding Emily’s difficult handwriting and editing the poetry into a form more palatable to the 19th century reading audience; she also had the drive to get the job done. Mabel’s formidable skills as a public speaker came in handy when it came time to publicize the brilliant works that defied most 19th century poetic conventions.<br /><br />Today Mabel’s legacy is hotly debated among the community of Emily Dickinson scholars and acolytes: people either love her or hate her. There is no one who is neutral. It’s both Mabel’s editing of the Dickinson poems and her relationship with the poet’s brother that inflame those who speak or write of her. My book, <i>After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America’s Greatest Poet, </i>attempts to get beyond the rhetoric and understand the amazing woman who was so much more than Emily’s editor or Austin’s lover.<br /><br /><span style="color: #783f04;"><b><i><span>KH:</span></i></b> </span>Helen Hamilton Gardener (1853-1925) was the most interesting and influential suffragist whom virtually no one today has ever heard of. With my book <i><a href="http://www.kimberlyhamlin.com/author/writing/free-thinker/" target="_blank">Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener </a></i>(W.W. Norton, 2020), I hoped to revive her story for modern readers. Gardener was born Alice Chenoweth in Winchester, VA to a slave-owning Methodist minister who, shortly after Alice’s birth, defied convention by emancipating the people he held in bondage and moving his family to Indiana in the hopes of avoiding the coming sectional crisis. From an early age, Alice knew that being a Chenoweth meant following one’s own moral compass, no matter the consequences. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQ9dd_7g98sbrHSG-t3pbespyv9K4hlsvvuipFOm4nOrW0Va5Ogt7Ex25q984oovdpJe0YGap8J521yM5baOLZEijlTeVsXq2W7nMBcIq28nTiTG4Y3KLgFMqjHG4Lux9AmkZTySfzdDuOk3ZWPU9O4nVV3LwLRY9VuxAk1kvQ7F0USMBCV14W1EApBA=s1536" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1240" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQ9dd_7g98sbrHSG-t3pbespyv9K4hlsvvuipFOm4nOrW0Va5Ogt7Ex25q984oovdpJe0YGap8J521yM5baOLZEijlTeVsXq2W7nMBcIq28nTiTG4Y3KLgFMqjHG4Lux9AmkZTySfzdDuOk3ZWPU9O4nVV3LwLRY9VuxAk1kvQ7F0USMBCV14W1EApBA=w161-h200" width="161" /></a></div>Of course, she did not know that her most iconoclastic decision would be to abandon her Chenoweth name and move to New York City with a brand new name. After the Civil War, Alice moved to Cincinnati, Ohio in the hopes of becoming a teacher. Within two years after attaining her teaching certificate, at 22, she became the youngest school principal in Ohio. Her skill in the classroom, together with her good looks, brought her to the attention of Charles Smart, the state’s school commissioner. Smart began frequenting Sandusky, the town where Chenoweth was employed, which immediately raised eyebrows. It was not long before news of Chenoweth’s affair with Charles Smart made its way into the Sandusky Daily Register and, soon, papers across the state. Smart had told Chenoweth that he was divorced and planned to marry her. No matter. Chenoweth was forced to resign from her hard-earned job and left Sandusky in disgrace. <br /><br />Rather than slink away in shame and accept her miserable fate as a supposedly fallen woman, however, Chenoweth spent several years reading and thinking. In 1883, she moved to New York City and reinvented herself as Helen Hamilton Gardener, a popular freethought lecturer who earned the endorsement of Robert Ingersoll, who himself drew crowds of 10,000 to his lecture tours. Gardener managed to keep secret her scandalous relationship with Smith for the rest of her life—in fact, until Free Thinker was published in 2020. Smart accompanied her to New City and the couple simply told everyone that they were married. <br /><br />For the next 25 years, until Smart’s death, Gardener supported the couple with her earnings as a writer and lecturer. But their affair—and the starkly different consequences they suffered for it—convinced Gardener that her life’s work would be to challenge the sexual double standard. As she explained in the preface to her first novel, “A man is valued of men for many things. Least of which is his chastity. A woman is valued of men for few things, chief of which is her chastity. This double code can by no same or reasonable person be claimed as woman made.” Her life took many unexpectedly and unusual turns but it was her status as a so-called fallen woman that compelled her to dedicate her life to women’s rights.<br /><br /><b><i><span style="color: #783f04;">JD:</span><span style="color: #38761d;"> </span></i></b>Kimberly, if Helen and Mabel met for tea, do you think their first topic of conversation would be their disappointment over how they wished to be better known as writers, or how their relationships with married men changed their lives so profoundly?<br /><br /><b><i><span style="color: #783f04;"><span>KH:</span><span> </span></span></i></b>Great question! Gardener never talked openly about her relationship with Smart or admitted that he had been married to someone else for the entire 25 years that they lived together. I am not even sure that she knew he was still married to someone else. Of course she knew that she was not married to Smart, but I think she may have believed that he was divorced. So, I think she would have much preferred to talk about the trials and tribulations of being a writer. In her heart, Gardener always considered herself a writer, first and foremost. When she rode in the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington (the one designed to coincide with Wilson’s first inauguration), she wore a sash that said “Writer.” And after she and her husband moved back to the States in 1907, she lamented that no one recognized her as a writer anymore. Her last novel was published in 1894 and was old news by 1907. That novel was adapted into a Broadway play in the late 1890s, but it flopped, so I think she really struggled after that to find her footing and to forge a new identity that was not centered on writing. I think she and Mabel could really bond over their writing and over their disappointment at not being better known as writers. <br /><br />What do you think Mabel would want to talk about if they met? And to what did Mabel attribute her own challenges in securing a lasting reputation as a writer?<br /><br /><b><i><span style="color: #783f04;">JD:</span><span style="color: #38761d;"> </span></i></b>Mabel would most certainly have wanted to talk about all of her many accomplishments in different fields. No one would ever have accused her of being shy, and she was, to say the least, a great self-promoter. I think she would have been sure to tell Helen about her art, her music, her civic work, her environmental work and, of course, her writing.<br /><br />Mabel was mystified about why her own writing didn’t get more traction than it did. She was gifted enough to know what great writing was—she certainly recognized that in Emily Dickinson —but also to know that even though she was very good, she wasn’t a great writer.<br /><br />I’m guessing that the other thing Mabel would have opened up about is her relationship with Austin, which she truly considered to be one of the greatest aspects of her life. <br /><br /><span style="color: #783f04;"><b><i>JD:</i></b> </span>Both Helen and Mabel were well-known in their eras as public speakers of note. What do you think this meant for Helen?<br /><br /><span><b><i><span style="color: #783f04;">KH:</span></i></b> </span>Even though Helen prided herself on being a writer, her first foray into public life was as a speaker. She became known as “Ingersoll in Soprano,” which was the highest compliment for a 19th-century orator because Robert Ingersoll regularly drew crowds of ten thousand. In her very first speech, she said that many other women had their doubts about biblical stories that proclaimed women’s treachery and inferiority. But these other women, she said, were too afraid to speak. So Helen explained that her mission was to make it ok for other women to articulate—perhaps first to themselves—problems and issues that had previously been unmentionable. I think that is how she saw herself as a speaker: as the woman who was not afraid to say all the things the other women were thinking. And she did this, in part, by presenting her radical messages in a dainty, conventionally pretty package. Somehow her conventionally feminine appearance and the fact that she gushed about her (fake) husband Charles Smart made her message more palatable. What about Mabel? What did public speaking mean to her and what did it do for her?<br /><br /><b><i><span style="color: #783f04;"><span>JD:</span><span> </span></span></i></b>For Mabel, public speaking was initially a way of getting Emily Dickinson’s name into the mainstream. But it became more than that for Mabel, who, at the height of her public speaking career, was giving more than sixty talks a year across the country to audiences both enormous and small. She spoke on an astonishing array of topics, ranging from astronomy to the lost art of letter writing to the many places she’d traveled. Public speaking was important to Mabel to help supplement her family’s income. It was also important to her personally, because she adored to be lauded and applauded in such a public way.<br /><br />Mabel and Helen both traveled far more extensively than many women of their time did. Where did Helen travel and what were some of her impressions?<br /><br /><b><i><span style="color: #783f04;">KH:</span><span style="color: #783f04;"> </span></i></b>Yes! That is another fascinating connection the two women share. Between the 1870s and 1900, Helen traveled extensively in the U.S. mostly on the lecture circuit. A few months after Smart died, she high-tailed it to Puerto Rico to visit Colonel Selden Allen Day who would soon become her husband. Together, the Days travelled the world—twenty-two countries in all—from 1902-1907. She always considered New York City her home, but of all the places she visited, I think she liked California and Japan the best. She spent several weeks in California in 1897 and marveled that it really was the “land of milk and honey.” She loved the beach and the climate. During their world travels, the Days lived in Japan for six-plus months, far longer than they stayed anywhere else. In the States, she had occasionally employed Japanese servants, many of whom had attained high positions back home. She loved visiting with them and, in her words, “seeing Japan from the inside,” not like a tourist. The Days rented a lovely home in Japan and tried their best to learn Japanese customs, including dressing in kimonos and eating with chop-sticks, which Helen bragged she had become quite accomplished at doing. She had a lifelong disdain for U.S. missionary culture and it struck her as the epitome of hubris for the United States to send Christian missionaries to Japan. In fact, when the Days returned to the U.S. in 1907, Helen’s first plan was to make a living traveling around giving a series of lantern slide lectures called “Ourselves and Other People” in which she translated Asian cultures for American audiences. These lectures never really took off, but I have read her note cards and promotional flyers and so I have a sense for how much she loved travelling and how much she learned from other cultures, especially Japanese. <br /><br />What about Mabel? Where were her favorite places? And how did traveling with her husband David compare to traveling with her lover Austin?<br /><br /><b><i><span style="color: #783f04;">JD: </span></i></b>Actually she never really traveled with Austin, and one of the peculiar things about her life is that she did continue to travel with David, even well into the relationship with Austin. Mabel made three journeys to Japan; she traveled extensively throughout southeast Asia, through South America, went twice to Tripoli, traveled across the U.S. and Canada, went to the Caribbean and throughout Europe. <br /><br />Helen became a real advocate of women’s rights, especially with regard to voting. Mabel, I suspect, would not have been on board with this. Do you think Helen would want to be remembered more for this work than for other things she did in her life?<br /><br /><b><i><span style="color: #783f04;">KH: </span></i></b>Yes, one hundred percent. Helen saw her suffrage work as her life’s crowning achievement, and, indeed it was. Even though her life was comprised of several discrete chapters (including even three different names!), all of her life’s experiences culminated in her work for the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/national-american-woman-suffrage-association/about-this-collection/" target="_blank">National American Woman Suffrage Association</a> (NAWSA). That is where her seemingly disparate experiences as a “Chenoweth of Virginia,” a freethought lecturer, a writer and editor, a sex reformer, and the wife of a Civil War hero came together in service of gaining the vote for women. She never could have planned it that way, but that is how it shook out in retrospect. Her life’s goal, she wrote, was not necessarily to win women the vote but to create a world in which women were recognized as “self-respecting, self-directing human units with brains and bodies that are sacredly their own.” She saw the vote as a vital step towards full autonomy. <br /><br />What about Mabel? What turned her off from suffrage? Do you have a sense for her interactions with suffragists or whether or not this was a contentious issue in her circle?<br /><br /><b><i><span style="color: #783f04;">JD:</span></i></b> I don’t think Mabel would have ever considered herself a suffragette. Although she was unconventional in many ways, she was also conventional in many ways, too. One of those ways was that she just didn’t believe women needed to speak out for the right to vote. To my knowledge, this was not an issue in her interactions with others.<br /><br />What would Helen have said if she did bump into Mabel at the Columbian Exposition…especially because Mabel was there with her husband, David, but was joined there by her lover, Austin?!<br /><br /><b><i><span style="color: #783f04;">KH:</span><span style="color: #783f04;"> </span></i></b>Ha! That is so juicy. AND, just so you know, while Helen was at the 1893 World’s Fair giving more speeches than any other American woman there, her lover Charles Smart snuck away to visit his wife and daughter in West Virginia! While there, he wrote his will, leaving everything to his wife. Later, before their trip to California in 1897, he wrote a second will leaving everything to Helen but then conveniently lost it. When he died in 1901, this missing will created a huge probate challenge, not to mention a threat to Helen’s public image. <br /><br />Helen was known as the consummate charmer and the life of the party, so despite their varying positions on women’s rights, I am sure she would have chatted Mabel right up. Her initial way of connecting was always through mutual acquaintances—Helen did not move to Boston until 1895, so she did not yet really have any Massachusetts connections—but she surely would have inquired about Mabel’s friends in New York until she identified common friends. Helen was in Chicago in May for the Women’s Congress, sponsored by NAWSA.<br /><br />I am guessing that is not what brought Mabel there? What was Mabel’s experience like at the World’s Fair and how on earth did she navigate with her husband and her lover both there?<br /><br /><span><b><i><span style="color: #783f04;">JD:</span></i></b> </span>Mabel came to the Exposition ostensibly to help David, who had been tasked by his employer, Amherst College, to curate the Amherst College exhibit. Mabel, of course, loved a good show, and I think being there in 1893 would have been the place to be. How she navigated the time with both David and Austin there, I’ll never know…</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #783f04;">***</span></b></div><br /><span style="color: #783f04;"><b><i><span>JULIE DOBROW</span></i></b> </span>is the Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at Tufts University, where she also holds faculty appointments in the Department of Child Study and Human Development, the Film and Media Studies Program and the Civic Studies Program. Her dual biography of Mabel Loomis Todd and her daughter Millicent Todd Bingham, <a href="http://www.juliedobrow.com" target="_blank"><i>After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of—America's Greatest Poet</i>,</a> appeared from W.W. Norton in 2018. She’s now working on a dual biography of 19th century writers/Native American policy reformers Elaine Goodale and Ohiyesa Charles Eastman. Dobrow holds an AB in anthropology and sociology from Smith College, and MA and Ph.D. degrees from the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania. For more information on Julie, visit <a href="http://www.juliedobrow.com">www.juliedobrow.com</a>. <br /><br /><span style="color: #783f04;"><b style="font-style: italic;">KIMBERLY A. HAMLIN</b><b><i>, PhD</i></b></span> is the James and Beth Lewis Professor of History at Miami University in Oxford, OH. Her most recent book is <i><a href="http://www.kimberlyhamlin.com/author/writing/free-thinker/" target="_blank">Free Thinker: Sex, Suffrage, and the Extraordinary Life of Helen Hamilton Gardener</a></i> (W.W. Norton 2020), which was named a top ten biography of 2020 and won the Carrie Chapman Catt Prize for Research on Women and Politics. She is also the author of From Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science, and Women’s Rights in Gilded Age America (University of Chicago Press, 2014). Hamlin speaks about the history of women, gender, and sex across the country and regularly contributes to the <i>Washington Post, Smithsonian, Ms. Magazine,</i> and other popular media. She lives in Cincinnati, where she hosts the Mercantile Library’s Allgood McLean “Women You Should Know” series. For more information, visit <a href="http://www.kimberlyhamlin.com">www.kimberlyhamlin.com</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/ProfessorHamlin" target="_blank">follow Kimberly on Twitter</a>.</div></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-80204146483890636682022-01-25T10:09:00.006-05:002022-10-26T19:27:03.306-04:00So19 Interviews: KATE BELLI on BETRAYAL ON THE BOWERY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiX8C1eQ6Gc9OW1UiqGiY99bkHcXYNv0qg7eP0Zjw8_2h8uVYnIn0uDpxhY37oD5mQm0uqFZnTAmUV1jmZIelZfH4PJ5src4LPeqI4Ks1Vwr4Ni4w2CE16sgoShZe5AyGV-QeizR1nveqnj0oPG_E_Z3kXCIIrifvkJkBap_LDVW8G5kfqjtu7FaNbJ9w=s2560" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1661" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiX8C1eQ6Gc9OW1UiqGiY99bkHcXYNv0qg7eP0Zjw8_2h8uVYnIn0uDpxhY37oD5mQm0uqFZnTAmUV1jmZIelZfH4PJ5src4LPeqI4Ks1Vwr4Ni4w2CE16sgoShZe5AyGV-QeizR1nveqnj0oPG_E_Z3kXCIIrifvkJkBap_LDVW8G5kfqjtu7FaNbJ9w=s320" width="208" /></a></div>I'm so pleased to share an interview with Kate Belli, whose Gilded Gotham mysteries explore fascinating aspects of New York City just before the turn of the twentieth century. Intrigued by history from an early age, Kate earned a PhD in American art and has variously worked as an antiques appraiser, a museum curator and a college professor. Kate has lived many places, among them Florence, Italy; Brooklyn; the American Deep South; and in a cottage next to Monet’s gardens in Northern France. Today she lives and works in Central Pennsylvania with her husband and son. <i>Betrayal on the Bowery, </i>her second Gilded Gotham book, appeared in Fall 2021 from Crooked Lane and can be purchased on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-Bowery-Gilded-Gotham-Mystery-ebook/dp/B08SWH8T97/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=PPcVs&pf_rd_p=49ff6d7e-521c-4ccb-9f0a-35346bfc72eb&pf_rd_r=XG317A941PQ37VC8H6S8&pd_rd_r=3134643e-6965-4818-8603-d58c8c2f004e&pd_rd_wg=xD51x&ref_=pd_gw_ci_mcx_mr_hp_d" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/betrayal-on-the-bowery-a-gilded-gotham-mystery/9781643857589" target="_blank">Bookshop,</a> or at your <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781643857589" target="_blank">local independent bookstore</a>; a third installment of the series is slated for publication in October 2022. Find out more about Kate on her <a href="http://katebelli.com" target="_blank">website</a> and follow her on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/katebelliauthor/" target="_blank">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Kate-Belli-Author-1678745332363500" target="_blank">Facebook</a>. All that said, here's our chat!<div><b><br /> Q. You’ve done so many interesting jobs! When did you begin writing fiction? What drew you to writing mystery novels rather than fiction in some other genre?</b><br /><br />I started writing fiction some time ago, when I was in graduate school for art history. I think it began both as a reprieve from academic work and as a way to do something more creative with all the interesting history I was researching. When I started writing fiction, I was inspired by Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton books, and the Gilded Gotham series began its life as a Gilded Age historical romance, but I found it worked much better as a mystery. While there’s still a romantic subplot, I’ve become more drawn to writing murder than kissing.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br /><b>Q. Your Gilded Gotham mystery series, which takes place in late 19th century New York, makes such rich use of its era and its setting. What drew you to this period and place as a basis for fiction?</b><br /><br />My training as an academic in is American history and visual culture, so it was a bit of “write what you know.” I was working as a curator for the Brooklyn Historical Society (now the Center for Brooklyn History) when I envisioned this series, living and walking and working in New York City and its history every day. And as I was inspired by the <a href="https://juliaquinn.com/series/bridgertons/" target="_blank">Bridgerton</a> series, I wanted to write something that held the same kind of glamour as the Regency period, but set in the US, and at a time when women had more freedom and opportunities. The Gilded Age into the Progressive era was a period of profound transition for women’s roles, where in a short time frame all kinds of things shifted—clothing became less restrictive, more professional and educational opportunities opened, more freedoms for women in general opened up, so it seemed a natural fit.<br /><br /><b>Q. Genevieve Stewart, your female protagonist, has her roots in New York high society but her sights on a future in investigative journalism, a career that was mostly deemed unsuitable for women during the years in which your novels are set. Was she inspired by any historical figure(s)?</b><br /><br />I think “mostly unsuitable” is a good way to put it—women had been writing for newspapers and journals for a few decades by time the book takes place, though mostly about “women’s” issues. Genevieve is absolutely inspired by the famous <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/nellie-bly" target="_blank">Nellie Bly</a> (the pen name for journalist Elizabeth Cochran), a historical figure considered to be the first female American investigative journalist. Bly did all kinds of amazing work for women, and is perhaps most well-known for having herself checked into a mental institution to report on the horrific conditions.<br /><br /><b>Q. In some ways, money gave women of this freedom: most notably perhaps, as captured in novels such as Edith Wharton’s <i>The House of Mirth,</i> freedom from the need to do the either backbreaking and/or soul-killing paid jobs that were available to females. Yet wealth and social position could also be incredibly limiting, confining well-heeled women to a narrow and highly codified range of choices and behaviors…in a sense, there’s a lot of money at stake when a society woman rejects those limits. For me, Stewart’s situation speaks of that paradox. Does that sound like a fair reading of your novels? Was it something you intended when you began to develop her character?</b><br /><br />I do think this is a fair assessment, absolutely! And I did intend it that way, which is why I gave Genevieve an eccentric family, a suffragette mother and a progressive, socially liberal father; a family who was naturally part of the upper echelons of society due to their long-standing wealth, but who were also slightly outsiders from that society as they didn’t always follow those rigid social codes. A paradox is a great way to put it—and it is a challenge for Genevieve, as she tries to reject those norms while simultaneously having to exist within them.<br /><br /><b>Q. Your male protagonist, Daniel McCaffrey, has experienced both poverty and wealth. So he’s a liminal figure with connections to worlds that existed side by side yet were generally mutually exclusive. What led you do build his character this way?</b><br /><br />I was interested in exploring the class tensions that were so rife in the time period, in that particular location, and in some ways Daniel embodies those tensions. I really wanted him to have experienced the Draft Riots, and for his immigrant experience and childhood to have shaped who he was and what he did with all that money once he inherited it—to press back against the extreme excess of the Gilded Age, be a part of it but also outside of it. Much like Genevieve—they’re both within and without of traditional upper-class society, in different ways.<br /><br /><b>Q. The Bowery district referenced in this novel’s title has undergone dramatic changes over the years. By the late 1970s, the early years of my own residence in Manhattan, it has declined into a neighborhood best known as a sort of Skid Row; these days it’s in a process (not entirely without controversy!) of gentrification. What interested you about this neighborhood circa 1890? What sources did you use to research its characteristics and possibilities?</b><br /><br />Ah, the Bowery in the 70s makes me think of <a href="https://www.martharosler.net" target="_blank">Martha Rosler’s</a> amazing photographic piece, <i><a href="https://www.martharosler.net/the-bowery-in-two-inadequate-descriptive-systems" target="_blank">The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems</a></i>! It’s a fascinating area with such rich history. I leaned heavily on visual culture to help envision the Bowery area for this book, spending a lot of time with paintings and photographs that capture the neighborhood in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (<a href="https://americanart.si.edu/artist/john-sloan-4476" target="_blank">John Sloan</a> painted the area frequently). So many institutions have digitized their visual collections, which is wonderfully useful – the Museum of the City of New York is one I used a lot, as well as The New York Public Library. The book <i><a href="https://lucysante.com/book/low-life/" target="_blank">Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York</a></i> by <a href="https://lucysante.com/about/" target="_blank">Lucy Sante</a> (originally published under the name Luc Sante) was also a fabulous source of information I leaned on heavily.<br /><br /><b>Q. The Bowery dive you call Boyle’s Suicide Tavern, a strange and scary establishment that markets itself by giving out souvenir medallions to those who survive a night there, is one of the novel’s most memorable locations. Was it and/or those medallions inspired by a real place? </b><br /><br />Yes! It was inspired by <a href="https://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2018/01/mcgurks-suicide-hall-bowerys-notorious-dive.html" target="_blank">McGurk’s Suicide Hall</a>, which was a real place at 295 Bowery, run by the gangster John McGurk. I fudged a little with the dates, the rash of suicides that gave the real hall its name occurred a bit later, in 1899 instead of 1889, but they did happen. And yes, according to the <a href="https://www.boweryboyshistory.com" target="_blank">Bowery Boys</a> podcast (another source I leaned on rather heavily for this book), the medallions stamped with McGurk’s face were handed out as souvenirs to those who spent time in the bar, which I embellished to being given out once someone survived the night.<br /><br /><b>Q. One of my other favorite <i>Betrayal on the Bowery</i> settings is your Garcia mansion, a once grand, now derelict home on the East River with mysteries that Stewart and McCaffrey must probe to solve the book’s intertwined puzzles. It’s at once a sort of haunted house and a place that has a lot of intricate logistics. Tell readers a bit more about it and its sources in real life if any?</b><br /><br />Ah it’s one of my favorites as well! Yes, it’s absolutely based on a real place, the Casanova Mansion, also called <a href="https://corvusfugit.com/2017/08/05/1913-whitlocks-folly/" target="_blank">Whitlock’s Folly</a>, which was a grand mansion in Hunts Point in the Bronx. It was built in 1859, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1902/10/05/archives/whitlocks-folly-a-victim-to-father-time-bronx-boroughs-house-of.html" target="_blank">demolished sometime around 1900. </a>I don’t want to give too much of the book away, but several of unique logistics I describe in the book are absolutely true and existed in the real house, and were used for the same purpose as described! <br /><br /><b>Q. What are you up to, and working on, now?</b><br /><br />I’m working on a few things right now; I’m in the editing stages of a new project, a contemporary stand-alone thriller. But I am also writing the last chapters of the third Gilded Gotham book, <i><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CYM0FlivTkn/" target="_blank">Treachery on Tenth Street,</a> </i>scheduled for an October 2022 release. It takes place almost immediately after <i>Betrayal on the Bowery</i> ends, just a few weeks later, during an intense heat wave in late summer 1889. A murderer is on the loose, targeting young women, specifically artists’ models and show girls. Daniel and Genevieve try to find the killer, a chase that takes them all over: the ultra-wealthy resort town of Newport, Rhode Island, artists’ colonies in Long Island, and the amusements of Coney Island. They’re doing all this while still grappling with their feelings over what happened at the end of <i>Betrayal—</i>my favorite thing about writing a series is continuing to engage with the characters over a good stretch of time. I hope there’s even more of these two to come, as it’s such fun to inhabit their world.<div><br /><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjyvgdGiWKPPoHMImVzPl58H_psdMEFhnNE5ArnmOE4UDhfGCN6Nvh3CZFpC0ZZnxyeBGmD4GeNpHt2-FbBCY_w0txKGK7LPxbB87zPtIRvwbdyW0rAXruAATa2xeQNY9x2WeawCIXER2N46HaFWDPHD2EnrzZA7pTMj3jNlqH8SH9PkzfOWQWnavNBFA=s783" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="783" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjyvgdGiWKPPoHMImVzPl58H_psdMEFhnNE5ArnmOE4UDhfGCN6Nvh3CZFpC0ZZnxyeBGmD4GeNpHt2-FbBCY_w0txKGK7LPxbB87zPtIRvwbdyW0rAXruAATa2xeQNY9x2WeawCIXER2N46HaFWDPHD2EnrzZA7pTMj3jNlqH8SH9PkzfOWQWnavNBFA=w400-h281" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Whitlock's Folly, later known as the Casanova Mansion<br />courtesy of <a href="https://corvusfugit.com/2017/08/05/1913-whitlocks-folly/" target="_blank">CorvusFugit.com</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhD0hOFG5H0ENTNgUDWCgA2qXWIuwCcjQyJhWjA3jJZenjI7FnE1WOLLUZzhWImHJBTUCr0ZFe3CDkIGvLqPswLtyfr3J3Zp3MacHvcTFgqaU_IrPAoy0ZPoHOH9q58IzRr9i5n5p5DC-6VZlwv_XOkMT5F_U5rGZM5C6si1_fC9jHmtZm36y2aBT9Arw=s1494" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1494" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhD0hOFG5H0ENTNgUDWCgA2qXWIuwCcjQyJhWjA3jJZenjI7FnE1WOLLUZzhWImHJBTUCr0ZFe3CDkIGvLqPswLtyfr3J3Zp3MacHvcTFgqaU_IrPAoy0ZPoHOH9q58IzRr9i5n5p5DC-6VZlwv_XOkMT5F_U5rGZM5C6si1_fC9jHmtZm36y2aBT9Arw=w400-h213" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">McGurk's Suicide Hall,<br />courtesy of <a href="https://ny.curbed.com/2017/4/19/15359306/east-village-bowery-history-mcgurks-suicide-hall" target="_blank">Curbed</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiXqkjG7xdNqoEU7TY_J0-VB7X-81jKz9tbbHfWg8MoKANJe3yGzKx0KpHPsLuMguSVw1FO2j51u28qQtAWSqCoa05uP_7ZrgWQqZdkW8Gd5I20y9Wa39hklTKIdbZ_5vRlmC4FsNZiOFqbqzfi5xjVIOf9_klrKlA5jQ9MJ4kZUDNmlreO5DZPtFCSow=s2000" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1618" data-original-width="2000" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiXqkjG7xdNqoEU7TY_J0-VB7X-81jKz9tbbHfWg8MoKANJe3yGzKx0KpHPsLuMguSVw1FO2j51u28qQtAWSqCoa05uP_7ZrgWQqZdkW8Gd5I20y9Wa39hklTKIdbZ_5vRlmC4FsNZiOFqbqzfi5xjVIOf9_klrKlA5jQ9MJ4kZUDNmlreO5DZPtFCSow=w400-h324" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">McSorley's Bar, a more salubrious establishment than McGurk's<br />(though one that didn't admit women until 1970);<br />painting by John Sloan, 1912, in the collection of<br />the <a href="https://www.dia.org/art/collection/object/mcsorleys-bar-61604" target="_blank">Detroit Institute of the Arts</a></td></tr></tbody></table><div><div><br /></div></div></div></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-70084462509281265452021-10-26T10:46:00.004-04:002022-10-26T19:29:23.352-04:00So19 Interviews: ANDREA PENROSE on MURDER AT THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgd13cKG6fd4pWFVH2uWuYF5SaCevy8P0TRKmQ0E6Xh_Lf3grQag78NeAeRsO85EUIQV3vJ4KZg6a3P5vvTRo31UWJqWELYlpZHlomnwdKejnXXxFd7mZCW0NuwuL8UBVvp8DcRMeBPnUsYsDAjuL_QcQc79lONSD3n2zA2PQgeUDGnOXpRCj071y0Iw/s604/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-26%20at%207.28.37%20PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="398" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgd13cKG6fd4pWFVH2uWuYF5SaCevy8P0TRKmQ0E6Xh_Lf3grQag78NeAeRsO85EUIQV3vJ4KZg6a3P5vvTRo31UWJqWELYlpZHlomnwdKejnXXxFd7mZCW0NuwuL8UBVvp8DcRMeBPnUsYsDAjuL_QcQc79lONSD3n2zA2PQgeUDGnOXpRCj071y0Iw/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-10-26%20at%207.28.37%20PM.png" width="211" /></a></div>I’m delighted to share my interview with author Andrea Penrose on her fifth Wrexford and Sloane Regency-era mystery, <i>Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens</i>. With a satirical artist and an amateur chemist as protagonists, the series makes rich use of the era’s complex scientific and cultural innovations. While such innovations rarely resulted in real-life murders, Penrose’s novels offer a vivid and realistic sense of the tensions that arose around them. Reading her books, I’m always introduced to a new aspect of the intellectual life of the period and also reminded that our own is far from the only historical period in which conflicts around the interpretation, communication and commercialization of new discoveries reached fever pitch. A voracious reader who’s been fascinated by the Regency ever since she first picked up Jane Austen’s <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, Penrose received her undergraduate degree in art (though she also took enough history courses for a major in that as well) from Yale and earned her MFA in Graphic Design from the Yale School of Art, concentrating in publication design. In addition to the Wrexford and Sloane mysteries, she’s the author of seven Lady Ariana books, which she describes as being about “danger, devilry, deception—spiced with a dash of chocolate.” (Let me just add that if more danger came with chocolate, I’d be much less risk-averse.) She blogs at <a href="https://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_wenches/" target="_blank">The Word Wenches</a>, which is always a delightful read; you can find out more about Andrea and her work on her <a href="http://www.andreapenrose.com" target="_blank">website</a> and<a href="https://www.facebook.com/andrea.penrose.3" target="_blank"> Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/AndreaPenrose" target="_blank">Twitter,</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/andreapenrosebooks/" target="_blank">Instagram</a> feeds. Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens can be purchased on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08RW6RY2W/" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/murder-at-the-royal-botanic-gardens-a-riveting-new-regency-historical-mystery/9781496732507" target="_blank">Bookshop</a>, and through your<a href="https://www.indiebound.org" target="_blank"> local independent bookstore</a>. With warm thanks to Andrea for taking the time to chat with me, here’s our conversation.<br /><br /><b>Q. What inspired you to choose Regency London as the setting for a detective series? Were you always drawn to that time and place, for example, or did it just allow you to write about particular issues that interested you?</b><br /><br />I love the era because it was a fabulously interesting time and place—a world aswirl in silks, seduction and the intrigue of the Napoleonic Wars. Radical new ideas were clashing with the conventional thinking of the past. People were questioning the fundamentals of society, and as a result they were fomenting changes in every aspect of life. Politics, art, music, science, social rules—the world was turning upside down.<br /><br />Romanticism was taking hold, bringing a new wave of individual expression. You had Beethoven composing emotional symphonies, Byron composing wildly romantic poetry about individual angst, Turner dabbling in impressionistic watercolors and Mary Wollstonecraft writing the first feminist manifestos. <br /><br />Technology was disrupting everyday life as the Industrial Revolution began cranking into high gear. Interest in science was exploding as people were suddenly wanting to understand the world around them and how it worked—geology; the workings of the heavens; the mysteries of the sea. People like Alexander von Humboldt, now considered the father of ecology, and Charles Darwin of evolution fame were starting to look around at flora and fauna and ask <i>Why, Why, Why?</i><br /><br />In so many ways, it was the birth of the modern world—and for me, its challenges, its characters and its conflicts have such relevance to our own times.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><br /><b>Q. The Earl of Wrexford is a respected amateur chemist, while his investigative partner and more recently, fiancée, Lady Charlotte Sloane, creates satirical drawings under the pseudonym A.J. Quill. In other words, you devised characters who are really immersed in the cutting-edge intellectual life of the period. Could you talk a bit about the particular gifts and sphere you chose for each and the themes they allow you to write about?</b><br /><br />Lady Charlotte and Wrexford are inspired by actual history. One of the fascinating things my research has revealed is that many men and women of era were challenging the strictures of society and defying convention to pursue their passions.<br /><br />Charlotte is passionate about the injustices and inequalities in Society. (As a young women she had had first-hand experience…but no spoilers!) The real-life satirical artists of the Regency were the sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued social commentators of their day. The public looked at their cartoons to see what was really going on in society. The art poked fun at the high and mighty and lambasted the political leaders, skewering their foibles and making public their scandals. <br /><br />In my books, Charlotte takes over the pen of her late husband and under a nom de plume—because heaven forfend that a women who criticize the high and mighty!—becomes London’s most popular social commentator. And then she finds that her network of informants for learning these secrets proves invaluable when she’s drawn into solving a crime…<br /><br />Wrexford is also a rebel. Many aristocratic men of the era felt just as constrained as the women did by the strictures of society and had difficultly exercising their talents. In the Regency, a gentleman would have been shunned from Society for soiling his hand in trade—in other words, he couldn’t run a business. It’s one of the reasons so many bright and inquisitive men who could afford it became amateur men of science. (I avoid using the word “scientist” as it wasn’t invented until 1833, following the end of the Regency era.)<br /><br />I’ve made Wrexford a man of science because they were the creative thinkers and innovators of the era. Using logic and and empirical observation, they sought to understand the world around them. Wrexford cares about “truth,” and he finds that his scientific skills and reasoning prove well-suited to solving crimes. <br /><br />For me, the pairing of Reason and Intuition has been really interesting to develop. Wrexford analyses everything. Charlotte trusts her intuition. They both are very careful observers, but see things in different ways. In the first book, circumstances force them into an unwilling partnership to solve a heinous crime. To their surprise, they come to have a grudging friendship.<br /><br /><b>Q. Previous novels in the series have offered mysteries related to industrial inventions, mechanical calculators, and electricity among other scientific or commercial developments. How do you choose the innovation at the heart of each new novel? Is it difficult to balance the technical aspects of each issue and the mystery plotting? </b><br /><br />There are so many fascinating technical innovations that developed during the Regency, so I have a wealth of ideas from which to choose! I try to pick inventions or concepts that changed basic elements of life. Change is frightening, and that adds an element to the mystery. And like our world today, the skullduggery over patents and how to profit from ideas and innovations offers a wealth of plot twists.<br /><br /><b>Q. As its title suggests, you turn to the life sciences, specifically the medical and commercial potential of plants, in Death at the Royal Botanic Gardens. Can you talk a bit about this element and what drew you to it?<br /></b><br />I first “met” David Hosack, a real life American physician who plays a role in the book, in Victoria Johnson’s marvelous book, American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic. It really piqued my interest in how the concept of medicine was changing during the Georgian/Regency era. <br /><br />So much of medicine at the time was based on either superstition or ideas from the ancient Greeks. Britain was a leader in exploring new ways thinking about medicine. (Hosack studied in Scotland and took his passion for plants back to America.) British universities began establishing medicinal gardens; botanicals had of course been used for centuries by local healers, and now finally the medical profession was taking them seriously! The idea took root and scientific societies, both in Britain and Europe, followed suit and began to trade specimens with each other. The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew became a major player in the development of plant knowledge, and was the catalyst for discovering new botanical new cures for ailments. <br /><br />The development of “wonder drugs” from plants seemed a really compelling plot for a book…and so my mind starting spinning a plot!<br /><br /><b>Q. The changes in Sloane’s life over the course of the series suggest some of the complex constraints that affected Regency women. Early in the series, her life is precarious in many ways, but she has a certain exemption from polite society’s expectations and limitations for women. As time progresses, both her deepening romance with Wrexford and her situation vis-à-vis her family of origin begin to pull her back into the upper-class orbit in which she was raised. So to my mind, she illustrates a sort of paradox: as she regains greater financial stability and social rank, she loses some of the freedom she’s enjoyed from stringent notions of propriety. Fair reading?</b><br /><br />That’s a perfect reading of Charlotte! And readers will see her wrestling with those conflicts in this book. I really like writing about people who are both strong and vulnerable. We all have strengths and weaknesses, and how we learn to balance those conflicting elements is, to me, an integral part of the human experience.<br /><br /><b>Q. Because they’re so intricately related to the scientific and commercial developments of the Regency, your novels clearly take a lot of research. Can you tell us a little about how you approach that part of your work—sources you draw from, visits you make, contacts who help with specific issues, and the like?</b><br /><br />I love research! I’m a real history nerd and enjoy reading books on all sorts of esoteric topics, which is where I often stumble upon an “ah-ha moment” where I suddenly see something that would be a great “MacGuffin” for a book.<br /><br />Just as important, I love museums. When I go to Britain, I make a point prowling through every small, offbeat museum I can find, as well as the famous ones. London and Oxford are magical places for discovery. I learn all sorts of fun things about a variety of subjects in places like the Science Museum, the Docklands Museum, the Horse Guards Museum, the V&A Museum, the National Portrait Gallery and Kensington Palace. I find all the little details I gather in those places help add color and texture to mysteries. I really enjoy trying to paint a vivid picture of the Regency—the clothing, weapons, carriages and ballroom, to name just a few elements.<br /><br /><b>Q. What are you working on now?</b><br /><br />The next Wrexford & Sloane! All I will say about it is this—there are times when an author gets extraordinarily lucky and history provides a setting for a mystery more perfect than any writer would dare to imagine. Look for it in September 2022.Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-41017315986834928402021-10-19T17:26:00.005-04:002022-10-26T19:29:47.676-04:00So19 Interviews: HELEN HUMPHREYS on FIELD STUDY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGRj5TOKRhQvhcgkIEZIy5u7TmVd51kZwTL2vQLExHDae2bV_bDc8HxpsFYumpSloNkY6J99CxbEFcoe6qRFRX7-NdSjJPQcP0Kku6eQaLjdX0xc3nwemiIvL4lUtcDEFuNOO_A-PFofRJ/s500/Humphreys.Field+Study.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="375" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGRj5TOKRhQvhcgkIEZIy5u7TmVd51kZwTL2vQLExHDae2bV_bDc8HxpsFYumpSloNkY6J99CxbEFcoe6qRFRX7-NdSjJPQcP0Kku6eQaLjdX0xc3nwemiIvL4lUtcDEFuNOO_A-PFofRJ/s320/Humphreys.Field+Study.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>I'm delighted to feature an interview with Helen Humphreys about her resonant new book, <i>Field Study: Meditations on a Year at the Herbarium, </i>today. Small in size but imaginatively wide-ranging, <i>Field Study</i> uses reflections on herbaria—the collections of dried plant specimens made by both amateur and professional botanists to preserve and share information about plant species—as a means of connecting to the plants and plant lovers of the past, the plants of our present, the endurance as well as fragility of nature itself, and the seasons of our journeys both personally and as citizens of the Earth. It's filled with fascinating lore and detail, yet it's also a profoundly meditative book: an elegant, quiet, and compelling record of one woman's journey into past and present, the outside world and her own imagination. As beautifully designed and illustrated as it is written, it's a wonderful read as well as a perfect gift for anyone who loves plants, nature, environmental and scientific history and/or reflections on women's lives.<div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.canadianauthors.net/h/humphreys_helen/" target="_blank">Helen Humphreys</a> is the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. My own favorites among her works include, in no particular order, <i><a href="https://quillandquire.com/review/nocturne-on-the-life-and-death-of-my-brother/" target="_blank">Nocturne</a></i>, <i><a href="https://quillandquire.com/review/the-ghost-orchard-the-hidden-history-of-the-apple-in-north-america/" target="_blank">The Ghost Orchard,</a></i> <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781770412552" target="_blank"><i>The River</i></a>, <i><a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8050-5957-1" target="_blank">Leaving Earth</a></i>, and (of course, for a feminist lover of the 19th century) <i><a href="https://quillandquire.com/review/afterimage/" target="_blank">Afterimage</a>.</i> <i><a href="https://ecwpress.com/products/field-study" target="_blank">Field Study: Meditations on a Year at the Herbarium</a></i> appeared from <a href="https://ecwpress.com" target="_blank">ECW Press</a> on September 21, 2021. It can be purchased at venues including <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Field-Study-Meditations-Year-Herbarium/dp/1770415343/" target="_blank">Amazon.ca</a> in Canada and bought in the US on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Field-Study-Meditations-Year-Herbarium/dp/1770415343/" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/field-study-meditations-on-a-year-at-the-herbarium/9781770415348" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a>, and through your <a href="https://www.indiebound.org" target="_blank">local independent bookstore</a>. With thanks to Helen for her thoughtful answers as well as her extraordinary book, here's our chat.<br /><b><br /></b><div><b>Q. Could you speak about the gestation of <i>Field Study?</i> What gave rise to the idea for the book at this moment in our communal lives and/or your own creative trajectory? </b><br /><br />A: As I explained in the Introduction, I was looking for a way to write about nature that didn’t turn away from the dire facts of this present moment, but still allowed for praise. I decided on the herbarium because I wanted to show the interaction of humans and nature through time, and the herbarium seemed the perfect crucible for that exploration. I started writing and researching the book before the pandemic, so the subject matter wasn’t as timely as it became later on, after the book was published and the lockdowns had focused people’s attention more on the natural world.<br /><br /><b>Q. The first text we see after the title page reads, “This book was researched and written on the traditional territory of the <a href="https://pluralism.org/anishinaabe-ojibwe-ways" target="_blank">Anishinaabe</a> and <a href="https://pluralism.org/haudenosaunee-iroquois-religion-and-politics" target="_blank">Haudenosaunee</a> peoples. I am grateful for their long and vital relationship with the plant life that inhabits this region.” That felt so important—could you talk about it a bit? </b><br /><br />A: I wanted to give a land acknowledgement at the start of the book, as I give a land acknowledgement at the beginning of anything public that I do. It’s only right and proper to honor the people whose traditional territory I live and write in.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br /><b>Q. I love the book’s structure, which employs section and chapter breaks while also feeling fluid and organic—the connections between elements are always powerful but not necessarily linear. How did the structure, order and/or elements change as you wrote, if at all? </b><br /><br />A: I approached the book in a very organic fashion. I had my mandate, to look at all the specimens in the Fowler collection, but apart from that, I had no clear idea of what I would write about, because I had no clear idea of what I would find in the herbarium, nor what I would think about what I found there. So the book just follows my physical journey of proceeding through the herbarium, and also my train of thought where I tried to make sense of what I found there. <br /><br /><b>Q. <i>Field Study</i> introduced me to (or, in a few cases including Mary Treat, reintroduced me to) so many interesting figures as well as the way their characters manifest in what they collected, how they laid out their specimens, and the like. Were there one or two who particularly inspired, interested, or even challenged you? </b><br /><br />A: Well, I would have liked to have included little biographies of all the collectors, but some were impossible to trace. Of the ones I did include, I was particularly fond of <a href="http://www.herbarium.unc.edu/Collectors/Suksdorf.pdf" target="_blank">Wilhelm Suksdorf</a>, who named the locations where he collected plants after what he found or saw at that location. I also liked the husband and wife duo of <a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/126780#page/1/mode/1up" target="_blank">John Gill Lemmon</a> and <a href="https://www.nybg.org/blogs/science-talk/2014/03/over-deserts-and-mountains-a-botanists-love/" target="_blank">Sara Plummer Lemmon</a>, who botanized most months of the year, living outdoors and renting their house out while they were away, living on this rental income when they were home during the winter months. <br /><br /><b>Q. You write about Thoreau in the final chapter, just before the Epilogue. Could you tell readers who haven’t yet read Field Study a bit about his plant collection and why he felt like the right botanizer to close out the book? </b><br /><br />A: Thoreau had an extensive herbarium that he had collected with his sister, Sophia. It is now housed at Harvard University, but is available to <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/huh/sets/72157680747810871" target="_blank">view online</a>. Thoreau was very interested in plants and, through his extensive journals, documented his daily botanical walks and his various collecting excursions. There was a lot of material to draw from, with regards to Thoreau, and also, his reverence for the natural world is similar to mine, so I wanted to include him and his herbarium.<br /><br /><b>Q. Talk to us a bit about the Epilogue. As you write, rather than circling back to the herbarium or your personal experience of the natural world, you chose to end with a story that “contains both the hope and despair of what it means to live on this Earth in this moment in time, and yet the story takes place almost two thousand years ago.” How and why did you select this particular historical vignette as the final text we read? </b><br /><br />A: I chose this story because I wanted to show that, although we do live in a particularly terrible moment in terms of our relationship with the natural world; there have been other terrible moments in history. Not that I want to downplay this moment, but more that I wanted to show the way hope and despair are sometimes joined, and how, in this moment, we have to keep holding onto hope.<br /><br /><b>Q. You’ve talked in interviews about being visually oriented, and <i>Field Study</i> notes your efforts to draw some of the plants you encounter. And of course, herbarium specimens themselves are visual as well as factual records. For all of those reasons among others, it’s fitting that the book (designed by <a href="http://kisscutdesign.com" target="_blank">Natalie Olsen</a>) is so visually rich. What kind of ideas and input did you provide during the design process? </b><br /><br />A: The design was entirely due to Natalie, but there was some back and forth about what would be included—which specimens might be good to show, how many of my little drawings should go in, etc. Writing is a solitary process, but publishing is always collaborative and there was a lot of collaboration on this book especially because of all the visual elements.<br /><br /><b>Q. Anything you want to share about what you’re working on now?</b><br /><br />A: I’m working on a memoir about the writing life and dogs, particularly my own dogs. It’s called <i><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374603885/and-a-dog-called-fig" target="_blank">And A Dog Called Fig</a></i> and is due out in March of 2022 from HarperCollins in Canada and Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the U.S.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8uqgE8Xp6xNNhCf5rG0Z3WjkG9S37LGRTNDtkVOUoA-5dKOaAFxysbwdvPHajbR6tWeODZfKJzCKINKN-Q54W4Fc6aaFVXgq1F88j2nLxTTSAIDJ2apfvppTzsXC_pBZtwfj2x_NUc-VS/s2048/image0+copy.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8uqgE8Xp6xNNhCf5rG0Z3WjkG9S37LGRTNDtkVOUoA-5dKOaAFxysbwdvPHajbR6tWeODZfKJzCKINKN-Q54W4Fc6aaFVXgq1F88j2nLxTTSAIDJ2apfvppTzsXC_pBZtwfj2x_NUc-VS/s320/image0+copy.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div><br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> </div></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-21658344761733741992021-10-12T12:05:00.006-04:002022-10-26T19:30:08.025-04:00So19 Interviews: HEATHER WARDELL on FIERY GIRLS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuptzKbOUX29yBKNfP1fvX4Y94JJebgBUNBnMPUwD6Zhc_ea0WHhBIiXweUyCyZV22vSnIBEE8XWu6zh39pch_bOQQ0Eo6ynsJ-D85DT_WliUvQmZsevj_KA_TA3NhntX8aqVsU9bLGDI1/s500/wardell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuptzKbOUX29yBKNfP1fvX4Y94JJebgBUNBnMPUwD6Zhc_ea0WHhBIiXweUyCyZV22vSnIBEE8XWu6zh39pch_bOQQ0Eo6ynsJ-D85DT_WliUvQmZsevj_KA_TA3NhntX8aqVsU9bLGDI1/s320/wardell.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Today I’m pleased to welcome Heather Wardell to Society Nineteen for a chat about her novel <i><a href="http://heatherwardell.com/book/fiery-girls/" target="_blank">Fiery Girls.</a> Fiery Girls</i> follows two protagonists through the period before and after New York City’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, one of the deadliest workplace disasters in American history. Heather, who lives in Ontario, is the author of twenty-two novels. She came to writing after careers as a software developer and elementary school computer teacher and can’t imagine ever leaving it. In her spare time, she reads, swims, walks, lifts weights, crochets, changes her hair color, and plays drums and clarinet— generally not all at once. Find out more about Heather and her diverse work on her <a href="http://heatherwardell.com" target="_blank">website</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/heather.wardell.author" target="_blank">Facebook page</a>, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/Heatherwardellauthor/" target="_blank">Instagram feed</a>. <i>Fiery Girls</i> is available for purchase on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fiery-Girls-Heather-Wardell-ebook/dp/B08XSX3MR3/" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href=" https://bookshop.org/books/fiery-girls/9781988016092" target="_blank">Bookshop,</a> and through your <a href="https://www.indiebound.org" target="_blank">local independent bookstore</a>. With warm thanks to Heather for taking the time to speak with us, here's our chat.<br /><br /><b>Q. I’m always fascinated to know how an author discovers the idea or topic that becomes the “seed” of their story. When did you first learn about the Triangle Fire? What in particular drew you to it as the material for a novel?</b><br /><br />A. I read a lot of historical fiction, so while looking for an idea for my next writing project, it occurred to me that maybe I'd like to try creating some. In wandering the Internet looking for historical women who might be interesting topics, I came across the fire. I had heard of it before, but when I started reading about it, I couldn't stop. The bravery of the young immigrant women attempting to change their lives, the horror of the fire, the people's struggle to ensure such a disaster would never happen again...once I found it, I knew it was my topic.<span><a name='more'></a></span><br />There have been a few other novels that touch on the fire, but surprisingly few given what a huge impact it had on labor laws in America. Even those novels mostly use the fire as a subplot, and several contain inaccuracies (such as one that actually has the date of the fire wrong!), so I felt that there was more than enough room for a novel centered entirely on the fire.<br /><br /><b>Q. Could you talk a little about your research—sources, surprises, firsthand visits?</b><br /><br />A. The two classic books about the fire are <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Triangle-Fire-Leon-Stein-ebook/dp/B008GUEQFG/" target="_blank">The Triangle Fire, Centennial Edition</a></i> by Leon Stein and <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Triangle-Fire-That-Changed-America/dp/080214151X/" target="_blank">Triangle: The Fire That Changed America</a></i> by David von Drehle, and I used them both to ensure that my timeline of events was accurate. They were wonderfully helpful, but nothing written years later could have the immediacy of the reporting of the time. Thanks to the Internet, I could read the actual newspaper stories about the strike and the fire, and they gave me both interesting details (my absolute favorite being the young woman who was horrified when a judge suggested she painted her face and scrubbed at her cheek to prove that cold weather, not rouge, had made it pink) and also a clearer understanding of how the public saw the events. <br /><br />I was fortunate to be able to make a research trip to New York City early in my writing process. Spending time at <a href="https://www.nps.gov/elis/index.htm" target="_blank">Ellis Island</a>, the <a href="https://www.tenement.org" target="_blank">Tenement Museum</a>, and the <a href="https://www.nytransitmuseum.org" target="_blank">Transit Museum</a> gave me lots of great details to include in the book, and being able to literally stand where the girls stood in front of the Triangle building was incredibly moving. The majority of deaths from the fire were people who fell or jumped from the ninth-floor windows. Looking up (and up and up) to that height and imagining how terrified those poor workers must have been was horrible but also helpful for the book itself.<br /><br /><b>Q. The book’s protagonists are two young immigrant women who arrive in the States less than two years before the Triangle fire. Rosie Lehrer and Maria Cirrito have both strong commonalities and notable differences. Tell us a little about why you chose, and how you shaped, their particular characters and backstories.</b><br /><br />A. I decided very early in the process that I wanted to have two main characters, because there were so many interesting ways that people came to be in the fire that I couldn't restrict myself to only one. The vast majority of the Italian immigrants in the early 1900s came to America to earn money which they then took back to Italy, while most of the Jewish ones came to earn money to allow themselves and their families to stay forever, so I had Italian Maria and Jewish Rosie plan to do the same. <br /><br />As a reader, I enjoy historical novels that use real people as the narrators. As a writer, though, I found myself uncomfortable attempting to do that, since I can't truly know what those people were thinking and feeling. Rosie and Maria are fictional, and that gave me the space to imagine them without feeling constrained. I did include some real people in the book, but not from their own actual point of view. <br /><br /><b>Q. Your novel dramatizes how vulnerable the women who worked in the “waist” factories were: many not speaking English as a first language, some having left most of their families and support systems behind before coming to America, and all needing to work no matter how dreadful the conditions in which available work might take place. As you movingly (and tragically) depict, the effort to strengthen union presence and worker protection was vigorously underway before the fire occurred. For those as yet unfamiliar with this history and your novel, could you talk a little about that and perhaps also touch on Clara Lemlich, who appears briefly but as a crucial driving force in your book?</b><br /><br />A. When I first began researching the book, I learned of the massive 1909 garment workers' strike known as "The Uprising of the 20,000," and I expected to see that in other novels about the fire. To my surprise, that wasn't the case. I thought it was an oversight that needed correcting, because indeed the union had been working hard to protect its workers well before the fire happened. <br /><br />Interestingly, my research showed that physical safety of workers was less of a priority than we might have expected. The union's focus was on hours worked a week (attempting to get that down to fifty-two) and pay, as well as on making sure that union workers were not forced out of their jobs in favor of non-union ones. While the union did also want workers to have better conditions, that wasn't as much of a driving force. People commented on that after the fire, so I had one of my characters do the same.<br /><br />Clara Lemlich was an amazing woman. Barely five feet tall, slight of build, and not a native English speaker, she was utterly determined to see the union succeed. The book includes one of her actual speeches, in which she was boosted up onto a stage by a crowd and spoke without notes and apparently without preparation in such a passionate way that the crowd voted to go on strike immediately. She was also deeply involved, after the fire, with fighting to prevent a repeat disaster, and I absolutely loved that her days in a retirement home at the end of her life were spent organizing the workers there into a union. She could well be the subject of a novel all on her own.<br /><br /><b>Q. The phrase “fiery girls” has meaning beyond the fact that its characters are affected by the Triangle fire. Want to talk about that a bit? </b><br /><br />A. Titling a book is usually such a challenge, but <i>Fiery Girls</i> got its name the moment I read that phrase, which was used to describe the union "girls" who were such a huge part of the union's impact. Giving speeches, encouraging other girls to join the union too, standing up for their rights and the rights of others... they were rightly recognized for their passion by being called "farbrente maydlakh" (Yiddish for "fiery girls"). I thought it was a wonderful term and suited them.<br /><br />It almost didn't stay as the title, though, because I didn't want it to seem like I'd used it purely because they were in the fire. I made sure that the book's back-cover blurb referenced Rosie hoping to become a fiery girl herself, to hopefully ensure both meanings were clear. <br /><br /><b>Q. I loved the way <i>Fiery Girls</i> explored questions of character, contribution, and impact—about how we come to understand and, hopefully, trust our particular gifts. Rosie Lehrer, for example, wants to make a difference but fears that she doesn’t have the combination of skills necessary to do so; she compares unfavorably herself to others and often doubts that she has any power to change the status quo. I think that’s something many of us struggle with. Does that sound true to your book? </b><br /><br />A. It definitely sounds true, and I suspect it's a theme that stretches across all my writing, as it's one I struggle with myself. The world can seem so large and so very hard to change, and can one person actually do anything about any of that? I believe that they can, I believe that I can, and yet I know how hard it can be to hold onto that belief. <br /><br />I don't set out to stuff a moral into my books, as my primary aim with my writing is to entertain readers. But I do think that a book is better reading and feels more true when there's a heart to it, something deeper than just entertainment. I also think that books are better when the main characters change themselves and/or their surroundings, and that sort of thing leads to a moral core in itself. <br /><br />It's usually in my second draft of a book (I generally do three, although Fiery Girls had four because I needed an extra pass to ensure I had all the historical elements correct) that I figure out what the book as a whole is trying to say. Then I make tweaks to wording and situations as needed to make that a solid line of connection throughout the book.<br /><br /><b>Q. You’ve published many and diverse books. How does <i>Fiery Girls</i> fit in and stand out amid your body of work?</b><br /><br />A. All of my twenty-two novels are focused on women and their efforts to improve their lives, so <i>Fiery Girls</i> fits in perfectly from that angle. However, it's my first entirely historical novel. The rest are contemporary fiction, with the exception that my <i>Game of Pies</i> has a number of chapters set in the 1960s). <br /><br />That has an obvious challenge (research!) and a less-obvious one: a sense of responsibility. I care deeply with all my work that it be as accurate and realistic as it can be, but with Fiery Girls, I also really wanted to do justice to the girls themselves and to their hard work and sacrifices. I think the bravery and strength of those young immigrants are inspiring and I wanted to write them a book that lived up to them. <br /><br /><b>Q. Tell us a bit about what you’re working on now. Another novel, we hope?</b><br /><br />Always! I'm about to begin the second draft of a contemporary novel about six women who arrive for an apartment showing only to learn that they've been set up and no apartment exists, and in their anger decide to work together to figure out who has done this to them and why. I hope it'll be out in 2022. <br /><br />And I'm also researching for a second historical novel, about the women of Broadway in the 1950s and 1960s. That'll be late 2022 or even 2023 (yikes!) most likely. Given how much I enjoyed writing <i>Fiery Girls</i> and how kindly it's been received, I plan to alternate historical and contemporary novels going forward.<div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeyoesLGlKilTPCstJ-DlCekBp1tk0r_k-iVeErqaidQspj1I3aJmfDwEkDGyJWtb4KaUVCYBI1TsCIwhUMKSxr2TJdbfizNJm1H5FJHnUZiaycyCazl4kGzqo8n-SSQMBOEgTiU75nudf/s1536/loc.gov.firemen+searching+for+bodies.master-pnp-cph-3a30000-3a35000-3a35400-3a35468u.tif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1149" data-original-width="1536" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeyoesLGlKilTPCstJ-DlCekBp1tk0r_k-iVeErqaidQspj1I3aJmfDwEkDGyJWtb4KaUVCYBI1TsCIwhUMKSxr2TJdbfizNJm1H5FJHnUZiaycyCazl4kGzqo8n-SSQMBOEgTiU75nudf/w400-h297/loc.gov.firemen+searching+for+bodies.master-pnp-cph-3a30000-3a35000-3a35400-3a35468u.tif" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002709199/" target="_blank">"Firemen Searching for Bodies," </a>March 26, 1911,<br />public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress</td></tr></tbody></table>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-76640233424883158202021-10-06T17:31:00.006-04:002022-10-26T19:31:17.639-04:00So19 Interviews ANGELA BUCKLEY, part two<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HOtio2YebG4FzHFyFnDR72T2JrOkKMvJHpueLV7GzzBfKo2VuTaryD6rT2vlk3C4R-ahanwZu8A9S9IN8lkTUi4Mtu5TMyBOvFvpYhoVOHA50IyMDmoojYy-L8AENP3x-lvro3qyXAUo/s1000/Caminadas-Casebook-cover.jpg.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="648" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HOtio2YebG4FzHFyFnDR72T2JrOkKMvJHpueLV7GzzBfKo2VuTaryD6rT2vlk3C4R-ahanwZu8A9S9IN8lkTUi4Mtu5TMyBOvFvpYhoVOHA50IyMDmoojYy-L8AENP3x-lvro3qyXAUo/s320/Caminadas-Casebook-cover.jpg.webp" width="207" /></a></div>The first part of my chat with Angela Buckley, which you can read <a href="https://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2021/08/the-society-interviews-angela-buckley.html" target="_blank">here</a>, focused primarily on <i>Amelia Dyer and the Baby Farm Murders,</i> Buckley's study of a fascinating if profoundly sinister female perpetrator of crime. In the second part of my interview with the "Victorian Supersleuth," we move on to her books about male policemen, which figure in different volumes as both investigators and victims. You can find Angela's books on Amazon's <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Angela-Buckley/e/B0034NRV2U" target="_blank">US</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Angela-Buckley/e/B0034NRV2U/" target="_blank">UK</a> sites and on <a href="https://bookshop.org/contributors/angela-buckley" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a>. As always, check out her <a href="https://victorian-supersleuth.com" target="_blank">website and </a><a href="https://victorian-supersleuth.com/blog/">blog</a> and visit her <a href="https://www.facebook.com/victoriansupersleuth/">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/victoriansleuth">Twitter</a>, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/victoriansupersleuth/">Instagram</a> pages for more information on her work. With thanks again to Angela for her rich, thoughtful responses, here's the remainder of our chat.<b><div><b><br /></b></div>Q. I’d like to circle back to a more general question. How did your focus on Victorian crime, underworlds and detection come about? Is it related at all to your interest in genealogy? </b><br /><br />A. Yes, it was my own family history which lured me into the Victorian underworld! I started researching my family’s past during a career break about twenty years ago and I soon discovered that many of my ancestors had broken the law. Subsisting at the bottom of Victorian society, they committed crimes such as petty theft, drunken and disorderly behavior, and even swearing on the highway! When I turned my attention to my roots in my home city of Manchester, I made an astonishing discovery: my 3-x-great-grandfather was a notorious brothel keeper right in the heart of the crime-infested slums in the mid-19th century. After that, I delved deeper into crime history and have remained fascinated by it ever since.<div><br /><span><a name='more'></a></span><b>Q. The historian Mary Hartman, whose <i>Victorian Murderesses</i> helped drive my own fascination with 19th-century experience, notes in her book that she focused her study on criminal trials because they bring so much that is otherwise hidden—documentary evidence, firsthand accounts of private behavior, even popular opinion—to light. In other words, the history of crimes and trials is inevitably also broader social history. Does that feel true to you, and/or relevant to your books? </b><br /><br />A. That is completely true for me too. I find that crime history offers real insight into society in the past, whether it’s through the experience of individuals who were victims of crime, perpetrators or the police and other authorities. Each person has an intriguing and important story and I feel that it’s important to share these long-lost histories as they shed light not only on the past, but also on the present, as basic human emotions and actions don’t change so much over time. Crime history also opens up so many further areas for study, such as customs and behaviors, innovations and technology, and changes to the law, all of which had an impact on the actions of individuals and on the attitudes of society as a whole. There is always so much more to learn!<br /><br /><b>Q. Several years ago, you and I talked about your book <i>The Real Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Story of Jerome Caminada</i>. You’ve more recently edited <i>Detective Caminada’s Casebook: Memoirs of Manchester’s Sherlock Holmes</i>, which assembles key cases from Caminada’s 1895 memoirs. Tell us how that book further illuminates Caminada’s work and personality. </b><br /><br />A. In the casebook I’ve selected Detective Caminada’s most interesting and illuminating experiences, as expressed in his words, rather than mine, which offers readers the opportunity to hear his voice. His memoirs, which were published in two volumes, are very long and can be rather arduous to read, as they were written in the dry, factual style typical of 19th century detective autobiographies. However, there are real glimpses of Caminada’s personality and humor, as well as his humanity—despite his stern exterior, he was a compassionate man and a campaigner for social justice in his own way. The memoirs don’t contain much personal information, as they were work diaries, so there is more about Caminada as a family man in my biography of him. I think the two books work quite well together to give a more rounded view.<br /><br /><b>Q. Working with nineteenth-century texts is always interesting and sometimes challenging. How did you go about creating an anthology of highlights from Caminada’s memoirs? What kind of research, selection, editing and/or annotation was required?</b><br /><br />A. Selecting the cases was quite easy, as I chose them based on how interesting they are for a modern audience. I tried to include a good range of different types of crimes, to give a more comprehensive view of 19th century Manchester and its shady inhabitants. The biggest challenge was deciding which parts to edit out as, in his memoirs, Caminada wanders off topic quite regularly and includes information that was not only irrelevant to the case, but also quite inaccessible for today’s readership. There are also references to the physical appearance of individuals which I feel uncomfortable with, as he used language which I consider to be unacceptable and unnecessary. I tried to be judicious in my deletions, though, and not to undermine the original narrative by editing too much. <br /><br /><b>Q. Following <i>Amelia Dyer and the Baby Farm Murders, Who Killed Constable Cock? A Victorian True Crime Murder Case</i> is the second in your Victorian Supersleuth Investigates series. How did you learn about the 1876 gunshot murder of this Manchester constable? What aspects of the case were most powerful in inspiring you to write about it?</b><br /><br />A. Location is always a powerful driver for me, and I like to check out any historical crime cases in the places where I’ve lived or visited. I was reading a true crime book about where I grew up in Manchester when I discovered that a young police officer, Nicholas Cock, had been murdered a few yards from my family home. This was my inspiration and I immediately wanted to investigate this case. For me, this particular crime case was very poignant as I know every location, including the spot where PC Cock fell. Even though I lived there a century after the event, I have drunk beer in the same pubs as the alleged perpetrator and I’ve walked the same road as PC Cock did on that fateful night. This was very powerful, and I enjoyed rediscovering my childhood home. This case feels even more personal to me than the exploits of Detective Caminada.<br /><br /><b>Q. Am I right in thinking that the constable’s murder occurs at a time when policing and detection practices are undergoing substantial change? On the one hand, you have fledging use of things like footprint analysis; on the other, constables walking their beats can still only communicate with each other, or raise alarms, via whistle.</b><br /><br />A. That’s right, and the 1870s was a pivotal time in the history of crime detection. By this time, detective departments had been in operation for some forty years, and basic crime detection strategies such as following leads, interviewing suspects and looking for evidence were quite well established. Police detectives had many skills and innate characteristics such as local knowledge and the ability to create links in the chain of evidence, but they were also starting to gather evidence in a more systematic and scientific manner. Footprinting, which was the basis of the evidence in this case, had been used for some time and methods of casting footprints for analysis and comparison had already been developed. I find it interesting that Superintendent Bent (who was not officially a detective) simply compared the print with the boot and that was sufficient to secure the conviction. I love the detail that he covered the print with a box when it started to rain!<br /><br /><b>Q. Superintendent James Bent, the constable’s superior officer and a central player in the story, is a fascinating and complex figure. Could you tell those who haven’t yet read the book a bit about him? How does he reflect—or break—the norms for detection and policing of his time? </b><br /><br />A. Superintendent Bent was a county police officer, and the county forces didn’t generally have dedicated detective police officers at this time. As in this case, serious crimes were investigated by divisional superintendents, who would have had experience in crime detection but who weren’t experts. James Bent is a particularly interesting individual as his career spans the history of 19th century policing. Typical of Victorian police officers, he came from a working-class background; he began his work in a silk mill at the age of seven. After the new police professional police forces were formed in the late 1830s, he joined the Lancashire Constabulary—his father had been a night watchman in the old police force, which makes for an interesting comparison. Bent worked his way through the ranks to become superintendent. Like Caminada, he published memoirs that include all sorts of lively and fascinating anecdotes, including tales of battling with striking colliers, uncovering all kinds of innovative frauds, as well as working on murders such as that of PC Cock. <br /><br />Also like Detective Caminada, James Bent was a complicated figure. On the one hand, he was quite hard-line – his favorite adage was ‘Always believe everybody guilty until you prove them innocent.’ But despite this, and his reputation for being quite harsh towards subordinate officers, his memoirs reveal his caring personality and social conscience. He recounts his experiences of meeting families in Manchester who were living in extreme poverty and his descriptions are deeply personal and quite harrowing. Such experiences moved him to establish a soup kitchen at his main police station in Old Trafford; from there, over the decades, he and his colleagues fed thousands of hungry people in the city. Superintendent Bent died in service after over half a century of policing his local area, and is remembered today for his care for the poor.<br /><br /><b>Q. Tell us a little about what you’re working on now. </b><br /><br />A. My writing about Detective Caminada and Superintendent Bent inspired me to undertake further research into Victorian policing. I’m currently studying for a PhD in detective history at Oxford Brookes University. My doctoral research focuses on the evolution of detective practice in the English cities of Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham. I’m halfway through my thesis and I’ve already found so many new crime cases and detective tales, which have been long buried in archives, and which I hope to share with readers in the future. I plan to finish my studies next year and I have plenty of ideas and material for new books after that. In the meantime, as <i>The Real Sherlock Holmes</i> has now been published in paperback, I’ve been re-investigating some of Detective Caminada’s cases based on new research. I plan to present them as a podcast series next year. <div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMYp7tQR2pDNTa-xOXrnTri2nQ0MOY0rKMdrPgi2R9uY5sAfQudrdCYfA50cE765GP1_jgumKxDlgOGN471xrjJMDr4lcmZHVOKjnYriEPcFRJnI5DJ001q-bmd3C1o45BfQgIDzsiBsPL/s1187/Who+Killed+Constable+Cock.Cover.jpg.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1187" data-original-width="768" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMYp7tQR2pDNTa-xOXrnTri2nQ0MOY0rKMdrPgi2R9uY5sAfQudrdCYfA50cE765GP1_jgumKxDlgOGN471xrjJMDr4lcmZHVOKjnYriEPcFRJnI5DJ001q-bmd3C1o45BfQgIDzsiBsPL/w258-h400/Who+Killed+Constable+Cock.Cover.jpg.webp" width="258" /></a></div></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-58791184107705641792021-10-06T16:46:00.005-04:002022-10-26T19:30:35.578-04:00So19 Interviews: JENNIFER ASHLEY on DEATH AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWaq0GAZeb2qPkqiAWvow-32S7uLHIoiOa0Hw33hANlDGFklJp2buarOlq6vqWZc5cgJ6dWdrrFHVv4b5T-vqXHi0wVABKNhXwzuW-F8MIq8s9NVPP5Mw7fXBZJ3jp0vk0PugaiRn7TX4S/s350/Ashley.Crystal+Palace.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="224" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWaq0GAZeb2qPkqiAWvow-32S7uLHIoiOa0Hw33hANlDGFklJp2buarOlq6vqWZc5cgJ6dWdrrFHVv4b5T-vqXHi0wVABKNhXwzuW-F8MIq8s9NVPP5Mw7fXBZJ3jp0vk0PugaiRn7TX4S/s320/Ashley.Crystal+Palace.jpg" width="205" /></a></div>I'm delighted to share my interview with fiction author <a href="https://jenniferashley.com" target="_blank">Jennifer Ashley</a>, whose latest mystery novel features the reconstructed Crystal Palace in Sydenham, one of my favorite Victorian structures. Jennifer writes mysteries, romance, and historical fiction as Jennifer Ashley and Ashley Gardner, as well as a few series under the name Allyson James. Ashley, who has been published for approximately twenty years now, has written 115 or so novels and novellas. Find out more about Jennifer and her work on her <a href="https://jenniferashley.com" target="_blank">website</a> and her <a href="https://www.facebook.com/JenniferAshleyAllysonJamesAshleyGardner" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/JennAllyson" target="_blank">Twitter</a> feeds. <i>Death at the Crystal Palace</i> can be purchased on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Death-Crystal-Palace-Stairs-Mystery/dp/0593099397/" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/death-at-the-crystal-palace/9780593099391" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a>, and through your<a href="https://www.indiebound.org" target="_blank"> local independent bookstore</a>. Many thanks to Jennifer for taking the time to speak with me; I hope you'll enjoy our chat!<br /><br /><b>Q. Before we dig into the Below Stairs series, talk to readers about your different authorial names, genres, and projects. You’re a real writing and publishing dynamo.</b><br /><br />A. I have several historical mystery series going. As Ashley Gardner I write the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries (1816-1820 and onward) and the Leonidas the Gladiator Mysteries (ca. Rome AD 63), and as Jennifer Ashley I write the Below Stairs Mysteries featuring cook Kat Holloway (1880s). As Jennifer I also write romance (historical, contemporary, and paranormal). I certainly do a lot of writing! I enjoy the current series, and I always have ideas for new ones—new characters, time periods, and situations.<span><a name='more'></a></span><div><br /><b>Q. Where did the concept for the Below Stairs series come from, and how if at all did that initial conception change as you drafted the first novel, <i>Death Below Stairs?</i></b><br /><br />A. I conceived of Kat Holloway the cook/sleuth many years ago, long before I started writing the books. I realized that in many historical mysteries, the sleuth is from the upper classes (e.g., Peter Wimsey) is a prominent historical figure, or something of that nature. I have become much more interested in the “ordinary” person in history—the person I most likely would have been if I lived in that time. What did they do? How did they live? <br /><br />I wanted to write about the people below stairs—their lives, hopes, problems, and ways of coping with the Victorian age. Servants knew everything that went on in a house, because they saw everything, heard everything, and knew all the secrets. What better person to solve mysteries? <br /><br />I also note that in most historical mysteries, the upper class sleuth has a sidekick below stairs (in my Peter Wimsey example, his valet, Bunter). I decided to upend this idea, and have the below stairs person the sleuth, with her sidekick above stairs (Lady Cynthia and her friends).<br /><br />It’s a challenge, of course, to have Kat leave the kitchen to detect, so I gave her a generous day and a half off a week as well as an assistant; plus, she gains many friends who help her investigate while she creates her wonderful meals. To me what I’m writing is no different than cozy mysteries with modern-day chefs investigating crime. They really don’t have time for it either!<br /><br /><b>Q. Let’s talk about the series’ female protagonist, Kat Holloway. Does her characterization build on any real-life models, or is she entirely invented? Why did you choose to make her a cook in particular?</b><br /><br />A. I did not have a real-life model for Kat. She is wholly invented, but I did do research on people in service and how they lived. I enjoy cooking and baking myself, and I’m fascinated by old cookbooks, which is likely why I decided Kat would be a cook. <br /><br />Perusing these cookbooks, I notice that for the most part the foods we eat now are much like what they ate in the Victorian age, or the Regency, or even the 18th century. We have a few ingredients that they did not, making cooking a little easier for us, but the food was basically the same. Chicken in bechamel sauce with green beans in the Victorian age is chicken in bechamel sauce with green beans now, made pretty much the same way. Their stoves were far less efficient (might take an hour to cook pasta!), but the ingredients and methods were similar when you remove all the verbiage from the cookbooks.<br /><br /><b>Q. The fact that Kat has a daughter who boards in another household makes her a richer character, and also feels true to the constraints on domestic servants of the period. So for me, this is a poignant element in the novels. Tell us a bit about this aspect of the stories.</b><br /><br />A. I did want Kat to have more in her life than simply preparing meals in a Mayfair mansion. Her daughter, Grace, is her reason for living. When Kat realized she was going to be a single parent, she had to make the choice whether to keep Grace or give her up for adoption (e.g., at the Foundling Hospital). It was very difficult for women to raise children on their own. Kat knows that she has to work very hard to keep her daughter, and also that she can’t have Grace live with her since there was no at-work child care. Also, the mistresses of many houses wanted their servants (especially women) to be single and childless. Kat has an additional dilemma because she was tricked into a bigamous marriage, and her daughter is technically illegitimate. Because this fact could get her dismissed (she’d be accused of lowering the moral standards of the house), she can’t reveal the fact that she does have a daughter. Kat, however, has learned to deal with this situation and makes the best of it she can. <br /><br /><b>Q. Food shopping, choices, and preparation in an upscale Victorian household (not to mention kitchen and housecleaning, laundry, and more) can be so different from those familiar to most readers today. What sources do you use as information for those details in your novels? What do you think would surprise a modern reader most if they time-traveled to a Victorian kitchen?</b><br /><br />A. Running a Victorian house was a big challenge, and so ladies of the day had guidebooks on how to do it (I’d certainly need one!). A prominent resource is <i>Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management. </i>This book, published in the mid-19th century, outlines the duties of maids, cooks, and housekeepers, and advises a wife how to manage them all. What’s interesting about this book is that Mrs. Beeton’s husband ran a magazine, which she collaborated with him on and which published all kinds of tips on running a house and cooking. They’d ask for people to write in and contribute their favorite recipes, advice, and so forth. All of this was collected, along with Mrs. Beeton’s writings, into the <i>Book of Household Management. <br /></i><br />What would you find if you time-traveled to a Victorian kitchen? Heat. The kitchens were under the houses and had little ventilation. Food was kept cool (they’d try, anyway) in a larder, which was a smaller room away from the kitchen. Sometimes they’d have ice to help things, and later in the century, they had iceboxes (the precursors of our freezers). Cookstoves could be the lovely things we see in museums, or they could be tiny boxes that the cook had to use on her knees. I gave Kat a big new stove for her time, so she can cook without much hindrance. These cookstoves had to be constantly fed with fuel, and then banked for the night, because it was difficult to get the fire started again once it went out. A little boy of about 10, Charlie, works in Kat’s kitchen—his job is to keep the fire going all day, and also to do odd jobs when called for. This was common in Victorian homes.<br /><br />It would also be dark in the kitchen. If you look at older homes in London, you’ll see small basement windows that look onto the street. These were the only source of natural light below stairs, and not all the rooms had windows. Also in London, the sun is not always shining! Candlelight was the most common source of illumination, and even after gaslight became prevalent not all households would extend the gaslight to the kitchen. Again, I let Kat live in a generous household, where there are gaslight sconces below stairs.<br /><br />All in all, it was a challenge to prepare meals in a Victorian kitchen.<br /><br /><b>Q. Both in its original placement and after its reconstruction in Sydenham, the Crystal Palace is one of the era’s most iconic symbols. And as you make clear right from the opening scene in your new novel, it’s also a wonderfully colorful and eccentric space! For those who haven’t read it yet, could you offer a bit of a glimpse of the milieus and mysteries of <i>Death at the Crystal Palace?</i></b><br /><br />I have always been fascinated by the Crystal Palace, the huge glass and steel enclosure that housed the Great Exhibition of 1851. I couldn’t use the original Crystal Palace, because my story takes place in 1882, and the original palace had been dismantled once the exhibition was over (those living in mansions around Hyde Park wanted it gone). The rebuild in Sydenham is a saga in itself—the companies formed to move the Crystal Palace faced numerous obstacles and went bankrupt several times before the new palace was built and opened.<br /><br />The new Crystal Palace was even bigger than the old, and the exhibitions highlighted great monuments of the world. That building burned down in 1936, but the park is still there, along with its life-size models of dinosaurs.<br /><br />Kat encounters a woman at the Crystal Palace who claims she is being poisoned by an unknown member of her family, and Kat agrees to help her find out who it is and why. Some of the action takes place in a large house in Park Lane. This house would have been fairly modern for the time, its lavish carved wood paneling, wallpapers, carpets, and the immense silence of the place a contrast to the Georgian-era house where Kat works.<br /><br />A second mystery in the book revolves around Daniel McAdam, a man who has become Kat’s romantic interest. He works with the police rounding up some of the most dangerous criminals of the day, and has been sent to see if an aristocrat has been secretly funding the group responsible for the Phoenix Park murders in Dublin (a real event that was quite brutal). Daniel eventually asks Kat for her help, and she journeys with him to a fine estate and gardens in Surrey.<br /><br />I enjoy taking Kat all over London—as a member of the working class, she knows her way around areas like the East End and where she lived in the City, and as part of the staff in an elegant house, she knows Mayfair and its environs as well. I also have her go to the markets, in Covent Garden and elsewhere, to buy her wonderful food.<br /><br /><b>Q. What’s currently in progress on your desktop (whether physical or virtual)?</b><br /><br />I am working on Kat Holloway Book 6, even as we speak. This book will delve more into Kat’s past (her marriage, what happened to her husband, her life growing up in Bow Lane) and also move Kat and Daniel relationship’s forward a bit.<br /><br />I am also working on another romance in my Mackenzies series, and another mystery in my Captain Lacey mystery series I write as Ashley Gardner. I usually have two or more books going in various stages at once.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi8G5AAwXFR59z_VVHCd4VVqzk87Ref97A0f5aiiBKCTkAfwPUY9-c8qqvHBefUgT39j1TCs7e-HaJN8dFZhaY9hVTcCWYuQikHQ7P_gWAr7lCYud2BlJa8dTcTDMoekhsJNyo2QlXYjxZ/s2000/At+the+Crystal+Palace%252C+Sydenham+1854+Salted+paper+print+%257C+13.5+x+14.0+cm+%2528image%2529+%257C+RCIN+2932748.RCT.UK.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1915" data-original-width="2000" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi8G5AAwXFR59z_VVHCd4VVqzk87Ref97A0f5aiiBKCTkAfwPUY9-c8qqvHBefUgT39j1TCs7e-HaJN8dFZhaY9hVTcCWYuQikHQ7P_gWAr7lCYud2BlJa8dTcTDMoekhsJNyo2QlXYjxZ/w400-h381/At+the+Crystal+Palace%252C+Sydenham+1854+Salted+paper+print+%257C+13.5+x+14.0+cm+%2528image%2529+%257C+RCIN+2932748.RCT.UK.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A royal party in the Eygptian Court<br />of the Crystal Palace, Sydenham.<br />Philip Henry Delamotte, 1854<br /><a href="https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/5/collection/2932748/atnbspthe-crystal-palace-sydenham" target="_blank">Courtesy of the Royal Collection Trust</a><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-23232308253124843422021-09-29T14:58:00.006-04:002021-09-30T12:09:38.425-04:00So19 REVIEWS: Helen Humphreys' FIELD STUDY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrPw-8rtFZ3qHutB0Qhx4mCgan5xQ8nV6HsulNSfUCwTcLZfKWOMHpTQDLUwlDErPlYS05Gfu7_LsWA8pzW1wJHM6ptyN7n2kbA7XrHqWFCD-P-Ww6zZxTnnf-S42u3dCaFyBXvreMbzVQ/s500/Humphreys.Field+Study.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="375" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrPw-8rtFZ3qHutB0Qhx4mCgan5xQ8nV6HsulNSfUCwTcLZfKWOMHpTQDLUwlDErPlYS05Gfu7_LsWA8pzW1wJHM6ptyN7n2kbA7XrHqWFCD-P-Ww6zZxTnnf-S42u3dCaFyBXvreMbzVQ/s320/Humphreys.Field+Study.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>I'm thrilled to have just received my copy of Helen Humphreys' <i>Field Study: Meditations on a Year at the Herbarium</i>, one of my favorite new books so far this year. Beautifully small in size but imaginatively wide-ranging, the book uses reflections on herbaria—the collections of dried plant specimens made by both amateur and professional botanists to preserve and share information about plant species—as a means of connecting to the plants and plant lovers of the past, the plants of our present, and the endurance as well as fragility of nature itself. It's filled with fascinating lore and detail, yet it's also a profoundly meditative book: an elegant, quiet, and compelling record of one woman's journey into past and present, the outside world and her own imagination. As beautifully designed and illustrated as it is written, it's a wonderful read or gift for anyone who loves plants, nature, environmental and scientific history and/or reflections on women's lives. <br /><br /><i>Field Study</i> is not as directly related to the nineteenth century as many of the books I cover here, yet it's infused with the experience and imperatives—as well as the species—of centuries past. As Humphreys writes:<br /><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><i>A couple of hundred years ago, it seems as if literally everyone picked and pressed flowers and plants and made a herbarium. Thoreau had one, as did Emily Dickinson. Botanizing was a popular settler pastime in the nineteenth century, both on a professional and amateur level, with lots of cross-pollination between the two groups. One aspect of colonization was a feverish desire by the incomers to catalogue the flora and fauna of North America, and since the tools required for botanizing were few—a notebook and pencil, magnifying glass, and specimen bag—it became available to rich and poor alike. The abundance of wilderness and the minimal equipment required to explore it was coupled with the notion in the mid- to late 1800s of self-improvement through acquired knowledge. Many people who did not have a formal education were motivated to learn more about the fields and forests that surrounded their towns and villages as a way to better themselves, and in doing so, perhaps better their situation in the larger world. </i></blockquote><br />Unfortunately, as she also notes, plants could also be driven to or even over the edge of extinction by the activities of plant collectors. It's one of the rich if sometimes painful tensions that runs through <i>Field Study,</i> this reality that most attempts to preserve and share nature risk damaging it. <br /><br />Organized by season, <i>Field Study</i> encompasses discussions of plant groups from the well-known (pines and grasses) to the relatively obscure (spurges and worts). The herbarium through which these plants are primarily viewed is the Fowler, a collection of some 140,000 specimens housed in the Queen's University Biological Station in Ontario, about an hour or so from Humphreys' home. But she also writes eloquently about other collections—most notably, as mentioned above, those amassed by Dickinson and Thoreau. Though the book is conceptually focused on the botanical world, it also brims with intriguing human personalities. To name one of many examples, I was delighted to re-encounter Mary Treat in its pages. For a time a resident of New Jersey's utopian Vineland community, Treat was a correspondent of Darwin's who was among the only female botanists able to publish their work in the 19th century. She's also one of the protagonists of Barbara Kingsolver's Unsheltered, another book (this one a novel) that I love. In contrast, I had never heard of Annie A. Boyd, who collected plants for the Fowler on her bicycle while a student at Queen's; or Lulie Crawford, a musician and botanical artist; or Frances Theodora Parsons, who wrote 1893's bestselling How to Know the Wildflowers under the pen name Mrs. William Starr Dana; or most of the other specimen collectors acknowledged in <i>Field Study. </i>Brief and colorful, Humphreys' introductions to these figures work much like the specimens in a herbarium. You can't learn everything about Treat, Crawford, Boyd, Parsons, et. al. from the book's pages, but you can gain a sense of each character sufficient to compare, contrast, and above all, to want quite fervently to learn more.<br /><br />Humphreys is a novelist and poet, and Field Study is a poet's as well as a naturalist and historian's book—that is to say, a book of surprising connections, resonant moments, and meticulously crafted, concise, and vivid language. The opening of the book's first section, "Winter," is characteristic in its quiet honing and close observation.<br /><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><i>The road to my particular herbarium—the Fowler Herbarium—winds through forest, twisting like a river, each turn revealing something new and surprising: a rafter of wild turkeys in the woods; deer browsing on the underbrush; a glittering, icy pond fringed with rushes; and, once, a fox nose down, snouting the snowy furrows of a winter field. </i></blockquote><br /><br />Yet though both what she describes and her own language are more often beautiful than not, Humphreys' vision of the natural world is never sentimental or idealized. Loss is here, an ever-present part of the natural cycle. One particularly affecting moment occurs when the author's dog Charlotte becomes incurably ill with a cardiac cancer. This "constant companion" must be euthanized only three days after the diagnosis, but before that they share the same kind of country walk they take every day. Immediately, Charlotte begins hunting small animals on the edge of a field:<br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><i><br />The dog's hunting this morning was very deliberate and purposeful. She was intent on what she was doing, to the exclusion of all else, and we could tell, from this change in her manner, that she was focusing very hard on having this time of concentrated pleasure, of being fully herself....it was obvious that the walk was special. Made more so, of course, because it would be our last together, but also because everything had conspired to make it so joyful and beautiful. The milkweed had just come into flower in the field and their scent filled the air we walked through with a strong, heady, sweet musk....In the car ride home, I opened the window for her and she thrust her head out (something she usually did not do) and breathed in great lungfuls of the sweet morning air.</i></blockquote><br />The experience of Charlotte's illness and death, Humphreys notes, "changed my course in this book." It wasn't grief that prompted the change but "that last walk of hers, that beautiful parade through the field..." "So," she concludes,<br /><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><i>after witnessing that, after being a part of it, how can I turn away from the sunshine and the flowers and the wheel of birdsong towards the cold cabinets filled with folders of dried and dead plants?<br />I can't.</i></blockquote><br />Humphreys does go back to her herbarium visits that fall, something for which we all have cause to be grateful. But some of the same paradoxes inherent in Charlotte's last walk—the sense of the natural world as a place of both danger and comfort, the experience of its organisms as things of bursting life and constant death—pervade the book throughout. <div><br /></div><div>"This world I live in—this world that you live in—is a world of disappearing species, but it is also a world of wonder and beauty," she writes. "And while we must all do more, and petition our governments to do more about the climate crisis, and not ignore the fact that humans are responsible for the destruction of species and habitat, we must also celebrate what is still here with a ferocious reverence."</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Field Study: Meditations on a Year at the Herbarium</i> by Helen Humphreys appeared from <a href="https://ecwpress.com" target="_blank">ECW Press</a> on September 21, 2021. It can be purchased on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Field-Study-Meditations-Year-Herbarium/dp/1770415343/" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/field-study-meditations-on-a-year-at-the-herbarium/9781770415348" target="_blank">Bookshop.org</a>, and through your <a href="https://www.indiebound.org" target="_blank">local independent bookstore</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYkRJrc1DoS82UVX-RkC9N4NLhjPQTpbRsl7AJWfdVkQgaXhndQBHDpjJmEvPzrvLm57_-qwHNeAwRT7oD51U7GRmn7z2zPy5Oi7k-VFNjIPG3AQeunbjccWrmtOyopk2_SHM02gnwDyV_/s2048/image0+copy.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYkRJrc1DoS82UVX-RkC9N4NLhjPQTpbRsl7AJWfdVkQgaXhndQBHDpjJmEvPzrvLm57_-qwHNeAwRT7oD51U7GRmn7z2zPy5Oi7k-VFNjIPG3AQeunbjccWrmtOyopk2_SHM02gnwDyV_/w300-h400/image0+copy.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-77225245976361762772021-09-15T13:39:00.010-04:002021-09-15T14:26:17.836-04:00So19 GIVEAWAY: Signed AFTER EMILY book and digital collage<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'm so delighted to announce our first Society Nineteen giveaway for the year, inspired by Julie Dobrow's rich and thought-provoking <i>After Emily: Two Remarkable Women and the Legacy of America's Greatest Poet</i>. Click <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CT2XlgBN9x8/" target="_blank">here</a> to enter!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">To enter, just <a href="https://www.instagram.com/societynineteen/" target="_blank">follow us on Instagram</a> and leave a brief comment on the <a href="https://bookshop.org/books/after-emily-two-remarkable-women-and-the-legacy-of-america-s-greatest-poet/9780393357493" target="_blank">contest post</a>. Comments on After Emily, the poet herself, or anything else you're inspired to share are welcomed, but it's fine to say "I'm in" or just post an emoji too.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Chosen by random drawing, the winner will receive a signed copy of Julie's book and a signed print of the digital collage I made to celebrate its themes and cover. For more about the book, read my <a href="https://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2021/05/ssshhh-im-readingjulie-dobrows-after.html" target="_blank">interview with Julie</a> and visit her <a href="http://www.juliedobrow.com" target="_blank">website</a>. For more on my art, visit my <a href="https://www.sfoxartsblog.com" target="_blank">arts blog</a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Entries are accepted from 9/15/21 through 9/29/21; the winner will be chosen by random drawing on 9/30/21 and notified via Instagram message. This giveaway is open to US residents only; no purchase is required and there's no need to enter more than once.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CT2XlgBN9x8/"><img border="0" data-original-height="1620" data-original-width="1620" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSJ5zV6LnPYkvWCi1zHoDMAQxldlUFGIVF4CKjX_ZzdYXXOXG-Ol0_ae6XkWE_YxI4v8SodcWwxqjno9db88vc75oRW7XqfSkKLwkHyCoT6dP4OjXP2ZXVw9IF0gyF-TyrnvRpmEGjrihz/w400-h400/Dobrow+giveaway+for+non-so19+use.png" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CT2XlgBN9x8/">Click to be redirected to Instagram and enter</a></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-VwW9LiJrWEaxvTZ_bLxHUDKT5gC81Hf4fubSTOmYzbV47RTkWUbLdk6D3iYdFoSjeQkYUtUANGV4hN0LwB12YXjK-za-EbhYr_n-3Oj6xMCvYtJ7pyjzTXFIscRUNz3Abj6RA3idGGR0/s2048/Dobrow+art+1.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1638" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-VwW9LiJrWEaxvTZ_bLxHUDKT5gC81Hf4fubSTOmYzbV47RTkWUbLdk6D3iYdFoSjeQkYUtUANGV4hN0LwB12YXjK-za-EbhYr_n-3Oj6xMCvYtJ7pyjzTXFIscRUNz3Abj6RA3idGGR0/w320-h400/Dobrow+art+1.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My digital collage, "Blossoming, I"</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi24lgTbPxa9nuW-ThOquqtorEkHVGGM4yDVVHPqt7eP1sWPdt7gqVBHtT0KyJK4pGIKztbuLVnvACBMutqGdPAGaAuhP2eCOuf8dX7s4eulrFphLMxrFlFyXfvnH66pskdZ0ra3d152813/s2048/Dobrow+Blossoming+II+description.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1638" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi24lgTbPxa9nuW-ThOquqtorEkHVGGM4yDVVHPqt7eP1sWPdt7gqVBHtT0KyJK4pGIKztbuLVnvACBMutqGdPAGaAuhP2eCOuf8dX7s4eulrFphLMxrFlFyXfvnH66pskdZ0ra3d152813/w320-h400/Dobrow+Blossoming+II+description.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">About the collage and book</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/after-emily-two-remarkable-women-and-the-legacy-of-america-s-greatest-poet/9780393357493" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="912" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtU2MQgiC8JP_WgLRJYwUNZEp4mqTFvtEnd42MXYY_XlVhApSnDCUdeAVPx0g-OM8BFFQ8OvP8-q9hlXoSea8S-ywJ2sZnVcdUCu-JwIi6gY998sidbuR9hzTzWQJgDpHeVqyIoOJpfb-8/w263-h400/after+emily.jpg" width="263" /></a></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/after-emily-two-remarkable-women-and-the-legacy-of-america-s-greatest-poet/9780393357493" target="_blank">Click to buy <i>After Emily</i></a></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-8923141488879263842021-09-02T21:19:00.002-04:002021-09-02T21:25:48.276-04:00So19 Art: "VIEWING VICTORIAN CRIME"Completed last week, this digital collage celebrates the work and books of <a href="http://victorian-supersleuth.com" target="_blank">Angela Buckley</a>, who writes, blogs and posts as The Victorian Supersleuth. My interview with Angela on her book on Amelia Dyer can be read <a href="https://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2021/08/the-society-interviews-angela-buckley.html" target="_blank">here</a>; the interview's second half, covering her other books, will appear on So19 this fall.<br /><br />The background is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Caversham#/media/File:Caversham_Weir,_1903.jpg" target="_blank">vintage photo</a> of the (now defunct) Clappers bridge in Reading. I liked the energy and symbolism of the water, which suggests both the rushing passage of time and the turbulence that crime brings in its wake.The bridge is among the settings in Buckley's book <a href="https://victorian-supersleuth.com/books/" target="_blank"><i>Amelia Dyer and the Baby Farm Murders.</i><br /></a><br />The three images in the magnifying-glass lenses come from Buckley's book covers: the Amelia Dyer cover in the center, part of the cover of her <i>The Real Sherlock Holmes</i> at left, and part of the cover of her <i>Who Killed Constable Cock </i>at right. A semi-transparent image of a circular lens used on top of the book cover bits helps give the magnifying lenses a more realistic look.<br /><br />The circular motifs above the two smaller magnifying glasses combine a key motivation for crime (money, in the form of a 19th-century half-sovereign coin) and a historic result of criminal activity (the hangman's rope). <br /><br /><div>Buckley's initials and her Victorian Supersleuth soubriquet appear in a font called Bleeding Cowboys, which I love for its grungy, grandiose flourishes. An antique wood frame surrounds the whole. The bold blue and gold colors of the piece felt suggestive of police uniforms as well as nicely Victorian to me.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's so much fun to make art inspired by the generous and talented authors who chat with me on So19. Thanks to Angela and her rich, thoughtful books for providing such great inspiration for this piece.<br /><br />For more on Angela, visit <a href="http://victorian-supersleuth.com">http://victorian-supersleuth.com</a>. Visit <a href="https://www.sfoxarts.com">https://www.sfoxarts.com</a> and <a href="https://www.sfoxartsblog.com">https://www.sfoxartsblog.com</a> for more on me. <br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbbfy0UYy9xp2lpmH6iCBmvFZ6hKfQE4BmvIXKzQbD1xviJZCZJdgDkkk7gy9WOoZQXnqCIAgG_u0nQg00a7vee3ECSEahdhBea5lKm6_dSOenH7B3rk-MvNwoqmWoxx85aPj1rAthp9uU/s2048/Victorian+Supersleuth.v5.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1434" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbbfy0UYy9xp2lpmH6iCBmvFZ6hKfQE4BmvIXKzQbD1xviJZCZJdgDkkk7gy9WOoZQXnqCIAgG_u0nQg00a7vee3ECSEahdhBea5lKm6_dSOenH7B3rk-MvNwoqmWoxx85aPj1rAthp9uU/w446-h640/Victorian+Supersleuth.v5.jpg" width="446" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Digital Collage (c) Suzanne Fox 2021.<br />Book cover images used with author permission.<br /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Caversham#/media/File:Caversham_Weir,_1903.jpg" target="_blank">Vintage public domain photo of the Clappers Bridge</a><br />All other images are stock images</td></tr></tbody></table></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7149771530307988310.post-67141786380713183582021-08-30T10:00:00.002-04:002021-08-30T11:42:00.390-04:00THE SOCIETY INTERVIEWS: Angela Buckley on AMELIA DYER AND THE BABY FARM MURDERS<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD71bChveOHR8WSba3WrBNBZCymUJLf3Mg4VL8wZP0sVrdXJNmniJyIWnUoBybIhn3DNpQhbWhTFX0xhqPtmH8A1jb_WYNE9L6ummXkjJGgFDeujDXoFoClUF-xpqW79HCgPs_L5Vowf1F/s1000/buckley.Amelia-Dyer-cover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="713" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD71bChveOHR8WSba3WrBNBZCymUJLf3Mg4VL8wZP0sVrdXJNmniJyIWnUoBybIhn3DNpQhbWhTFX0xhqPtmH8A1jb_WYNE9L6ummXkjJGgFDeujDXoFoClUF-xpqW79HCgPs_L5Vowf1F/s320/buckley.Amelia-Dyer-cover.jpg" width="228" /></a></div>I'm delighted to welcome back <a href="http://victorian-supersleuth.com" target="_blank">Angela Buckley</a> for her second interview on So19. We <a href="https://www.societynineteenjournal.com/2015/09/so19-talks-with-angela-buckley.html" target="_blank">first chatted </a>with "the Victorian Super-Sleuth" about <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OZ3HS9E/" target="_blank">The Real Sherlock Holmes</a></i>, her biography of detective Jerome Caminada. Since that time, she's been busy on new and fascinating projects. Our talk today focuses on <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Amelia-Murders-Victorian-Supersleuth-Investigates-ebook/dp/B01C4F6426" target="_blank">Amelia Dyer and the Baby Farm Murders</a></i>, her study of one of Britain's most prolific serial killers; our next dialogue will catch up on her other recent books and endeavors. <div><br /></div><div>Formerly head of modern languages in a large comprehensive school, Buckley has lectured at King’s College London and Oxford Brookes University in languages education and published several books for GCSE French students. She's now returned to Oxford Brookes University as associate lecturer in history, while studying for a PhD. Reflecting the interest in 19th-century crime behind her "Supersleuth" soubriquet, Buckley is currently writing a thesis entitled <i>The Science of Sleuthing: The Evolution of Detective Practice in English Regional Cities, 1838 – 1914.</i> Angela's work has appeared in publications including <i>The Times</i> and <i>The Telegraph</i>, and she's a popular speaker who can be heard on radio, television, and at conferences and events. Check out her website and <a href="https://victorian-supersleuth.com/blog/">blog</a> and visit her <a href="https://www.facebook.com/victoriansupersleuth/" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/victoriansleuth" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/victoriansupersleuth/" target="_blank">Instagram</a> pages for more information on her work. All that said, welcome back, Angela! Let's get chatting!<br /><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Q. For readers not familiar with the practice, could you talk a bit about Victorian “baby farming”? Who used that service, and why? </b><span><a name='more'></a></span><br />Baby farming was a form of Victorian childcare, which women used to look after their children whilst they were working in the factories and mills, etc. These services were also used by single mothers, who were forced to give up their children due to the social stigma attached to illegitimacy. As these desperate mothers were often abandoned by their family, thrown out of their job and shunned by society, one of their few options was to have their child fostered or adopted by a baby farmer.<br /><br />Baby farmers, who were usually women, offered to foster or adopt children for a fee, through advertisements in local newspapers. The average weekly charge was five shillings, and a one-off payment for an adoption could amount to as much as £10, which was almost a female domestic servant’s entire annual wage. Although some baby farmers were decent, honest individuals, the reality was that many “nurse children” were neglected and left to starve. It was common practice for baby farmers (and for parents!) to use gin or opiates, such as Godfrey’s Cordial, to suppress a child’s appetite and keep them quiet. These infant deaths would be treated as natural, attributed to “marasmus” (wasting away), which went unnoticed due to the high infant mortality rate in the Victorian era. Many baby farmers operated in networks with intermediaries each taking a cut, in what was essentially human trafficking. <br /><br /><b>Q. What led women or couples to take in others’ children rather than to earn their incomes in other ways?</b><br /><br />The practice was completely unregulated for most of the nineteenth century, so it was easy to set up and run a baby farm. There was no official paperwork and parents who gave their children to baby farmers for adoption did not generally expect to hear any more about them or their fate. Baby farms were run at home and practitioners were free to manage the children as they wished. This would have been a much more bearable working life for many women as it gave them freedom; they didn’t need to answer to anyone, nor did they have to abide by any employment rules. It was also very lucrative. <br /><br /><b>Q. When did you first encounter Amelia Dyer? She’s so complex and fascinating that I can’t actually imagine notwanting to write about her—but that said, was there anything particular in her story that gave you those “I mustwrite about this!” goosebumps? </b><br /><br />I came across Dyer almost by accident. Twenty years ago, I moved into the leafy suburb of Caversham near Reading, and I used to take my children down to the river Thames for walks and picnics. I never imagined that the place had such a dark history. At the time I was mostly writing about urban crime, such as the Victorian underworld of my home city of Manchester, when I suddenly had the idea to see if there were any interesting stories from my local environment. I was totally shocked to discover that one of the most prolific serial killers in British crime history had been arrested in 1896 very close to where I live. Although I know the case in detail now, I still get goosebumps every time I go down to the river and walk along its shady paths.<br /><br /><b>Q. Aberrant as some of her actions obviously were, your book also describes ways in which Dyer’s life and choices weren’t unusual for women of her era and class. They faced both a lot of challenges and a lot of constraints. How do you think that Dyer reflects more typical women’s lives?</b><br /><br />I’ve recently been exploring this issue and researching the lives and background of other high-profile Victorian baby farmers, and there are some interesting links with Amelia Dyer. The women who practised this trade were often more educated than you would expect. Dyer herself came from a lower middle-class background; her father was a master shoemaker, and she and her siblings were all educated to a basic level. Dyer was also a trained nurse who had worked at Bristol Lunatic Asylum. Although she was married twice, she seemed to be very independent of her husbands.</div><div><br />Perhaps Dyer, and women like her, had reached a limit as to what they could achieve through a general education and basic qualifications which, although it would have been better than many other women at the time, would still have left them with few options for well-paid work—most professions would have been out of their reach. They would also have been used to a slightly better lifestyle and income than working class women and may have wanted to improve their prospects. Baby farming enabled them to do that, at least financially.<br /><br /><b>Q. In reading your book, I was reminded several times of Andrea Yates. Obviously, Yates and Dyer are dramatically different in many ways, but both were women who struggled with mental illness that was not accepted as mitigation during their trials (Yates’s second trial did result in an acknowledgement of her condition) and whose acts engaged one of our deepest taboos. Could you give readers a bit of a glimpse of how popular culture as well as the jury saw Dyer’s story? </b><br /><br />The greatest challenge of understanding Amelia Dyer, back then and now, is working out whether she was aware of her murderous acts or whether she was suffering with a mental health condition, referred to as “homicidal mania” at the time. In the 1890s, as the police began to close in on her in Bristol, she attempted suicide twice and was confined to asylums. But there was also a possibility that, although she could be violent, she was pretending to be insane to escape the law. Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that she was a laudanum addict, which might explain the escalation in her crimes and her gradual loss of control over her actions.<br /><br />This complexity of her character was discussed at length at her trial. The doctors who had treated her in Bristol, before she moved to Reading, disagreed as to whether she was insane or not. The experts called on to testify at her trial also could not agree on her mental state. Interestingly, the matron of Reading Prison and the medical officer at Holloway, both of whom had had time to observe and interact with her, believed that she was sane and responsible for her actions. <br /><br />In the end, the jury took just under five minutes to convict her of willful murder, which reflected the general perception of her in the press and by the public. For both, Dyer was an evil killer and an unnatural woman.<br /><br /><b>Q. Sadly, Dyer wasn’t the only practitioner to turn to infanticide. Did her highly visible case result in any changes or reforms? </b><br /><br />Baby farming was prevalent in many British towns and cities in the second half of the nineteenth century, and there were seven high-profile murder trials of baby farmers from 1870-1907. Gradually, awareness was raised of the terrible plight of nurse children and legislation slowly began to be implemented. The first Infant Life Protection Act was passed in 1872, but this merely required baby farms to be registered. The law was amended after the Dyer case and local authority control was tightened, but this was still inadequate and did not prevent further infant deaths. Finally, in 1908, the Children Act introduced a full range of measures to protect children, including those who were fostered or adopted. This formed the basis of our child protection laws today.<br /><br /><b>Q. In the Acknowledgments of her mystery novel <i><a href="http://www.tessaharrisauthor.com/the-angel-makers" target="_blank">The Angel Makers</a></i>, Tessa Harris mentions that your walking tours of Amelia Dyer’s Reading haunts brought Dyer’s story alive for her. Tell us a little about those tours and the physical remains of the places amid which Dyer moved?</b><br /><br />I do these tours <i>ad hoc</i> and it was lovely to have Tessa come along. Very little has changed down at the river Thames near Caversham since 1896, when Dyer lived there, which makes for a very atmospheric walk! The houses where she stayed are still there (I try not to lurk!) and the paths are the same ones she walked as she made her way down to the river to dispose of her victims’ bodies. Although the foot bridge has been replaced, it is quite moving to stand on the current one over the weir and think of all those tiny babies whose bodies were found in the swirling waters below.<br /><br /><b>Q. We’ll talk about your most recent books in the second half of this interview. For now, let me close by asking whether you have any future books about female protagonists in mind? </b><br /><br />I’ve been extending my research into baby farming, in particular uncovering the history of the women who gave their children away to unscrupulous practitioners. Their backgrounds and circumstances are far more varied than generally considered, and I would love an opportunity to share their stories.</div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPrw7CJ9kiNAv3l3er4-hMIAqsQz2f31ld3tVSnKUxYxS9bkw12GPHSZ2OtrVOduLxsOxHxVCf0jdgSvhsGJgulE-IIzvCIkugHjPYIaJOfaf2vKN_jiTknuU8MFdju7j0UEVYOtRxGSoz/s494/dyer-clappers-color-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="494" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPrw7CJ9kiNAv3l3er4-hMIAqsQz2f31ld3tVSnKUxYxS9bkw12GPHSZ2OtrVOduLxsOxHxVCf0jdgSvhsGJgulE-IIzvCIkugHjPYIaJOfaf2vKN_jiTknuU8MFdju7j0UEVYOtRxGSoz/s320/dyer-clappers-color-001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgosIQkjHWr0NXjC6vpP6wNKjQCFU2J8LyN7rDBZ2_y1dN2sk7i86WD8IY-FiB5FrtMWQeTpuA6kLhow_dmB3pM_UzKspXp_aGFXbdUhV_JChg_ZIRwQIq3mWYtyFDBnVmGzpFrMrelKGTf/s638/dyer-sentenced-001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="638" data-original-width="374" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgosIQkjHWr0NXjC6vpP6wNKjQCFU2J8LyN7rDBZ2_y1dN2sk7i86WD8IY-FiB5FrtMWQeTpuA6kLhow_dmB3pM_UzKspXp_aGFXbdUhV_JChg_ZIRwQIq3mWYtyFDBnVmGzpFrMrelKGTf/w376-h640/dyer-sentenced-001.jpg" width="376" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div><br /></div>Suzanne Foxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11157817415914737938noreply@blogger.com