Empire ladies, from squarepianotech.com's page, SP in Art. Click to make bigger

In many respects, being an artist, musician, or writer was seen as being “in trade,” the same as a shopclerk, shoemaker, or bricklayer. Ladies were expected to be proficient at their watercolors, their pianoforte, and their letters, but they did not perform for the public and certainly they did not earn money for their performance.

As a writer, I love these seemingly random distinctions. What would it be like to be a woman in Olivia’s position? What is the difference between giving a “private” performance to 200 people at a soiree and giving a “public” one to 150 subscribers at a concert hall? (And how did this opinion change over time so that nowadays we have the likes of “American Idol?”)

Starting with Wikipedia’s list of female composers, I sought out primary and secondary sources on the composers in roughly the right time. In my research, I found nothing like an exact match to model my lady on, but I did find some interesting details. For one, there were far more well-remembered (or published) female composers on the Continent than in Britain; this is also true for males. If I’d wanted to set my story in Austria, I’d have been in clover.

And there were some high-born lady composers, but they were very high-born, and they dabbled. One of the most famous: Queen Ann Boleyn in the 1500s. And in roughly regency times, the also much-maligned but unstoppable Duchess of Devonshire wrote at least one piece: “On March 17 [1784] Georgiana went to the opera to hear La Reine de Golconde, which include a little piece she had composed herself.” (Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire, p. 136).

There were some “middle class” matrons (never single ladies) who composed, but they had to teach to make money. And Ann Hunter, wife of a celebrated surgeon, was commissioned to write verse to add to the music of others, including that of Hayden, and she wrote music to accompany her own poem “Song of the Indian.” I got that detail from The Girl in Rose, which is mostly about Rebecca Schroeter, an Englishwoman whom many consider a great love of the maestro, but also gives a great impression of the musical and social life of her time. (Careful readers will notice that maestro Hayden has a tiny cameo in my story, as well).

I’m not the only writer to find lady composers fascinating: If you’re looking for a literary story about a lady musician, try Clara: A Novel of Clara Schumann, by Janice Galloway (2002). Born in Germany in 1819, she’s post-regency, but her story is resonant. From the Washington Post review: “A moving portrait of an artist struggling to balance her extraordinary talent with the demands of daughterhood and duty, motherhood and marriage, a juggling act still relevant to the lives of women today.”

Some sources:

Wikipedia’s list of female composers by birth year

Clara: A Novel. Janice Galloway, 2002, Simon & Schuster.

The Girl in Rose: Haydn’s Last Love. Peter Hobday, 2004, Phoenix (Orion Books).

Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire. Amanda Foreman, 1998, Random House.

Concert Life in Eighteenth Century Britain. Susan Wollenberg and Simon McVeigh, eds., 2004, Ashgate Publishing.

Women & Music: A History, 2nd ed. Karin Pendle, ed., 2001, Indiana University Press.

Women in Music: An anthology of source readings from the Middle Ages to the present, revised ed. Carol Neuls-Bates, ed., 1996, Northeastern University Press.

The Norton/Grove Dictionary of Women Composers. Julie Anne Sadie & Rhian Samuel, eds., 1995, The Macmillan Press.

Here’s a taste:

Wellington snapped his fingers. “Here. You should play this tune at the celebration ball. I’ll suggest it to the Regent.” He waved at the aide on his right, who nodded. “Show the nobs what real music sounds like. Might even want to put words to it.” He nodded his approval of the idea, then pulled the matron to the side. She led him away, toward the wards.

Olivia did not think she could breathe, she was so filled with glee. She turned to Mr. Marsh. “Do you believe me now?”

“A wounded composer, a theme to rouse the troops at Waterloo, the appreciation of the Glorious Duke.” he nodded. “Smells like a story to me.”

There’s a chance the book will become available tonight, only on the Evernight site. But tomorrow, the world!

“Merry, I told you not to come,” he said. His voice carried no trace of the pure tenor that once had soared past the rafters of this very hall.

“If you meant me to stay away, you wouldn’t have written you were here.” Merry leaned into him, resting her head on his heart, her auburn curls reaching up to his chin.

Carefully, he lifted his bruise-darkened hand, touching her hair as if it were gossamer. With a small sigh and wobbly smile, he suddenly became the man she remembered.

Outside The Times, from Twice Round the Clock, engraving based on drawing by William O’Connell. Click to see bigger

Newspapers in the 1700s and early 1800s practiced a form of “advocacy journalism,” a term we’re hearing more of in the US these days. Papers took sides, and most were paid to take sides; Government and Opposition parties would pay a stipend to a paper, and would expect the paper to print their point of view, to the point of reprinting word-for-word something a party leader had written.

That’s what tripped up Walter’s father, the first publisher of what we now know of as The Times of London. Walter Sr. was paid (some say £300 a year) to take the Tory side, but when the prince of Wales and the duke of York sued him for libel over one of the snarkier items he had been given and subsequently published, his backers deserted him and he was thrown in prison for two years. Prison was different then: Walter continued to edit the paper from his cell.

This was how the game was played then, and I can’t know how they felt about it. But I use something like this story to motivate Will, the hero of A Note of Scandal, into pledging to find a way to profitably publish a paper without taking bribes (or “consideration,” as it was called). Declare yourself beholden to no one, tell your truth, and count on an increase in readers to cover the cost.

John Walter II did something like that when he took over running the Times. It was a costly experiment, but it was also a good time to try it. England was at war with Spain, France, and America during this time, and the public thirst for news was high. But the government controlled the mails, and government workers received the foreign papers and reports and translated them (often to England’s glory), and then gave them to the papers. Walter had to develop his own methods to obtain non-adulterated papers and hire his own men to translate them.

Inside The Times, from Twice Round the Clock, engraving based on drawing by William O’Connell

Walter was the first to send a full-time “special correspondent,” a reporter, to cover the wars in Europe and file dispatches solely for the Times. These dispatches read nothing like the foreign reporting now; they’re more like letters and carry little of what we might call breaking news. But they were a start, and Walter found the public hungry for it—circulation numbers shot up. And so did the paper’s reputation for solid reporting.

Foreign Office, Sep. 18, 1813

“Mr. Hamilton presents his compliments to Mr. Walter, & is directed by Lord Castlereagh to request he will have the goodness to tell him if he has received any Intelligence of the reported defeat of the French near Dresden which is now in Circulation.”

(The History of the Times, v.1, p. 108)

A good case could be made that Walter, and his chief editor, Thomas Barnes, were the fathers of modern journalism of the sort I practice. And while my character Will is nothing like Walter personally and shares only a sliver of backstory, I’m glad I got to tell a story in which the reporter is not the bad guy. And have a bit of history to back me up.

Some sources:

“Newspapers” entry from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, via web, http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Newspapers

Twice Round the Clock, or The Hours of the Day and Night in London, chapter two: “Five O’Clock a.m.—The Publication of the ‘Times’ Newspaper.” George Augustus Sala, 1859, via web, http://victorianlondon.org/publications/sala-2.htm

“Newspapers and Publishers at the Dawn of the 19th Century,” via web, Georgian Index, http://www.georgianindex.net/publications/newspapers/news_sources.html

“The ‘Tuppeny Press’ and the Birth of the English Newspaper,” via web, South Central Media Scene, http://www.south-central-media.co.uk/tuppenny_press.htm

Masters of English Journalism: A study of personal forces. T.H.S. Escott, 1911, T. Fisher Unwin

The Story of The Times. Oliver Woods and James Bishop, 1983, Michael Joseph Ltd.

William Cobbett: A study of his life as shown in his writings. E.I. Carlyle, 1904, Archibald Constable & Co.

Advice to Young Men, and (Incidentally) Young Women, in the Middle and Higher Ranks of Life. William Cobbett, 1862, Griffin, Bohn, and Co. (via Project Gutenberg)

The History of The Times: “The Thunderer” in the making, 1785-1841. 1935, The Macmillan Co.

We’re not so much multitaskers — Try this out loud:

1. As fast as you can, say out loud the numbers 1 through 10.

2. As fast as you can, say the letters of the alphabet A to J.

3. Now, as fast as you can, alternate the numbers and letters: 1-A, 2-B, etc.

If we were true multitaskers, Case 3 would take us exactly the same time as Case 1 plus Case 2. For most of us in the audience, it took far longer. Why? Read my post at Dana Foundation’s blog.

Oh, to have gotten to do this in middle school — Harvard researchers are building virtual environments to help teach ecology (as well as “enhancements” for when you’re actually out on the bog). More about this, also on the Dana blog (and be sure to click on the videos; we couldn’t embed them but they really show the story).

So, I sold my first romance novel! To Evernight Publishing, which publishes primarily e-books; if mine someday sell enough, they might get a print run, too. We’ve not fixed on a release date, but it might be as soon as May. While many of Evernight’s offerings are erotic and mine’s only “heat level 2,” I’d heard good things about their editing and their cover designs, and they “adored” my story. Win-win.

I’ll be revising these web-pages over the next few weeks, getting ready, so stay tuned. I’m also starting an Author page on Facebook, so you could “like” that instead and keep up-to-date that way. Below is the rough draft of the back-cover copy. Let the great publishing experiment begin!

What’s the harm in a little white lie?
Especially when it could carry so much good: a new life for a wounded soldier, catharsis after long years of war—and an opportunity for lady composer Olivia Delancey to finally hear her music played in public.

Depends on whom you tell it to.
Newspaper publisher Will Marsh refuses to compound the sins of his father’s generation by taking money to print propaganda. But with the end of the wars in France and America, he needs something new to drive Londoners to grab his paper first. Why not publish the score of the “Tune That Took Waterloo,” by a wounded vet, no less?

As Olivia struggles to keep her secrets from this unsuitably alluring publisher, and Will fights to find the truth without losing his hold on this bright-eyed angel who has descended into his life, both discover another sort of truth.

Being the talk of London can be bad—or very, very good.

I thought I’d miss cherry blossom time this year, as I’m leaving for Spain in a week. But the blossoms are two weeks early! Hard on the allergies, but lovely to look at. I went with one of my sisters-in-law to see them Thursday after work, warm and busy but not as rushed as the weekends. I’m posting more cherry pix over at Pinterest, experimenting with that venue.

The news this year is the MLK monument, which was unveiled this winter. From a distance, tucked in the middle of the cherry trees, it looks a little reminiscent of that other classic statue, “Han Solo in Carbonite.”