sarah's bookarama

National Petition for Libel Reform

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:25:00 +0000

I don't usually jump on bandwagons but a while ago, I was shocked to discover from Dr Ben Goldacre's* Bad Science blog that certain unscrupulous 'sciency' types are using English libel law to silence their critics. A campaign called Sense about Science was started to persuade the government by petition that the law had in effect become a form of censorship and therefore needed reform. Sense about Science has now joined forces with English PEN and Index on Censorship to set up The Libel Reform Campaign, a more powerful and urgent campaign to preserve our much-cherished freedom of speech. This website gives shocking examples of how our libel law is being abused.

Please read the National Petition for Libel Reform statement on the website and sign it if you feel strongly that this type of legal abuse constitutes a real threat to one of our fundamental freedoms.

*Ben Goldacre is the author of Bad Science, a book whose title speaks for itself.

Make Your Own Academic Sentence

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:05:00 +0000

This is such fun to play with (thanks to Dr. Syntax's books and publishing blog). Here are two sentences I generated earlier:

The reification of post-capitalist hegemony replays (in parodic form) the historicization of pedagogical institutions. The epistemology of normative value(s) functions as the conceptual frame for the discourse of the gendered body.

It comes from the University of Chicago's Writing Program where you can also find examples of real academic gobbledegook.

Here's one for generating business jargon.

HMS Victory fires a Broadside

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:35:00 +0000

Last September when we visited Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, we had an unexpected treat: the spectacle of HMS Victory firing a full 64-gun rolling broadside in honour of the new National Museum of the Royal Navy which incorporates all the naval museums under one umbrella. My photos (below) of the broadside don't do justice to the event but I found a You Tube video of it made by the companies who provided the pyrotechnics and set them off. Even with the sound on full blast, it doesn't do full justice to the real volume and depth of the noise.

We were also lucky enough to be able to visit Henry VIII's warship Mary Rose (which sank in the Solent in 1545) just before the viewing gallery closed for the building of a new museum which will display the remains of the ship and a reconstruction of its missing side to full advantage, now that the lengthy preservation process of the surviving hull is complete.

Now that's what I call A Grand Day Out.

The Fighting Temeraire by Sam Willis

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:49:00 +0000

I'm a sucker for the majestic, elegant but deadly ships of the Great Age of Fighting Sail and HMS Temeraire, a British 98-gun ship of the line is, as author Sam Willis points out in this spendid new book, an iconic ship of the era. Unlike HMS Victory, alongside which she fought at the Battle of Trafalgar, Temeraire ended her life as a prison hulk and receiving ship and was eventually broken up in 1838 in the unsentimentally expedient way of the Royal Navy. But JMW Turner immortalised her in his famous painting, The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up, reproduced on the cover of Sam Willis's book. The painting is not only Turner's best known, it was also voted the greatest painting in a British art gallery, having beaten Constable's Hay Wain and Jan Van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding in a 2005 poll organised by the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.

The Fighting Temeraire, the first in a series published by Quercus called Hearts of Oak, is the story of not one ship but two. The earlier one of the name was a French 74-gun two-decker built in 1749 and captured in 1759 by HMS Warspite during the Seven Years' War. She was taken into the Royal Navy and sold in 1784. HMS Temeraire (without the accents) was built at Chatham and launched in 1798. At Trafalgar, under Captain Eliab Harvey, she fought astern of HMS Victory. Badly damaged relieving Nelson's flagship, she also captured the French ship Fougueux and helped force the surrender of the Redoutable, the ship from whose mizzen top a French sniper fired the shot that killed Admiral Nelson.

This book is driven by a fluid narrative, full of the authentic historical detail you'd expect from an Honorary Fellow in Maritime Historical Studies. And it's all informed by well-chosen illustrations and diagrams and the whole is made exceptionally vivid by the author's own experience: he spent 18 months as a Square-Rig Able Seaman, sailing the tall ships used in the Hornblower TV drama series and the TV film Shackleton.

The epilogue of The Fighting Temeraire is an essay on iconic warships and their continuing relevance down the ages. A sample:

...the biographies of warships are multi-layered and complex. Most obviously, the story of the Temeraire matters to our society because it was immortalized by one of the greatest artists ever to have lived, but Turner immortalized that story because it mattered to his society. In 1839 the Temeraire had already become icionic, and therein lies one of the peculiar values of iconic warships. They are potent historical objects because they transcend eras, and the ability to illuminate both our own times and those more distant offers an immediate and unmistakable example of the value of history. Moreover, the story of the Temeraire can be used to illuminate a whole range of historical topics, from the very broadest perspective of self-perception on an international stage - the question of how the navy serves to carry a nation's message around the world - to the tightest possible focus on day-to-day life in a warship.

Find out more on the author's website, including details of the forthcoming books in this Hearts of Oak series, Admiral Benbow and The Glorious First of June.

Another iconic ship of the era is HMS Bellerophon which also fought at Trafalgar (as well as the Glorious First of June and the Battle of the Nile) but which is perhaps best known as the ship that received Napoleon's surrender in 1815. She was affectionately known as Billy Ruff'n (Billy Ruffian) by her crew, hence the title of David Cordingly's fascinating biography of her.

NaNoWriMo

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:06:00 +0000

It’s National Novel Writing Month again, that madcap annual race to write a 50,000-word novel in the 30 otherwise dreich* days of November (at least it is, here in England).

In 2007 I did it for the first time, but had to abandon 2008 after 6 days because of a family emergency (see previous post). And so here I am again, just about keeping up the daily wordage and thoroughly enjoying it in a scary roller-coastery sort of way.

Here’s why I do it:

1. It’s fun, especially if you have the competitive urge.

2. It’s serious.

3. For those of us who can procrastinate to Olympic standards it has a foolproof built-in secret weapon: a DEADLINE (not so secret, then, but it really does work).

4. To make the word count and deadline, you have to write with the brakes off, disabling your Inner Editor and your Inner Critic, that pair of dispiriting demons. No plot is too preposterous, no character too cringeworthy, no scene too silly. This your chance to try ’em all.

5. It’s fun. Really.

However, I’m sure most proper novelists will think NaNoWriMo an absurd and futile waste of time, perhaps even belittling to their careful craft. But I, and probably thousands of fellow NaNo nutcases, look upon it (and this is the 6th and most important reason for doing it) as a no-holds-barred, all brake-cables-cut, 30-day brainstorming session at the end of which we’ll be rewarded with our own tottering pile of literary poo - and a lot of it will certainly be umitigated poo, having been written at such an unfeasible pace. But from all that dross, a few rough-diamond-like characters and exciting plot-bunnies will be twinkling irresistibly out at us. These we can spend the coming months carefully extracting and polishing to shining perfection. In theory.

The NaNoWriMo website is full of encouragement and jokes, whilst the NaNoWriMo handbook, No Plot, No Problem! (UK, USA), written by that inestimable genius Chris Baty, founder of all this inspiring nonsense, is crammed with brilliant motivational tips which you don't have to be NaNo-ing to use.

Last year I put up a wordcount widget here – and look what happened. But as I don’t believe there’s a Providence to be Tempted I’ll probably put one up again, if I can remember how to do it.

Right, so. I’m off on another trip to NaNoLand. I'm excited because I'm on the verge of inserting my first plot ninja (cunning devices to further the plot and up the wordcount): This one's called The Travelling Shovel of Death.

You see, NaNowriMo doesn't take itself too seriously. Just seriously enough.

*dreich is Scottish for "dull, damp and miserable." I got the this expressive word from my mother-in-law.

Seasonal Suicide Notes: Roger Lewis

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:57:00 +0000

Gosh, this blog has performed more comebacks than any number of wrinkly pop stars or botoxed celebs. But here it is again, after a long hiatus resulting from my father's death last November which, as well as being sad, caused no end of medico-legal problems and my assumption of full-time care for my mother, a victim of Alzheimer's disease. After this long silence, I'll probably just be talking to myself but what the hell. I've had stupider conversations recently.

However, I've been considerably cheered up by the reviews of Seasonal Suicide Notes: My Life as it is Lived by Roger Lewis, an academic, journalist and sometime-notorious biographer. Here's one review that particularly creased me up and convinced me to buy at the earliest opportunity. Seasonal Suicide Notes looks like a book-length spoof of those smug, boastful round robin letters that plop dismayingly on your doormat every Christmas. Except that it isn't - the book is composed of genuine missives that the recipients persuaded Roger Lewis to publish: funny, vitriolic and oh-so-true to life as it's really lived. I was especially tickled by Mrs Lewis's experience in a TK Maxx changing room during a Two-Minutes' Silence.

A few Christmases ago, I got so irritated by these self-regarding incitements to envy that I composed a spoof round robin from Cuthbertson Acres. It was a catalogue of Dickensian misfortune which had us bankrupted in a scam moneymaking scheme and our offspring variously involved in drug-running/people-smuggling/unspeakable terrorist outrages, instead of becoming top lawyers/doctors/scientists/Booker-winning novelists. Sadly, I chickened out of sending it on the grounds that the recipients would either take offence at being sent up or, having no sense of the absurd, would have been only too willing to believe it.

And I wouldn't want that, would I?

Alan Coren: The Gollies Karamazov

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 10:10:00 +0000

If you're of a certain age, you may remember the satirical magazine Punch (1841-2002), even if you only read it in the dentist's waiting room. For me, the highlight was always Alan Coren's column, which invariably had me in stitches.

To commemorate Alan Coren's death a year ago, his son and daughter have just published an anthology of his work, Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks. It was chosen as BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week last week and if you're quick you can listen to the five broadcast extracts here, read by the brilliant John Sessions who does all the voices wonderfully well. So far, I've only managed to hear "Let Us Now Phone Famous Men", and yes, it had me in stitches all over again.

In The Times, there's an example of what Coren did best, in my opinion - the literary parody. This one's called "The Pooh Also Rises". There's also an article about Alan Coren by his son Giles here.

Both Giles and Victoria Coren have, happily, inherited their father's gift of humour. Victoria Coren, a journalist since the age of 14, is probably best known for the TV series Balderdash & Piffle which tested new words or definitions sent in by the public for inclusion in the Oxford English Dictionary. OK, that doesn't sound funny but it often was. She also writes columns in The Guardian and The Observer. Besides being The Times's restaurant critic, Giles Coren was recently co-presenter (or victim) with comedian Sue Perkins of The Supersizers Go..., a series of programmes in which the pair lived for a week on the dishes of various periods and tested the effects of historical diets with hilarious and sometimes revolting results. He also wrote this (expletives undeleted) in which he vents his anger with some Times sub-editor who went too far with one of his articles.

Gardens I: Levens Hall, Cumbria

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:32:00 +0000

The gardens at Levens Hall, near Kendal in the South Lake District, contain the the oldest topiary garden in the world, created by Guillaume Beaumont in the 17th century.

This photo is of one of the more spectacular creations and there are more on the Levens Hall website.

I bet they didn't trim them like this in the 17th century!

There are also high and ancient hedges that you can walk into and see this sort of thing which looks like a setting for The Lord of the Rings.

The flower borders were past their best when we visited in late September...

...but there are photos on the website which show them in their summer splendour.

There's also a fertile apple orchard where the fruit is currently weighing down the boughs, like the Bramleys in this photo:

Speaking of food, as I often do, the Bellingham Buttery restaurant serves tasty meals using produce from the garden and estate. I can certainly recommend the sumptuous fruit cake containing Leven Hall's own Morocco Ale made from an Elizabethan recipe.

The house is also worth a visit. Inside you can see beautiful Spanish leather wall coverings of rare colour and quality, the earliest English patchworks, stunning Tudor carved wooden overmantels and a collection of Wellington memorabilia which was brought to the house when the Iron Duke's favourite niece married into the family.

Book Review: The Redemption of Alexander Seaton by Shona MacLean

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:07:00 +0000

Given that my blog has the word book in its name, I really ought to talk about books now and again. I've been reading some rather good books lately and here's a review (slightly amended) of one of them, The Redemption of Alexander Seaton by Shona MacLean. It appeared in the August 2008 issue of The Historical Novels Review.

On a stormy night in 1626 in the Scottish town of Banff, the local apothecary's assistant collapses in the street. Next morning he's found dead in Alexander Seaton's house. Murder is suspected and when one of Alexander's few friends in the town is arrested, our hero sets out to clear him. But Alexander has a past. Having studied to be a minister of the Kirk, he had been denounced at his ordination for dishonouring the girl he would have married. The disgrace lost him not only his future wife, but also his vocation and his faith. Embittered and heartbroken, he took the only job open to him, that of a lowly schoolmaster.

Now, in the course of his investigations, Alexander must deal with his fellow-citizens, good and bad. Some reveal themselves to be selfless and wise, others devious, greedy or unscrupulous. He must contend with inflamed prejudices that erupt in a witch hunt and with accusations of treacherous Catholic plotting. But above all, he must confront his own personal demons.

This engrossing, atmospheric novel is a satisfying, skilfully constructed mystery with richly developed characters. But just as importantly, it's a vivid evocation of a particular time and place by an author whose uncle was the thriller writer Alistair MacLean and who is herself a historian specialising in 16th- and 17th-century Scotland. She has used her heritage and her skills to the full in creating this memorable and exciting read.

Here's an interview with Shona MacLean in The Scotsman.

An Award and Some Nominations

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:38:00 +0000

Oh dear. I'm afraid I've become rather an unreliable blogger of late. Real life is so in the way in the blogosphere, as Mrs Gaskell might have said had she been living in the 21st century.

Sarah's Bookarama is, however, delighted to have been nominated for a blog award by Carla Nayland and Elizabeth Chadwick but, in view of its recent waywardness, it does feel rather a fraud. On the other hand, the undeserved accolade gives me a chance to nominate some of my favourite bloggers who are a good deal more dedicated than I am at the mo. I should like to single out Carla and Elizabeth of course, and others on my blogroll whom I nominated for a previous award.

But this time I thought I'd also mention a selection of excellent blogs I've discovered since then. So here, in no particular order, I present for your delectation:

George Orwell's Blog which was set up by The Orwell Prize to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the start of George Orwell's diary, much of which is published here for the first time. Each entry appears exactly seventy years after it was written. This from the introduction:

What impression of Orwell will emerge? From his domestic diaries (which start on 9th August), it may be a largely unknown Orwell, whose great curiosity is focused on plants, animals, woodwork, and – above all – how many eggs his chickens have laid. From his political diaries (from 7th September), it may be the Orwell whose political observations and critical thinking have enthralled and inspired generations since his death in 1950. Whether writing about the Spanish Civil War or sloe gin, geraniums or Germany, Orwell’s perceptive eye and rebellion against the ‘gramophone mind’ he so despised are obvious.

Cornflower. This is a beautiful blog, a source of daily aesthetic pleasure with its superb photographs, perceptive bookish thoughts and delicious recipes. To Cornflower I owe the delights of Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook, from which I made 4 recipes in a week, which is a record for me from a single book. And every one was a winner. I'll probably be gushing some more about this book later.

Bad Science, the blog of Ben Goldacre, Guardian columnist, doctor and scourge of quackery, pseudoboffins and the misrepresentation of science in the media for the sake of an eye-catching headline. You know the sort of thing: tests on 5 blind mice show that red wine cures cancer/prevents strokes/lets you live to be 100. But what the hell: we're all going to disappear into a black hole next Wednesday - or are we? If not, there'll be time to read Ben Goldacre's book, just out in paperback.

Circle of the Year. This is a delightful blog that rejoices in the customs, traditions and natural rhythms of the English countryside, especially the Derbyshire Peak District. The photographs are superb.

NewsBiscuit, an up-to-the-minute satirical news blog to which anyone can submit material for consideration, a sort of www.notthetimesgrauniadindydailymailonline.co.uk with a special section on the Isle of Wight, for some reason.

Wife in the North, the tragicomic blog of a London journalist who, at her husband's behest, reluctantly moved with him, their two small children and another one on the way, to the wilds of Northumberland where the debatable joys of the weather, the natives and a major house renovation awaited her. The blog is certainly sad and funny - and wry and poignant and perceptive too, though the author got quite a tongue-lashing from some early commenters for her rude remarks about folk Oop North. Nonetheless she sold the idea to Penguin for a lot of money - yes, folks, it can be done - and the book of the blog came out recently.

Classical Bookworm Even if you're not interested in the Greek and Roman classics, there's plenty here for everyone who loves books and reading - from the serious to the quirky. The latest post is about how recent screen adaptations of Jane Austen misunderstand her values. Lots of fascinating sidebar links too.

Sceptical Cook. Nicholas Clee is a book journalist and food writer who uses this blog to experiment with recipes and ingredients. He's good on the how and why (and why not) of cooking and is usefully frank about his failures. The successes of course sound delicious. Lots for us foodies to learn and enjoy. He's also the author of that invaluable little tome Don't Sweat the Aubergine: What Works in the Kitchen and Why.

A Derbyshire Mystery

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:57:00 +0000

Last weekend I visited my Cheshire family and went with Mother and Dad for a beautiful walk in their beloved Derbyshire Peak District. We parked the car at Middleton (which features in the magnificent book The Hike by Don Shaw) and walked through beautiful Bradford Dale.

Mother & Dad on a clapper bridge over the River Bradford

In the hollow leading down to the River Bradford we came across this intriguing piece of sculpture. Can any blogger tell us anything about it? We'd love to know how something so unexpected came to be there!
Click to enlarge and read the words

Old House in Youlgrave

Along with Auntie Kath, we also visited Tatton Park near Knutsford

where the Japanese Garden is a particularly beautiful feature

A Delicious Summer Lunch

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 14:41:00 +0000

Home-made soup, home-made bread and fruit freshly picked from the garden. Ambrosia.

I made up the soup recipe. I sometimes tweak it, so the quantities are somewhat vague. I'm rather pleased with it as my attempts to devise recipes usually end up in the bin or as friend-and-family jokes - or both. Someone only has to say "lager soup", or "no-bake key lime pie" (the one that drooled out of the tin and oozed floorward over the edge of the table) and everybody grimaces and falls about.

Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup with Feta (5-6 servings)

You need enough red peppers (de-seeded and quartered) to cover the base of a 30cm by 23cm (12" by 9") roasting tin or similar, and enough medium-sized ripe tomatoes (halved) to cover the base of another, cheek by jowl. (OK, tomatoes and peppers haven't got cheeks or jowls but you know what I mean).

Tuck in 2 or 3 peeled, whole cloves of garlic per tin and sprinkle over enough olive oil to coat everything.

Roast at 200 deg C/180 deg C fan/Gas 6 for about 45 minutes-1hr, or until the peppers are starting to blacken and the tomatoes are soft. The toms might take a bit longer than the peps.

In a food processor (or a large saucepan using a stick blender), whizz the contents to smoothness with about a litre of good vegetable stock (I use Marigold as I don't often make my own) and a generous handful of torn basil leaves. After this, you can push the soup through a sieve to get rid of tomato seeds and any bits of skin but I don't bother - I'm too lazy, and besides I like something to chew in my soup.

Either way, heat the soup gently, crumbling in about 100g (4oz) of feta cheese, or more if you like. The cheese won't dissolve completely, so your soup will have pretty white specks in it which will add some more texture and delightful little explosions of flavour. Taste the soup, which should be quite thick. If the flavour isn't strong enough, you could add a tablespoon or so of tomato paste and/or some more cheese. Check the seasoning and it's ready to eat.

On a hot day, it's good cold. Oh, and it freezes well.

This soup cries out for some plain crusty peasant bread or even this version of soda bread which I've adapted from the traditional Irish version. I adore soda bread, not only because it's absurdly easy and quick to make and tastes divine, but also because it reminds me of my Saturday morning childhood visits to my Irish Grandad. In my memory, his sister, my Great-Aunt Hannah, who kept house for him and my Auntie Kath, is just bringing soda bread out of the oven when we arrive, ready to be cut and eaten with butter melting into the dense, nutty slices.

Oaty Wholemeal Soda Bread

275g (10oz) stoneground wholemeal flour
175g (6oz) medium oatmeal
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
25g (1oz) butter
about 300ml (half a pint) buttermilk (or plain yogurt if you can't get buttermilk) to make a sticky but handle-able dough

Put the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix well to combine. Cut the butter into small pieces and work them into the flour and oat mix between your fingertips.

Add the buttermilk and stir thoroughly until everything is incorporated. If you need more liquid, you can add some milk.

Knead the dough for a couple of minutes on a floured surface, then shape it into a 20cm (8") round. Using a sharp knife, mark the round with a deep cross, place the loaf on a greased baking sheet and bake at 200 deg C/180 deg C fan/Gas 6 for about 30-35 minutes.

To test for doneness, tap the base of the loaf and if it sounds hollow, it's finished.

You can also bake it in a greased (even if non-stick) 2lb loaf tin but allow an extra 15 mins or so.

Cool on a wire rack. It's best eaten on the day it's made, but it freezes well and it also makes delicious toast!

Soda Bread cooling, watched over by Teddy Gummidge, a gift to Ian from our local hospice for agreeing to buy a weekly lottery ticket from them. He looks like A Bear Who Enjoys His Bread

And to finish, a dish of raspberries freshly plucked from these canes in our garden

In my opinion, raspberries are the most perfect of fruits in taste, texture and colour, and should be eaten just like this, unadorned and un-messed-about with. Even I can't spoil this dish!

Powers of Concentration

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:52:00 +0000

Here's a rather consoling article by Alan Massie in The Spectator. It's about the waning powers of concentration that dismay the ageing reader. I find it consoling for two reasons: firstly it confirms that I'm not the only one who suffers from it as I get older and secondly it offers a practical remedy. So it's not all downhill, then.

The Secret Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:58:00 +0000

No, not The Secret Garden of Frances Hodgson Burnett, but the Secret Garden at Quarry Bank Mill, Styal in Cheshire, to which we recently repaired.

Quarry Bank Mill, in the care of the National Trust, is one of several important industrial heritage sites in North West England.

Set beside the River Bollin, it was built as a cotton mill by Samuel Greg in 1784 and it still produces 10,000 yards of cloth a year from the various machines that have been lovingly restored for demonstrations to the public. The Greg family were notably humane toward their workers but, as the mill exhibition shows, working days were long, dirty, noisy and dangerous. The Gregs bought children from the workhouses to train as apprentices (you can visit The Apprentice House where they lived), giving them better conditions than the workhouse, with decent education and health care. Nevertheless, the whole set-up still seems shocking to us.

Right next door to the mill (a bit too close for comfort, I would have thought!), the Gregs built an elegant family house

overlooking the River Bollin, with a landscaped garden that ran along the side of the valley. It's this garden, long hidden from view, that The National Trust has spent some years restoring as the Gregs would have known it, and it was opened to the public in March this year. It still looks rather new and raw in places, but it will be interesting to visit again over the next few years as it "beds in":

Book Review: The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:10:00 +0000

I'm not a big fan of crime novels and if I do read them it's usually for something other than the investigation of the crime (see, for example, my review of Ruso and the Demented Doctor by R. S. Downie).

However, I can't resist a real-life murder story, particularly if it happened in a prosperous middle-class Victorian household and opens up a Pandora's box of seething emotional turmoil concealed beneath a veneer of stuffy respectability. The names Florence Bravo, Adelaide Bartlett, Madeleine Smith, Florence Maybrick and of course Lizzie Borden, spring to mind. And if they're unsolved mysteries, so much the better.

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, the investigation of a child-murder in 1860s Wiltshire, ticks all these boxes, except the last. But that doesn't stop Kate Summerscale from telling a fascinating story with all the skill of a practised crime novelist, carefully setting out the troubled family background, the personalities involved and the circumstances of the murder, before gradually revealing the clues so as to allow the reader to play detective along with the real article.

Not a great deal is known about Jonathan Whicher, one of Scotland Yard's Victorian best, and the author doesn't embroider the facts, preferring to concentrate on contemporary police practice and the urban working class from which this detective sprang. Jonathan Whicher's police career ended in failure (though his suspicions in the Road Hill House murder, otherwise known as the Constance Kent case, were later proved right), and his real legacy is a literary one. The Constance Kent case was the original country house murder, sensational in its own time, whilst Wilkie Collins's Sergeant Cuff and Dickens's Inspector Bucket were both inspired by the intriguingly shadowy figure of Inspector Whicher.

Because they involve the brutal deaths of real people, true-life murder stories I find rather a guilty pleasure, though I hope I'm not being disingenuous in claiming that the real satisfaction lies as much in what they reveal about life in the eras in which they're set as in solving the mysteries themselves (or, as in the case of Adelaide Bartlett and Jack the Ripper, not solving them).

In any case, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher is a perfect gem of the genre, worthy to sit alongside such classics such as Poison and Adelaide Bartlett, Death at the Priory and The Poisoned Life of Mrs Maybrick.

The book has a website here.

Rules for Writing "Feminist Re-Imagings & Re-Imaginings" Historical Novels

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:47:00 +0000

I hope you’re still paying attention because these Rules, by novelist India Edghill, originally published in the Historical Novel Society’s magazine Solander, are absolutely indispensable if you want to get ahead as a feminist historical novelist.

OFFICIAL RULES FOR WRITING “FEMINIST RE-IMAGINGS & RE-IMAGININGS” HISTORICAL NOVELS
by India Edghill

1. All heroines are goddess-worshippers. If necessary (i.e., they are the daughter of the Jewish High Priest of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem), they are secret goddess-worshippers.

2. To be Politically Correct and not Offend Anyone, all gods are one god and all goddesses are one goddess. This means you don’t need to research their actual names or attributes, which is a real time-saver. Just remember that the deity the heroine worships is called simply “The Goddess”. To remain PC, from time to time try to remember that The Goddess has a Consort, The God (a deity who bears about the same vital relationship to The Goddess as Ken does to Barbie).
2a. In pre-Christianity historical novels, the goddess is properly called “the Great Mother”, even when the goddess actually worshipped has a perfectly good name, such as Isis, Asherah, or Inanna.
2b. In post-Christianity historical novels, Jesus is properly referred to as “the White Christ”, not to be confused with either the Lone Ranger or the Man from Glad. He may, however, be confused with the Goddess’s Consort.
2b.1. In which case, the Virgin Mary may, if you like, be confused with the Great Mother.

3. All goddess worshippers are pacifistic, politically-correct, and ecologically sound.
3a. All cultures that worship goddesses treat women well. All monotheistic cultures treat women badly. This holds true even though it requires ignoring such facts as sati in India (which has lots of goddesses) and female infanticide in pre-Islamic Arabia (which had lots of goddesses).
3b. All monotheistic cultures deny women any rights. This holds true even though it’s the Holy Qu’ran that grants women a half share in their father’s inheritance, rather than the zero share they got under the pan-Arabic pantheism that preceded Islam.

4. All monotheists are Bad
4a. Although they are pantheists, the Ancient Achaeans are Bad because they worship a Sky Father and drive out the Earth Mother.
4b. Although they are pantheists, Vikings are Bad because they worship an All-Father.
4b.l. Unless the book is a Viking romance, in which case I suppose the All-Father and the Great Mother can elope to Las Vegas for the weekend.

5. There are only two religions: The Old Religion and The New Religion. One of them is Good and one is Bad. Unfortunately, which is which varies according to time period.
5a. In Dark Ages fiction, Paganism is properly called The Old Religion, and is a Good Thing. It is opposed to Christianity, which is called the New Religion, and is a Bad Thing.
5a.1. This seriously confuses those of us who grew up reading historical novels set in the Tudor period, during which the Old Religion was Catholicism (a Bad Thing), and the New Religion was Protestantism (a Good Thing)
5a.2. But in novels about the English Civil War, the Cavaliers are Catholic and Good and the Roundheads are Protestant and Bad.
5b. In historical novels set in the 20th century, NeoPaganism is called the Old Religion, even though its name means “new Paganism” and you’d think it would be called the New Religion and Christianity would now be called the Old Religion. Well, it isn’t.

6. Whatever the Old Religion is, people practicing it are burned at the stake. This holds true even in countries where witches were hanged and only heretics were burned

7. Important Note: When referring to the “witch craze” period, remember it is A KNOWN FACT that nine million women were burned. Ignore modem serious research indicating that the number was more like 500,000 over a 300-year period. Ignore the trial records, if necessary. (In fact, it’s always best to ignore any facts that contradict the PC view on anything). In addition:
7 a. All those accused of being witches were women, because it’s all about male hatred of women, really. Again, ignore the trial records, if necessary (including all those defendants named named Henry, John, WaIter, and Philip).

8. Anyone accused of witchcraft actually is a follower of the Old Religion (whatever it is this book). They are never a devout Christian who is falsely accused.

9. All goddess-worshippers are expert herbalists and midwives.

10. All Christian priests are hypocritical bigots.
10a. Friars, however, may be sympathetic, if they’re not actually goddess-worshippers in disguise.
10b. Nuns may be unworldly nature-lovers or bitter bigots. Abbesses, however, are always narrow-minded.
10c. Abbesses are always sexually frustrated, cherishing an unholy passion for 1) the convent priest, or 2) the nubile new postulant, or 3) Jesus.

11. All goddess-worshippers enjoy their menstrual period as a time of womanly empowerment that proves their Oneness with Nature. No woman ever suffers cramps, migraines, nausea, bloating, or uncontrollable mood swings during her womanly “moon cycle”.

12. When the Bible is quoted to prove woman’s Subjugation to Man and her Inherent Vice, the quote will always be from the King James version, even though that translation dates from 1611 and your book is set in 1250.
12a. Whatever the book’s historical period, the patriarchal monotheistic villains will refer to Satan and the Devil, whether the concept’s been invented yet or not.

13. All lesbians are Good, because they prove the True Sisterhood of All Women. Unless the lesbian is an Abbess (see 10c above), when she’s merely Repressed and Embittered. There may or may not be a gay guy; if there is, he is the only Nice Man in the book. All heterosexual men beat their wives. Remember that:
13a. All goddess-worshippers are violently tolerant of all varieties of sexual behavior.
13b. All Christians are violently intolerant of any variety of sexual behavior.

14. No man in a feministly-reimaged historical novel ever does anything worthwhile.
14a. All worthwhile achievements were really done by goddess-worshipping women.
14b. If the man is an historical figure who is well-documented as having definitely done something, the idea was really given to the great man by a goddess-worshipping woman.
14b.1. Unless he stole the idea from a GWW.
14b.2. Unless the accomplishment is a new weapon. All weapons are invented by men.

15. No heroine in a feministly-reimaged historical novel ever does anything bad, because women are inherently gentle and nurturing, dedicated to peace, harmony, the Great Chain of Being, Oneness, and the Circle of Life.
15a. This is why you probably won’t see feministly-reimaged historical novels about
i. Catherine de Medici or
ii. The Empress Wu or
iii. Ranavalona of Madagascar
anytime soon.

India Edghill’s novels include Wisdom’s Daughter: A Novel of Solomon and Sheba, and Queenmaker: A Novel of King David's Queen.

Our England is a garden...

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:03:00 +0000

You'd expect a post with such a title* to have Kipling connections but really it's about Kent, which is known as the Garden of England for its bountiful hops and fruit orchards. In particular it's about this exquisite medieval manor house near Sevenoaks where we spent a happy day:

*first line of The Glory of the Garden

Ightham Mote

Ightham Mote (pronounced Item: I asked) has a long and complicated history, beginning in the mid-14th century. There are Tudor, Jacobean and Victorian additions and the furnished rooms reflect this, from the medieval and Tudor chapels (the latter having a unique barrel-vaulted ceiling with painted panels) to early 20th-century bedrooms and library. Oh, and a moat. And a Grade 1 listed half-timbered dog kennel which you can see in the courtyard in one of the photos above. It's owned by the National Trust which spent 15 years and £10 million restoring it and who also look after its estate of several hundred acres.

After looking round the house and delightful gardens, we took a three-mile walk around the estate woodlands and lanes. The first half of the walk regaled us with a Wordsworthian profusion of wild flowers, some of which I know, others I'm guessing at after squinting in my little pocket book of wild flowers. I'd love to hear from people who know more about wild flowers than I do! That's probably most people.

Bugle?

Lesser Celandine

Ransoms (Wild Garlic)

Germander Speedwell

Dog Violet

Wood Anemone

Yellow Pimpernel

Lady's Smock (Cuckoo Flower): thanks to Carla for identifying

Ground Ivy or Bugle?

Greater Stitchwort?

Yellow Archangel

Wood Spurge

Red Campion?

May Blossom

On the second half of the walk, the views over the Kentish Weald (below and the blog header) in beautiful spring sunshine were breathtaking. My camera scarcely does them justice):

Rules for Writing Victorian-Set Historical Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:39:00 +0000

Here are the essential rules for this very popular genre, also known as “clog and shawl sagas”. The late Catherine Cookson was the undisputed queen, and there is no shortage of successors. These Rules originally appeared in Solander, The Magazine of the Historical Novel Society, in December 2001.

OFFICIAL RULES FOR WRITING VICTORIAN HISTORICAL NOVELS
by Sally Zigmond

1. There’s always trouble up factory/mill/mine (always referred to as t’factory, t’mill or t’pit).

2. Britain was a smaller place then. It consisted only of The Industrial North (Yorkshire, Manchester and South Shields) and London (West End, sleazy and rich; East End, sleazy and poor, but full of loveable rogues).

3. Rain falls for 360 days a year. On 4 days, the sun is shrouded in smoke, soot and grime or never seen as everyone toils day and night in the factory/mill/mine. Star-crossed lovers always spend one day out on’t moors in brilliant sunshine, make a baby, then return home in a violent thunderstorm, after which they are forcibly parted or dead.

4. The main characters are: rich and wicked factory/mill/mine owner; rich and wicked factory/mill/mine owner’s son; rich and virtuous factory/mill/mine owner’s son; poor and virtuous factory/mill/mine worker; rich and virtuous factory/mill/mine owner’s daughter; rich and wicked factory/mill/mine owner’s daughter; poor and virtuous daughter of factory/mill/mine worker (delete where not applicable).

5. The necessary love interest occurs when a male from list 4 falls in love with a female from list 4 (write names on cards and throw in the air). This inevitably leads to 3 or 1 or both.

6. One of the men is a Luddite. Another believes in progress. They are probably brothers (either rich or poor, but both virtuous). They are at odds until the penultimate chapter when one saves the other’s life (see 1 and 10).

7. The wife of the factory/mill/mine owner is an invalid. The virtuous factory/mill/mine worker is a widower and his daughter is dying of consumption. Only the virtuous contract consumption. The wicked enjoy robust health.

8. The wicked factory/mill/mine owner always cuts wages or lays workers off to pay his or his son’s gambling debts or his daughter’s dressmaker (see 1). Or the virtuous factory/mill owner may be forced to cut wages or lay off workers to pay his wife’s medical bills. His guilty conscience leads him to drink or death (see 1 and 7).

9. There is always a strike at the factory/mill/mine and the wrong (virtuous) man is always accused of being the ring-leader and is thrown in gaol where he dies or is saved by his enemy (see 1 and 6).

10. All factories/mills/mines have leaking roofs, lethal machinery and dangerous chemicals. They always blow up or burn down in the penultimate chapter (see 1).

Sally Zigmond has written Chasing Angels, a fictionalised account of the life of Henriette d’Angeville, who was the first woman to personally organise a successful ascent of Mont Blanc in 1838. (A woman did get to the top thirty years earlier but she was basically carried and pushed up half unconscious as a publicity stunt.) It was published by Biscuit Publishing in 2006. Her next novel will be published in 2009.

Book Review: Mrs Woolf and the Servants by Alison Light

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:17:00 +0000

Nellie Boxall came to work as a live-in servant to Virginia and Leonard Woolf in 1918 and stayed until 1934. During those 18 years, a running battle was fought between mistress and servant

for control and for mutual understanding…Virginia wrote obsessively about Nellie in her letters and diaries; she felt sick after their arguments, furious, guilty, bewildered and disgusted by it all; sometimes she anxiously sought to appease Nellie, sometimes she burst out violently and defensively.

Fascinated by the ferocity of the feelings involved, Alison Light took this fraught relationship as her starting point for Mrs Woolf and the Servants,

a story about mutual – and unequal – dependence but…also about social differences, about class feelings and attitudes…I wanted to know much Nellie and Virginia’s story was special to them and how much it was an inevitable product of the servant relationship.

This led her back from the 1930s to the 1880s when Virginia and Vanessa Stephen were growing up in an upper middle class Victorian home with a regiment of servants to tend to their every need. The servants were mainly country women who “went into service” at twelve or fourteen because changes in the rural economy left them without work in their home villages. One such was Sophia Farrell, who remained in the Stephen family’s employ most of her life, first as cook-housekeeper to Virginia’s parents, then to members of the younger generation when they set up their own households in the 1900s.

But by the time Nellie Boxall came to work for the Woolfs, society was changing. The line that separated mistress and servant was beginning to erode: the seemingly inexhaustible supply of servants was drying up and social deference was not what it was. Alison Light uncovers the hidden life stories of those who served the households of Virginia and her siblings and uses them to show why and how the master-servant relationship changed and what it cost the people involved. As well as Sophia Farrell, loyal and deferential, and the volatile Nellie, we also meet the garrulous, giggly Lottie Hope, brought up in one of the homes founded by the now little-known Edith Sichel to train orphans as domestic servants, Grace Germany, “the Angel of Charleston” the oft-unsung mainstay of the bohemian household of Virginia Woolf’s sister Vanessa, and the capable, cheerful local Sussex girl Louie Everest who “did” for the Woolfs for many years.

But this is more than a fascinating study in social history. It also offers illuminating insights into the influence of the servants on the lives of the Bloomsbury set, and especially on the inner life and the writings of Virginia Woolf. As adults, Virginia and Vanessa saw themselves as liberated from the servant-dependent constraints of Victorian society but they still needed servants, however “difficult” they might be, to do the domestic chores that allowed them the time and freedom to pursue their artistic lives. Yet servants, no longer living in separate quarters behind the proverbial green baize door, intruded into the privacy of their employers – heard, for example, in the creaking floorboards and through the thin walls of Monk’s House, the Woolfs’ country home. Alison Light imagines Mrs Woolf thinking,

One would never really have a room of one’s own whilst they were in and out. And what if one’s housemaids were not so different after all in their dreams and desires? What if they had souls like one’s own?

Light shows us other paradoxes too: as a member of the Labour Party, Virginia subscribed to notions of equality, but she could never rid herself of inherited class snobbery; and the Bloomsberries and their friends never completely shed their dependence on “the servants”. Although Virginia eventually became a competent cook after Nellie Boxall was finally sacked and replaced by a “daily”, we may smile when Light tells us that

Lytton Strachey’s sisters couldn’t boil an egg and had to wait on the servant’s day off for one of their younger relatives to come in and light the stove before they could put a kettle on.

As for Virginia Woolf’s writing, the servants, despite their ignorance and their interruptions, were often her window on the world. She frequently jotted down their tales and gossip as potential copy for her fiction and essays, “the chinks of light glimpsed through the thick hedges of class feeling which boxed her in.” And they were sometimes in her thoughts on the nature of self in relation to others. She even included a lavatory attendant’s viewpoint (based on an overheard conversation) in a short story, though she dropped it from the final draft.

Written with clarity, vigour and sympathy, Mrs Woolf and the Servants is a gem of social history writing which also gives us the opportunity of seeing the Bloomsbury set in general, and Virginia Woolf in particular, from a new and sometimes surprising angle.

Book Review: Daphne by Justine Picardie

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Fri, 02 May 2008 07:59:00 +0000

A novel about Daphne du Maurier and the Brontë sisters? Sounds like the perfect book to curl up with on the sofa for an intriguing evening or two. And so it proved - with one or two reservations.

In 1957, Daphne du Maurier is a best-selling novelist living in her beloved Cornish hideaway. But as the story opens she discovers that her husband, a war hero and now treasurer to the Duke of Edinburgh, is having an affair. He's also having a nervous breakdown, which is why he's in a London nursing home. Daphne, who's had a few affairs herself, decides to make the best of things and to take her mind off it all, she embarks on research for a book she's had in mind for a while: a biography of that sad and neglected Brontë, Branwell, who died of drink and drugs, a failure in the shadow of his sisters.

Daphne's investigations bring her into epistolary contact with J. A. Symington, a scholar employed by the Brontë Society until he was booted out under suspicion of having stolen some original documents. This much is fact, and the resulting biography, The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë, was published in 1960. Most of Daphne happens in the (presumably made-up) letters Daphne exchanges with the embittered Symington, and in the private thoughts each has about the circumstances of their own lives. It's a tale of literary sleuthing (was Branwell the real author of some of Emily's poems and perhaps even of Wuthering Heights? What happened to Emily's handwritten notebook of her poems?), interwoven with ruminations on the past (Daphne's troubled relationship with her difficult, possessive father; Symington's fraught dealings with fellow-Brontë scholars).

There's also a parallel strand set in the present day: a young Cambridge graduate is doing a PhD on Daphne du Maurier and the Brontës. She, too, has a troubled past (her childhood) and an unhappy present, having recently married a much older academic divorced from a clever and beautiful wife, who haunts both him and his rather mousy new spouse.

The Daphne and Symington parts work very well, showing a mastery of pace and tension almost worthy of du Maurier herself. But the modern strand seems leaden and superfluous, the girl irritatingly wimpy and whiny and the parallels with Rebecca too clunkingly obvious to mean anything.

But the real fly in the ointment for me was the author's persistent habit of running sentences together with commas instead of separating them with full stops or even semi-colons. This happened once or twice on almost every page. Call me a pedant, but I found it annoyingly distracting: it interrupted the flow of the narrative and in some cases I had to re-read to get the sense. Aaargh.

On the other hand, the dust-jacket is a dream. That woodcut is so evocative of the 1950s. And I love the way Bloomsbury has provided not only head- and tail-bands on the spine of this book, but also a woven-in silk(y) bookmark. Bloomsbury seems to do this with many of its books and I wish other publishers would follow suit. Books are beautiful things and elegant touches like these make them a pleasure to handle as well as to read.

Steven Pressfield & Steven Saylor on Historical Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:43:00 +0000

Recently at the Getty Villa in California, a discussion took place between Steven Saylor and Steven Pressfield on Historical Fiction: The Ancient World in Modern Literature. Here's a video presentation of it - and very interesting it is too, whether you're a reader or a writer (or both). Steven Saylor calls ancient historians like Livy the first historical novelists and explains why. Steven Pressfield maintains that while research is useful, it's often "the stuff you make up that's most convincing".

Roma, Steven Saylor's novel about the early history of Rome is just out in paperback and the latest instalment of his Roma sub Rosa mystery series, The Triumph of Caesar, will be available any minute now.

Steven Pressfield's most recent novel of ancient times is The Afghan Campaign, which is about Alexander the Great's attempt to conquer that graveyard of empires. No prizes for getting the parallels. His latest novel is Killing Rommel.

And Finally...

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:52:00 +0000

Some memories from the St George's Day fun at Tatton Park in Cheshire during the family gathering that rounded off our little holiday

Piglets at the Home Farm: there's always an awkward one!

Morris Men (and Morris Women - whatever next?)

Carousel

Dancing round the Maypole (there's a token boy in there somewhere)

and a proper Punch & Judy show, complete with wife-and child-battering

And here we all are, round the table at the de Trafford Arms, Alderley Edge, Cheshire

What We Did On Our Hols: Part Two

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:57:00 +0000

Here are some photos of our rambles around Vindolanda and the central sector of Hadrian's Wall

On the Roman Wall looking east toward Great Chesters (Aesica)

The Museum Garden at Vindolanda: temple, shop and house

Memorial to all the Roman army regiments that served at Vindolanda

Ian with the first piece of wall he excavated at Vindolanda in 2001

Northumbrian shepherd with his old dog, Meg

Looking toward Barcombe Fell

Just south of the Wall near Walltown Crag

My dream cottage: Low Fogrigg by the Chineley Burn

Matfen Parish Church

Grave of Ian's maternal great-grandparents in Matfen churchyard

The Cuthbertson family farm, Rose's Bower, Great Whittington, Northumberland

What We Did On Our Hols: Part One

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:47:00 +0000

I had a splendid time in York with my chums. We visited the Yorkshire Museum,which had an exhibition called The Fingerprints of Time all about dating artefacts by various methods which were explained so that we could enjoy guessing the ages of various things from meteorites to a Kit-Kat bar. We didn't do at all well (don't ask).

Then it was off to magnificent York Minster where we explored the Undercroft, looking at the remains of the Roman legionary fortress and basilica and of the Norman cathedral that preceded the current building, finishing with a model of the rescue of the great central tower which was in danger of collapse in the late 1960s.

A denizen of York looking distinctly unimpressed at being talked down to by Constantine the Great

Passing Betty's Cafe Tea Rooms (no time for a Yorkshire Fat Rascal and a cup of tea this visit), we arrived at Melton's Restaurant where we enjoyed a delicious meal. Just look at the menu! I had Whitby smoked salmon, bubble and squeak with poached duck egg and white chocolate parfait with rhubarb compote.

Next day was the Historical Novel Society Conference (see previous post) and the day after that Mondeo Man arrived to whisk me off to Northumberland for a few days.

We stayed at the splendid Battlesteads Hotel, Wark, which is a few miles north of Hadrian's Wall in barbarian country. Not really - it was very comfortable and quite civilised, really. The food was scrumptious, using locally-sourced produce (the black pudding at breakfast was out of this world - but really out of Walton's, the Wark butcher's shop). We discovered that the proprietress is a chocolatier and she just happened to have made a batch of chocolates for sale whilst we were there. Say no more!

When we weren't busy filling our tummies, we found a great many things to do. For a start, we visited the Roman fort of Vindolanda to get the latest news on the current excavations (the remains of two fine granaries in the stone fort and some interesting developments in the civilian township).

The aim for this and the next few years is to "attempt to address the specific question 'was there a great divide between those who lived inside and those who lived outside the walls of the Roman fort at Vindolanda in the 3rd and 4th centuries?'". They seem to be doing very well indeed, despite the weather.

We also visited three historical homes: Wallington Hall, Cragside and Cherryburn.

Wallington Hall was the home of the Northumbrian Blacketts, who built it in the Palladian style, then it came through marriage to the Trevelyans, family of the historian G M Trevelyan. Highlights are the walled garden and the house's central hall which is decorated with the

pre-Raphaelite painter William Bell Scott's murals depicting the history of Northumberland from Roman times to the Industrial Revolution.

G M Trevelyan's uncle was Thomas Babington Macaulay, historian, Whig politician and author of The Lays of Ancient Rome. Part of his library is at Wallington.

William Bell Scott: Building the Roman Wall

Cragside, near Rothbury, was built by the industrialist William Armstrong (1810-1900), shipbuilder and armaments manufacturer in Newcastle upon Tyne. The library at Cragside was the first room in the world to be lit by electric light using the incandescent bulbs invented by Joseph Swan of Newcastle. Armstrong invented all manner of domestic mod cons for his country home, including a dishwasher, rotisserie and lift, all powered by hydroelectricity generated on his estate. The gardens are magnificent, glorious with rhododendrons and there's an enormous rock garden and miles of paths to walk.

And finally, rather less of a stately pile is Cherryburn, birthplace of Thomas Bewick (1753-1828), the engraver best known for his History of British Birds. There's a museum with portraits and items associated with Bewick, a print shop showing how Bewick made his blocks from boxwood and printed the engravings. There's also a shop selling prints made from his original blocks.

Behind the museum is the cottage where he was born and from there you can walk down to the South Tyne and wander along the river banks where he roamed as a boy learning to observe the

the local wildlife with all the fine attention to detail he brought to his later work.

Historical Novel Society Conference, York, 12 April 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Sarah Cuthbertson) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:54:00 +0000

Here's a brief report and some photos from the Historical Novel Society Conference which took place 0n 12 April 2008 at the National Railway Museum in York, surrounded by vintage locomotives, some of which were being put through their paces on the tracks outside, complete with authentic sound effects.

Appropriately enough, one of the speakers was Andrew Martin, a native of York who writes historical mysteries set on the Edwardian railways starring Jim Stringer, the Steam Detective: The Necropolis Railway, The Blackpool Highflyer, Murder at Deviation Junction, The Lost Luggage Porter and the latest, Death on a Branch Line . Andrew's father was a railwayman and Andrew grew up at the end of the age of steam, recalling with pleasure the free rides to London he took as a boy, for the pure pleasure of going on a long railway journey. He is also fascinated by the details of life in Edwardian times, from the tweed suits that even workmen wore, and the elegant language so rarely found in speech today ("and so he kept silence.")

Suzannah Dunn spoke of her novels about various Tudor women including Anne Boleyn (The Queen of Subtleties) and Catherine Parr (The Sixth Wife). Her forthcoming novel is The Queen's Sorrow, about Mary Tudor. She was billed as "not a historical novelist" but it turned out that what she meant was that she didn't do the stilted dialogue and heaving bosoms style of historical fiction. Her characters talk in modern language and this serves to reflect how modern people like Anne Boleyn were. You can read more here and see if you agree.

Crème de la Crime is a newish publisher of crime fiction. Its founder, Lyne Patrick, told us all about setting up a small independent publishers with only a few permanent staff, including herself, the rest of the work being undertaken by freelancers. Crème de la Crime recently introduced a historical crime strand and two of its historical authors were at the conference: Gordon Ferris, whose latest novel

set in ration-book London and defeated Berlin, was launched during the conference lunch and Roz Southey, author of Broken Harmony, set in 18th-century Newcastle with a musician protagonist. Roz was on an after-lunch panel discussing what the future holds for historical fiction, along with Sarah Bower, author of The Needle in the Blood (beloved of book bloggers, including Woman in Black author Susan Hill - and me) and Russell Whitfield,whose first novel Gladiatrix was published in March. The conclusion: more Ebooks, more from small independent publishers like Snowbooks (Sarah Bower), Myrmidon (Russell Whitfield) and Crème de la Crime (Roz Southey) who are giving the big boys a run for their money.

At the same time as this, another panel featuring Melinda Hammond (author of romantic historical novels such as A Rational Romance and The Belles Dames Club), Jude Morgan (see below) and Mary Sharratt, author of The Vanishing Point and A Light Far Shining, a forthcoming novel about the Witches of Pendle, talked about writing women back into history and concluded that this was happening already, and not before time either.

Jude Morgan spoke next. He used to write historical mysteries set in the 18th century under the name of Hannah March. His detective was a man and Jude told an amusing story about a reviewer who said he couldn't get on with the novels because Hannah March couldn't write men convincingly. Jude Morgan now writes fictional biographies. His first was The King's Touch, about Charles II, which was followed by Indiscretion (a stylish Regency tale of love and the impoverished Miss Fortune), Passion (Byron, Shelley, Keats and the women who loved them), Symphony (Berlioz and his muse) and his latest,

An Accomplished Woman (a witty homage to Regency romances and Jane Austen). His next novel is about the Brontë sisters and is due out early next year.

The last speakers were Elizabeth Chadwick, author of early medieval historicals, and Alison King, who's an akashic consultant. After explaining what an akashic consultant is (someone who can, apparently, tune into an ethereal level where she can communicate with the dead), she and Elizabeth did a session, demonstrating how tuning into the akashic records has helped Elizabeth research the real-life characters in her recent novels about William Marshal (The Greatest Knight, The Scarlet Lion) and his father (A Place Beyond Courage). Personally, I wasn't convinced by either the idea or the demo, but who knows?

And finally, some photos of the day here.