A Refreshing Look at a King's Favorite

I finished The Lord of Misrule by Eve Trevaskis today, about Edward II and Piers Gaveston, told in the third person mainly from the viewpoint of Gaveston. I can't add much to Sarah Johnson's recent review of it except to point out that I found it historically accurate and carefully researched, the more so because Trevaskis wrote the book in 1972 and did not have the advantage of consulting the studies of Gaveston by Pierre Chaplais and J. S. Hamilton that appeared subsequently.

It's hard to get a handle on Edward II's character from this book; neither the author nor even Gaveston appears to know quite what to think of him. Gaveston, however, is well drawn as a person with conflicting impulses who sometimes stirs up trouble despite his better judgment. In too many novels, he's caricatured as a monster of greedy opportunism and as a fop; here he's depicted as witty, brave, loyal, and loving. His relationship with his young wife, Margaret, though not portrayed in depth, is particularly refreshing. Too often, Margaret is a pathetic figure in novels about Edward II, a bone tossed to Gaveston whom Gaveston treats with just as little respect. Here she's a lively girl with a backbone who gradually develops a sexual attraction to (and for) Gaveston; the chapter where she and Gaveston finally consummate their marriage is well done.

As Sarah Johnson pointed out, the politics behind the goings-on here remain very much in the background, which will likely be confusing to those readers who aren't familiar with Edward II's reign. The ending, foreshadowing the future, was interestingly handled; it's a pity that Trevaskis' next novel, King's Wake, jumps over the latter part of Edward II's reign to begin with the events following his deposition.

All in all, this is a sympathetic portrayal of a historical character who's often been depicted one-dimensionally by novelists. (For another view of the king's favorite, narrated by the king himself, try Chris Hunt's novel Gaveston, reviewed on Alianor's blog.) Meanwhile, I'm off to see what Betty King makes of another controversial figure, Margaret of Anjou.

Three (Give or Take a Few) Strikes and You're Out

Today I settled down for my lunchtime reading with Sweet Passion’s Pain by Karen Harper. Because it’s about Joan “the Fair Maid of Kent,” wife to the Black Prince and mother of Richard II, it interested me, despite the cheesy title. (Published in the 1980’s, the book’s being reissued this year with the title The First Princess of Wales.)

In the opening scene, young, unmarried Joan is getting ready to leave her childhood home at Liddell Manor to go to the court of Edward III. We know she’s unmarried because she tells her nurse, spirited girl that she is, that she has “no intention of wedding for years and years yet.” Two pages later, we find out the date this scene is taking place: May 1344.

Big problem. Joan of Kent was married to William de Montacute in 1340/41; before that, she might well have been married to Thomas Holland, who convinced the Pope of that when he got the Montacute marriage annulled in 1349. In any case, Joan certainly wasn’t single in 1344.

So I turn a few pages, heart sinking, and meet Edmund, Joan’s bossy twenty-three-year-old brother. Joan did have a brother named Edmund, but he died in 1331, as a young child. As this hasn’t been billed as a ghost story, this is not promising either. I skip back a page, where an astrologer has been droning on about Joan’s birth date, and notice that he says that Joan was born “the summer her father died.” Well, a posthumous child was born to the executed Edmund, Earl of Kent, but it wasn’t Joan but her younger brother John. Little Joan, in fact, is said to have been one of the sponsors at his baptism because the family was in prison at the time and no adults were able to fill the role. (Lest you be wondering, I’ve picked up these details in doing research for my own novel-in-progress. Joan is the sister-in-law of my heroine, Elizabeth de Montacute.)

OK, time to skim ahead a little in Sweet Passion’s Pain. Joan of Kent’s mother, Margaret, was in poor health when mother and daughter parted, and sure enough, five months later Joan is summoned to Margaret’s deathbed. It’s a moving scene, but a tad early: We’re still in 1344, it seems, and the historical Margaret didn’t die until 1349.

Finally, it’s 1347, and Joan is at last getting married to William de Montacute, the man whom history indicates she had married in 1341.

Check, please.

Now, I’m not unpityingly picky in terms of historical accuracy. I’ve made mistakes in that area myself, for one thing. And if someone’s eating the wrong food, wearing the wrong armor, dancing the wrong dance, or donning the wrong headdress, it doesn’t bother me, unless the novel contains just one anachronism after another. But I do like to have people in a novel be born, marry, and die on the same dates that history says they did, if history gives definite dates and they’re accessible to a researcher who’s not a professional historian. When the people in question are minor characters, I can go on reading if the crucial dates are wrong, though not with much pleasure; when they’re major characters, I simply can’t—unless the novel is so bad in other respects that it’s perversely fun to read.

So, blog readers, would this be a deal breaker for you? Or would you slog on anyway? What type of inaccuracies make you slam a historical novel shut?

While you’re pondering this, I’m off to find another novel. (In the meantime, if you’re interested in reading about Joan of Kent, you might try Juliet Dymoke’s Lady of the Garter, published in 1979, a few years before the Harper novel was published. Not only does an aging, overweight Queen Isabella make a few appearances in it, Dymoke gets Joan of Kent’s dates straight.)

My Mailbox Runneth Over

My mailbox has been full of historical fiction lately, putting me in the pleasant position of having too many books to choose from. One of the first I chose to read was Wendy J. Dunn's Dear Heart, How Like You This?, a novel about Anne Boleyn told by poet and diplomat Thomas Wyatt.

I've been thinking of reading this for quite a while, but something kept scaring me off--perhaps the Amazon reviewer who noted Wyatt's habit of using "Verily" to start his sentences. Verily, Wyatt does say "Verily" quite a bit, but this isn't particularly bothersome once one gets into the rhythm of the book.

Dear Heart tells the very familiar story of Anne Boleyn's rise and fall through the eyes of Wyatt, her devoted childhood companion who loves Anne hopelessly. Wyatt nonetheless takes a fairly clear-eyed, albeit partisan, view of her character and her situation, and he's sensitive enough to feel compassion for Catherine of Aragon and Princess Mary as well. He's a likable narrator, whose lovesickness doesn't stop him from making pointed observations from time to time, and for all his poetic sensitivity he has his hard edges--at one point he beats his unfaithful wife, though of course he feels guilty about it. I was disappointed, in fact, that the novel ended shortly after the death of Anne Boleyn, having wanted to spend more time in Wyatt's company. The scenes between him and his aging father--evidently a very interesting character in his own day--are quite moving.

So what about Anne? In Dunn's version of events, Anne, determined to take revenge for the forced parting of herself and Henry Percy, sets out to break the king's heart, only to find herself unable to break away from the king without risking her own life and those of her family. That's all quite credible, and Anne, recognizing the role that her own folly has played in her fate, courageously accepts it. Unfortunately, in Wyatt's sympathetic company Anne tends to become lachrymose and hysterical, and too prone to reminiscing about her childhood. Though we see glimpses of the considerable charm and wit that she must have possessed, those qualities are somewhat muted here.

All in all, though, this is one of the most enjoyable novels about Anne Boleyn I've read. I was sorry to see it end.

Some Thoughts from William Styron

One of my fondest college memories is hearing William Styron speak about his then-recent historical novel, Sophie's Choice, and having my copy autographed later that same night. Anyway, while Googling tonight I ran into this post by blogger Erika Dreifus on a talk by Geraldine Brooks, which in turn led me to an interesting 1992 article by Styron in American Heritage in which he discusses the controversy that erupted around his early novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner.

Styron has several interesting observations to make, especially this one: "While it may be satisfying and advantageous for historians to feast on rich archival material, the writer of historical fiction is better off when past events have left him with short rations." He goes on to point out that even historians have had a difficult time arriving at the historical truth about Nat Turner, whom he terms "a fascinating subject for speculation." One could parallel his case with those figures so often speculated about by historical novelists: Richard III and Anne Boleyn--with the difference being that Styron wrote his novel about Nat Turner during the racially tense days of the 1960's, whereas the author who chooses a medieval monarch for his subject generally risks little more than the possibility of a few snide Amazon reviews.

Anyway, Stryon's article is well worth a read. I'll shut up for the night and let you get on with it.

Quiz Day

Yesterday, I went to a used bookstore and returned with a copy of Fatal Majesty by Reay Tannahil. I'm kicking myself today for not buying The Marriage of Meggotta by Edith Pargeter, but have just remedied that situation through my faithful pickpocket Amazon. When I came home, a copy of Sweet Passion's Pain by Karen Harper was waiting patiently in my mailbox for me, with a 1980's cover as silly as promised in Sarah Johnson's blog. (It's about Joan "the Fair Maid of Kent," and from my skim last night appears to be fairly good, though with more about Joan's nipples than I really need to know.)

More historical novels are on the way, so I'll have lots to blog about in days to come.

In the meantime, having seen the link on Stephanie's blog, I took this "Which Jane Austen character Are You?" quiz courtesy of Quiz Farm. I scored, just as every intelligent young woman should, as Elizabeth Bennet. (Actually, I've always thought of myself more as Anne Elliot, but she wasn't on the quiz that I could tell.)

This is the second online quiz of this sort I've taken. On the last one, concerning people from Edward II's reign, I scored as the Earl of Kent. Sadly, the quiz no longer seems to be available online, but you can read more about the ill-fated earl on Alianor's blog.

Being in the quiz mood now (and, let's face it, at an obvious loss for something else to post about today), I took the Which Wife of Henry VIII Are You? quiz (link in the sidebar) and came out as Katherine Parr. Not a huge surprise there, and at least I get to keep my head, which I didn't as the Earl of Kent.

I then finished off my quizzing journey by taking the What Dickens Character Are You? quiz. (No sidebar link because my attempt to post it got Blogger mad at me.) Rather to my surprise, I turned out as Walter Gay, which was rather depressing, because he marries Florence Dombey, and I've never liked Florence Dombey. She's one of the few Dickens characters I don't like, as a matter of fact. Bummer.

Obviously, Mrs. Jellyby wasn't among the possible text results.

The First, and Possibly Last, Post in Which I Mention a Hedgehog

Like my new blog colors? I thought the old ones were a bit hard on the eyes.

Over the weekend, my daughter watched the movie Mean Girls, about high school cliques, and we adults were allowed to join in. It's a funny movie. Anyway, one of the clique leaders had a habit of saying "Shut up!" to express incredulity.

So as I'm doing yet another post on Jean Plaidy, I'll pause to allow the blog reader a moment in which to say, "Shut up!" and I'll assume that he or she couldn't possibly mean it literally.

[Pause]

This Plaidy novel is called The Third George. Like some of Plaidy's works about the Plantagenets, it doesn't focus so much on the title character as on the goings-on of his reign, at home and nationwide. There's a lot of such goings-on here-—political infighting, family scandals, the American Revolution, the Gordon riots, George's declining mental health, the Prince Regent's predilection for actresses—-but especially toward the end of the novel, all of the episodes feel strung together, without a unifying theme. This approach is echoed in the novel's point of view, which jumps around madly in all directions. We spend time inside the heads of Charlotte, George, Sarah Lenox, assorted politicians, George's mother and siblings, and even Fanny Burney, but just when we're getting to know a character and to take an interest in him or her, it's time for a new point of view.

The dialogue is mostly expository. "'I fear,' said George, 'that this scandal of the Grosvenors and Caroline Matilda's tragedy has upset you far more than anything ever has before, eh?'" is a typical example. The liveliest dialogue, as a matter of fact, is not an actual dialogue at all but an episode where Sarah Lenox tells her troubles to her pet hedgehog, Sukey. I would have liked to have seen more of Sarah and Sukey, actually, but Sukey makes only the one appearance and Sarah only a couple of others. Pity.

So should you read this historical novel? Well, it's interesting enough if, like me, you don't know much about George III's family—it got me Googling to find out more, at least. For the Prince Regent, however, I think I'd just stick to Blackadder.

And no more Plaidy reviews for a while. I promise.

The Writer's Promo and The Queen's Confession

Promotional bit first: My first book signing will be at Brightleaf Books in Smithfield, North Carolina, on Friday, June 23! (Time to be arranged.) This gives me two months to perfect a signature that actually looks like “Susan Higginbotham” instead of the mark of a highly dysfunctional two-year-old, so please come to admire my handiwork. If you don’t happen to live near Smithfield, North Carolina, don’t let that deter you—you’ve two months to make your arrangements, and Smithfield is on the way to North Carolina’s beaches, which are sandy (as opposed to rocky), clean, and WARM (a big incentive for you folks from colder climates). So start planning, ladies and gentlemen of the blogsphere.

I myself went to the beach this weekend and succeeded both in sunburning my feet and in finishing The Queen’s Confession, Victoria Holt’s novel about Marie Antoinette. I was very impressed by this one. It’s written in the first person by the queen, who bluntly acknowledges her failings and records her regrets about what she might have done differently.

One of the most well written episodes in the novel is that in which Marie Antoinette attempts to escape France incognito in a lavishly equipped, outsized vehicle known as a berlin. We share the queen’s frustration and regret that she chose such a conspicuous, high-status vehicle, especially when she tells us that her brother-in-law picked a shabby carriage for his own (ultimately successful) escape. Our frustration mounts as the party of escapees makes blunder after blunder, such as missing connections and stopping to let the royal children stretch their legs. At the same time, though, even as we readers know the attempt is doomed, we find ourselves hoping, against all logic, that it succeeds after all.

My only real dissatisfaction with this novel came from the limitations the first-person narration imposed. (One of these days, when I’m feeling more ruminative, I’ll post about first-person narration versus third-person narration in historical fiction. Comments welcome in the meantime.) I would have liked to have read more about what was going on outside Marie Antoinette’s chambers, to learn more of what was taking place in the minds of the people around her. All in all, though, this is a historical novel well worth reading.

Another Paperback Historical Fiction Treasure

This beauty will soon be in my hands, God and Amazon willing, but I thought I'd leave it with you for the Easter holiday to feast your eyes upon (better than an Easter ham). It's called Ride East! Ride West! by Anne Powers and is set during the Hundred Years' War, evidently a time when material for women's clothing was in short supply if the cover is to be believed.

Powers also wrote a historical novel called Royal Bondage, the cover of which I have not seen but the design possibilities of which will supply me with hours of pleasant speculation on the way to the beach.

Happy Easter!

Out of Print and In My Hands

I’m in the middle of The Queen’s Confession, a novel about Marie Antoinette that’s narrated in the first person by the queen, as the title indicates. It’s by Victoria Holt, who of course is also Jean Plaidy, who is also Philippa Carr. Most of the Holt and Carr books fall under the category of romantic suspense, as far as I can tell, which isn’t my thing at all, but The Queen’s Confession is mainstream historical fiction, more like Jean Plaidy’s novels. So far, it’s very good, with much more in-depth characterization than Carolly Erickson used in her recent Marie Antoinette novel, The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette. I found the latter readable but lacking in depth, which surprised me because I enjoyed Erickson’s biography of the queen, To the Scaffold.

I’ll post more on the Holt book when I’ve finished it, but this seemed a good time to note that as readers of this blog may have figured out by now, when I read historical fiction, I’m more likely to pick up something that’s old or out-of-print than current fiction. This is mainly because I choose historical fiction based on my own idiosyncratic criteria: generally, it has to be about historical figures I’m interested in, these figures have to play a major part in the novel, and it has to be “straight” historical fiction rather than historical romance, though I’ve been known to read the latter if the historical element is sufficiently strong and the main characters more than beautiful puppets. If a novel meets those criteria, I’m likely to read it, though I have my limits. If Eleanor of Aquitaine sounds like Erica Jong, that’s a deal-breaker for me.

There are a number of current writers who meet my criteria, which I emphasize are purely a matter of personal taste. Unfortunately, they can write only so fast, so, as I said before, I find myself gravitating toward older books, many of which are no longer available except as used books or in public libraries. This is a shame, because although some of these older books are written in a mannered style that hasn’t aged well, many of them, like the novels of Margaret Campbell Barnes, are as good as anything being written today, and in some cases better. Perhaps publishers will recognize this, as they have in the case of some of Jean Plaidy’s books, and begin reissuing them.

Short Post Re: Short Words in a Long Book

Not having gotten far enough in anything I’m reading to post about it, I thought I’d direct your attention to a very strange 1898 book, History of England in Words of One Syllable, which I saw in a flea market some time ago and had to buy for its sheer dottiness. It is by Mrs. Helen W. Pierson, and Mrs. Pierson’s ghost would probably be very upset if I omitted the “Mrs.” on subsequent references to her, so I won’t.

This was part of a series entitled “Burt’s One Syllable Histories,” of which Mrs. Pierson was but one of several authors. There were volumes on the United States, Germany, Russia, Ireland, and Japan, among others. “Each Volume Profusely Illustrated,” the publisher promised.

Now, Mrs. Pierson was allowed a little leeway by her publisher. As she could hardly write a history without using any proper nouns of more than one syllable, they do appear in the book, broken down like this: “Now Rich-ard, Duke of Glou-ces-ter, of whom you have heard . . .” But except for proper nouns, and the words “History” and “Syllable” in the title, Mrs. Pierson heroically follows her editorial guidelines for 243 pages, from the Druids to the death of William Gladstone. For instance, she disposes of Cath-a-rine How-ard thusly: “In a few months the king found out that she was not so good as he had thought, and he made short work with her—-her head was cut off.” Even innocuous prepositions like “about” or “without” are ruthlessly omitted.

This book must have been hell, sheer hell to write. I would not want to have to do what Mrs. Pier-son did for long at all. It would drive me mad. Just think—each word a short one but for names and places. And I do not know who was meant to read this book. Folks who could not read well? Tots? But if a child was of the age to read or hear of things that took place in Eng-land, would he not know many words of more than one part?

Just to write this has made me weak. I must go to bed now.

Philip Lindsay's "Royal Scandal"

I finished Royal Scandal today, the priceless cover of which I posted on my previous blog (“The most reckless love in the wickedest court in history!” we are promised). Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending upon your perspective), the novel doesn’t live up to its sensational cover.

Originally published in 1933 with the clunky title of Here Comes the King, this historical novel by Philip Lindsay covers the familiar story of Katherine Howard’s disastrous marriage to Henry VIII. Unlike most novels dealing with Katherine Howard, this doesn’t begin with Katherine’s childhood and her youthful romantic escapades, but starts with her marriage to Henry VIII. The central character is Thomas Culpeper, here a Sydney Carton–like figure who’s shattered when Katherine marries the king. Culpeper is much better drawn here than in other novels in which he appears. His rape of a young woman, which is usually ignored or glossed over by other novelists, plays an important role here, though Culpeper is redeemed in the reader’s eyes by the guilt he feels over the episode.

The other male characters here are well drawn as well. Francis Dereham, who turns up about halfway through the novel and aids the young lovers despite his realization that doing so will doom all three, is vividly rendered, along with his sidekick Damport. Will Sommers, the jester who gloomily watches the trio destroy themselves, has an almost Shakespearean quality, and his jests are actually funny. His interplay with Henry VIII is often quite moving. Henry VIII himself is not the terrifying monster he is in many novels, but a sad, lonely man.

The women aren’t quite as convincing. Katherine’s abrupt change from indifference toward Culpeper to heedless infatuation isn’t sufficiently explained. Though her sultry, come-hither pose graces the cover, all in all, she’s a wan character whose main attraction, physical beauty, doesn’t seem enough to justify the risks Culpeper and Dereham take for her. Her confidant Jane Rochford is also disappointingly rendered. She of all the people in the novel should know the risks she takes in aiding and abetting the lovers, but she’s never given a clear motive—revenge, living vicariously, general mischief-making, or what have you—for getting so fatally involved in their affair.

This novel is not for someone who expects things to move quickly. Most of the action takes place over a short period, the king’s northward progress, and at times the slow pace, as the author describes the scenery and unpacks the king’s luggage, can be maddening. Will Sommers’ Greek-chorus-like appearances may also be annoying to some readers. All in all, though, this is a well-structured, character-driven novel that surpasses most others I’ve read about Katherine Howard.

35 Cents of Fun

As everyone who has picked up a new historical novel in the last few years has noticed, the cover-art trend is to depict a person, most often a woman, in such a way that her face is partially or fully obscured or her head missing altogether.* These “headless woman” covers look classy, so much so that as blogger Sarah Johnson points out, they’ve made it onto a classic: the new translation of War and Peace. The alternative these days is to use an image from an art gallery. These covers look even more classy; the only drawback being, as Sarah Johnson has also pointed out, that the same painting often ends up gracing several historical novels.

But classy and pretty as these covers are, they have one huge drawback as far as I’m concerned. They’re no fun. This cover is.



I don’t know what I like about this "Avon Red and Gold Edition" best--Katherine Howard’s permanent wave (Henry VIII did spoil the girl), the caption “(Here Comes the King)” (evidently the novel's original title, but here looking like an admonition to the recumbent Katherine), the fact that Katherine looks about twice as old as she was, her teasingly exposed bosom, or the 35-cent cover price. All I know is that when I saw this gem on eBay, I knew that I had to have it and that anyone who tried to snipe it away from me would have to look to God for forgiveness, not to me.

I've been too busy admiring my new acquisition to read it (and the typeface inside is woefully tiny), but the novel itself looks quite decent, as well researched and well written as anything I've seen recently on Katherine Howard. It doesn't quite live up, though, to the delirious copy on the back jacket: "Her mouth was a kissing mouth, the upper lip drawn in a trifle, demurely, the lower lip heavy, full-blooded: the mouth of a lover . . . soft as a petal, trembling . . ." But then, what could?

Now if I could just get hold of the novels advertised in the back of Royal Scandal, especially Queen's Caprice, a novel that promises to tell in its "untamed splendor . . . the story of the fabulous, lush and amorous Mary, Queen of Scots, who ruled a nation of half-wild clansmen from a throne of passion."

____________________________
*Promotional footnote: The Traitor’s Wife, in case a dog-eared copy does not grace your nightstand already, does not have a cover featuring a headless woman. It does, however, feature a lot of beheadings. Maybe even a throne of passion.

I Become a Full-Time Historical Fiction Writer

I’m still reeling from the news that I hit it big in the North Carolina State Lottery. Now, of course, I will be able to achieve my longtime goal of writing full-time, not to mention having an office with real walls to do so in. While I’m waiting for the contractors to show up to take some measurements, here’s a list of just some of the upcoming historical novels I’m planning. Agents: contact me by e-mail only, please.

Braveheart: The Sequel

Humiliated by her and her lover Roger Mortimer’s fall from power, Queen Isabella is stunned to receive a disguised visitor at Castle Rising—her first and only real love, William Wallace, who explains that another man offered to be hung, drawn, and quartered in his place so that Wallace could be reunited with Isabella. Isabella snaps, “Took you long enough, Kilt Boy,” but forgives him for his delay after a session of passionate lovemaking. They live happily for the rest of their lives, passing the days by making fun of Edward II’s loss at Bannockburn and marveling at how well their son Edward III turned out.


Where the Sun in Splendour Doesn’t Shine

Recognizing his suppressed homoerotic feelings for Edward IV only after his friend’s untimely death, William Hastings summons the Duke of Buckingham to London and begins a torrid love affair with him. When Hastings abruptly decides he likes Jane Shore better after all, Buckingham persuades Richard III to have Hastings executed. Later, when Richard III refuses Buckingham’s own advances, Buckingham rebels. The Princes in the Tower, meanwhile, escape and begin new lives as traveling players. They begin to write their own plays, which years later find their way into the hands of a rustic from Stratford-upon-Avon.


The Secret Dairy of Anne Boleyn

Fed up with the artificiality of court life, Anne establishes a little farm where she can retreat in times of stress and milk her cows. When she invites a group of muscular male courtiers to join her, Henry VIII mishears the phrase “bring in the hay” as “roll in the hay.” Disaster ensues.

I do believe I hear the contractors at the door now.

Gambling Fever, Meeting the Press, and John Guy

Exciting day for us in the state of North Carolina today--we now have a state lottery! For now, all we have are the tickets that you scratch and match; we'll get the big-boy random drawings later. I'm not a high-stakes gambler by any means; one or two $1 tickets is pretty much my limit. But a million bucks or two would let me do some pretty serious damage on Amazon!

I sent a press release out last week to a couple of local papers announcing my finaling in the ForeWord Magazine awards, and one of their reporters called me today and asked me a few questions for an article. My first interview! Hope I didn't sound like too much of a ditz. I have a much easier time writing than talking about writing.

I haven't had much of a chance to read this week, and none of the historical novels I have on hand has really grabbed me, so I decided to read John Guy's biography of Mary, Queen of Scots. I very seldom read nonfiction books straight through; I tend more to dip into them and read whatever catches my fancy. I'm trying to turn over a new leaf with this one and read from it front to back. Anyway, I'm very impressed so far. Guy writes well, and his portrait of Mary promises to be a balanced and well researched one.

Nonhistorical and Historical Characters: Should They Mingle?

Finished reading Katherine Howard, a 1969 novel by Jessica Smith, yesterday. Like the other historical novels I’ve read about this foolish but intriguing young queen, it was somewhat disappointing, though I admittedly didn’t have huge hopes for it. Though the author often commented that Katherine was a featherhead, she didn’t come up with any motivation for what even a featherhead must have been able to realize was self-destructive behavior.

Toward the end of the novel, a minor, entirely fictional character, Clarissa, who is one of Katherine’s ladies-in-waiting, plays a prominent part in the novel. She’s allowed to see Culpepper and Derham in their cells (rather improbably, since both men have recently been tortured); she arranges for Katherine to talk with both her grandmother and Lady Rochford before she dies; and she tries to intercede with Henry VIII on Katherine’s behalf. For some reason, Henry VIII takes a shine to her (not that sort of shine, fortunately) and following Katherine’s execution, he awards a soldier who has been taking Clarissa on her rounds a pension, on the condition that he marry Clarissa. Thus, the novel ends on a comparatively happy note.

Which brings me to my point (about time, you might say). On Carla Nayland's blog, Alianor and Carla each expressed doubts about purely fictional characters who play major roles in novels that also feature historical characters. I myself can tolerate someone like Clarissa, who interacts with historical characters but doesn’t have an effect on their actions (though I think the novel would have been stronger without her). As my fellow bloggers noted, they can be a useful plot device.

Some such characters, however, come close to crossing the line into actively influencing the historical ones. In Sharon Penman’s When Christ and His Saints Slept and Time and Chance, the Empress Maude has a fictional out-of-wedlock brother, Ranulf, who stays loyal to Maude throughout and who just about everyone holds in the highest esteem. Henry II, Ranulf’s nephew, also has a high opinion of Ranulf, and the two are close until Ranulf fails to talk Henry out of blinding a group of Welsh hostages. Ranulf, who has a wife in Wales who also happens to be blind, then angrily leaves England, but the two men are reconciled toward the end of the novel.

Penman always provides the reader with an author’s note, and in both books I've been discussing, she duly acknowledges Ranulf’s purely fictional nature and the fact that at one point she gives him credit for the military exploits of another man. So if the reader is left with the impression that Ranulf was a living, breathing historical figure, that’s the reader’s fault and not Penman’s. These two are books that I like a great deal, as a matter of fact. Still, I found the scene where Ranulf tries to persuade Henry not to blind the hostages, and the following scene where Henry broods over the conversation with Ranulf, a little off-putting. One could argue that Henry would have been brooding over his decision anyway, even without Ranulf’s pricking his conscience, and Penman carefully avoids suggesting that the only reason Henry is brooding is because of Ranulf’s objections. But the fact remains I would have preferred that one of the historical characters did the objecting or that Henry’s conscience got pricked without the assistance of Ranulf.

So, dear blog readers, what do you think?

Jean Plaidy, Mary Queen of Scots, and a Message to Promote Marital Harmony

I finished Jean Plaidy’s Royal Road to Fotheringay today. This is the second novel about Mary Queen of Scots I’ve read, the first being Margaret George’s. I didn’t finish George’s book. I’m not sure why. It’s not that I disliked what I did read of it; in fact, I rather liked the scene where the Scots teach the Frenchified Mary and her companions how to play golf. Perhaps it was just the sheer length I found overwhelming; moreover, it’s not an easy book to read in short stretches and with kid-related distractions. One of these days I’ll get back to it.

Plaidy’s novel is much shorter. It covers Mary’s life up through her marriage to Bothwell and her subsequent capture, then in less than twenty pages covers the last twenty years of her life. (Plaidy wrote another book covering the latter period, which I understand is to be reissued later this year.) Consequently, the ending of Royal Road feels rather abrupt, to say the least. Otherwise, it’s pretty good. Mary’s character is well developed in particular. The dialogue is a bit on the wooden side, but not as petrified as it is in some of Plaidy’s later novels.

Reading the Plaidy book made me curious to read more about Mary. I have an old mass-market copy of Antonia Fraser’s biography of her (there’s a jacket photo of Fraser that makes her look something like Emma Peel), but my eyes have grown spoiled by trade paperbacks, and this old paperback is particularly cheaply produced—yellowed pages and gutters so tiny you can barely read the text nearby. Rather than subject myself to such punishment, I went looking for the trade paperback in the local library and ended up with John Guy’s more recent biography.

What’s next on the reading front? I’ve got an old (but readable) paperback copy of a novel by Jessica Smith about Katherine Howard. And hubby had better BUY ME IAN MORTIMER’S THE PERFECT KING FOR OUR ANNIVERSARY. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS GO TO AMAZON.CO.UK AND PRESS THE LITTLE SHOPPING CART SYMBOL. THAT’S ALL! JUST LIKE AMAZON USA EXCEPT THAT EVERYTHING’S IN POUNDS.

Sometimes you just can’t be subtle with ‘em.

In Which I Soundly Administer Myself a Good Pat on the Back

C'mon, I don't often get the chance to do this!

I'm delighted to announce that The Traitor's Wife: A Novel of the Reign of Edward II (that's my baby), has been named one of 15 finalists in the Historical Fiction category of ForeWord Magazine's 2005 Book of the Year Awards. The awards were established to reward "excellence in publishing from independent presses."

According to the ForeWord website, 604 finalists in 55 categories were chosen from 1,540 book submissions. Winners will be announced in Washington, D.C., on May 19, 2006.

OK, back-patting's over!

The Da Vinci Code trial

Up until recently, I hadn't been following the lawsuit filed in the UK against Dan Brown's publishers, but it may be worth watching closely. For those of you who haven't been keeping up all along, two of the three authors of a nonfiction book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, claim that in his novel The Da Vinci Code, Brown used the "architecture" of Holy Blood--namely, its argument that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, that the couple had children, and that there was a conspiracy to keep this secret--in creating his work of fiction. Brown did apparently use Holy Blood as one of his sources, and a character in the novel even mentions the nonfiction work.

I haven't read The Da Vinci Code, and probably won't be doing so, not on ideological grounds but because the whole thing sounds sort of silly to me. Moreover, it's a thriller, and I don't read thrillers--riding on the expressway surrounded by SUV's being driven by people who are chatting on their cell phones while traveling 75 miles per hour is enough thrill for me, thank you.

But whatever one thinks of the merits, literary or otherwise, of The Da Vinci Code, the outcome of this trial will be of interest to writers of historical fiction, at least to those who bother to do research. If a novelist uses a nonfiction writer's conclusion--particularly a new or a controversial conclusion--as a jumping-off point for his own work, will he be exposing himself to liability? What if the conclusion is only a small component of the fictional work? What if the conclusion is the meat and bones of the fictional work? Will the novelist have to pay nonfiction writers for the right to use the fruits of their research? What about nonfiction writers who build on the foundation of research of others?

Lots to ponder here.

A Divine Sign?

A couple of weeks ago, the computer on which I do most of my novel-writing suddenly refused to start up properly. I consulted a local geek (that's what computer guys seem to like to be called these days), who diagnosed it as having a corrupt profile, but had no idea why, even after consulting other geeks. Nothing like playing Stump the Geeks with one's computer.

My computer was finally returned to me last night, but whatever caused my profile to become corrupted also made all of my Microsoft Word files disappear, including the novel I'm working on. I had a couple of chapters saved on a diskette (the humble diskette gets too little respect these days, but I'm grateful to it), but all of my latest work was lost. Rather than curse and throw small objects (all right, in addition to cursing and throwing small objects), I decided to take this as a Divine Sign that it was time to rework the chapter in question.

In the future, though, I would appreciate more subtle Divine Signs, especially as this one also requires me to do all of my income taxes over again. Just a thought.

While also restoring my website files (do you get the idea that the last day was not a delightful one for me?), I came across my oldest postings from a previous incarnation of this blog. As with my expose of James Frey, I can't find the post in which I came up with a plan for peace in the Middle East, but here's the others:

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2005
More on Barnes, a new P. D. James, and book-discarding regret
While I was using the Amazon listings to add some titles to my library with Library Thing, I noticed that P. D. James has a new book scheduled for November. Something else to look forward to!

I'm still reading through Barnes's The Passionate Brood, and I'm beginning to think it should have been called The Whiny Brood. Everyone bickers and complains (sometimes in scenes that extend over two chapters), and after a while this gets quite tedious. I'll still probably make it through this one (I have to do something while waiting for my kids, and this old mass market paperback fits snugly in my purse), but I'm actively looking around for something else. Think I'll try Mary Lancaster's An Endless Exile--I've seen excerpts from it, and it looks interesting. I've also been debating whether to spring for Robin Maxwell's To the Tower Born. It looked good, but not quite good enough for me to buy the hardback, and our public library hasn't bought a copy. Maybe if I'm feeling flush . . .

Ever suffer from book-discarding regret? I gave away some of my novels on Richard III to a person who had lost hers in Hurricane Katrina, and I soon regretted it--the person later posted some remarks on a list I belong to that made it sound as if writing historical novels was just one step up intellectually from playing Go Fish. (I resisted the temptatation to ask her why, then, she had so many of the things.) There were a couple of books in the pile that hadn't done a thing for me, but there were a couple others that I liked in a way and disliked in other ways, and now I wish I had 'em back! In fact, I keep forgetting they aren't in my garage anymore. And have you noticed that when you give a book away, that's when you suddenly need to look up a quote from it? I've done that with some books I bought for various literature classes that I gave to the library or to Goodwill because they were just taking up space--same thing with some of my clothes, as a matter of fact (well, no, I've never had to look up quotes from my clothes, and I've never given my old clothes to the library, but you get the general idea).
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 11:08 PM 0 COMMENTS

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2005
Margaret Campbell Barnes
Margaret Campbell Barnes was, I gather, fairly big in the 1940's as a writer of historical fiction. Being interested in anything on the reign of Edward II, I picked up her Isabel the Fair a couple of years ago and liked it. Since then, I've read a few other things by her, the latest being The Passionate Brood, mostly about Richard the Lionhearted (and about Robin Hood, who turns out to have been a foster brother to Richard). I have serious doubts about Barnes's historical accuracy in places, and it's a pity she chose to kill off Henry II offstage, but Barnes excels at character studies. (Though sometimes she overdoes the analysis, particularly the self-analysis--there's a few places in Isabel the Fair, for instance, where it appears that Gaveston has taken a college psychology class.) Moreover, since she wrote in the 1940's, she didn't have the easy out of having her characters jump into bed together whenever they ran out of things to say to each other--something I've seen in a lot of modern historical novels. Pick one of her books up--they're still pretty easy to find secondhand, some with splendidly cheesy covers evidently geared toward the romance novel readership.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 11:36 PM 0 COMMENTS

Clamb?
Ooh, those lucky Brits, getting to see the new Bleak House miniseries! I've consoled myself for having to wait by paying some visits to the BBC's website, and I've noticed that the director has added a new character to the book--Tulkinghorn's clerk, a Mr. Clamb. Great name, and Tulkinghorn probably does need a clerk, so I guess I can live with that. At least other characters don't seem to have been left out--judging from the cast list, even people like the Badgers and Mr. Turveydrop made their way in. This ought to be fun.

Gotta go work.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 8:56 AM 0 COMMENTS

MONDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2005
Fun with Library Thing
As you can see by looking to the right, I've added a random list of books in my library to my blog, having noticed them on a couple of other blogs and thought it would be fun to have. I've been enjoying entering the books and seeing what pops up on my blog! As will soon become apparent, I have my favorites--Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and Elizabeth Gaskell are well represented in my library, as are living writers like Anne Tyler and P. D. James. I've yet, alas, to get my Barbie-collecting books in the system.

This list is courtesy of Library Thing, which allows people to create a database of books in their personal libraries (or books they say are in their personal libraries, no one's checking!). It's nowhere near complete--I'm pretty much just working from memory right now or entering the books that happen to be nearest at hand.

Now if someone will invent a program that will allow me to find a book when I'm looking for it! Dorothy Parker once said that she shelved her books by "Good" and "Crap," but as I've moved a lot and am chronically short of space, I've long since discarded most of the crap. Right now my system is mainly hardbacks in the living room and paperbacks in the garage, but one day I hope to refine that--probably the same day I get my own little office to write in. (Dream on, sister.)
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 2:13 PM 0 COMMENTS

Arlene Okerlund's book on Elizabeth Woodville
Elizabeth Woodville is one of those queens who can't catch a break with historical novelists. Either she's a witch (as in Rosemary Jarman's vastly overrated We Speak No Treason--one of the few novels about the Wars of the Roses I could not bring myself to finish) or a vicious schemer (as in Sandra Worth's sentimental novel about Richard III). Even Sharon Penman, who's more objective than most Ricardian novelists, presents her largely unsympathetically.

That's why it's been refreshing to read Arlene Okerlund's biography Elizabeth Wydeville: The Slandered Queen. It's a sympathetic, yet objective study of the queen as well as her family (who fare even worse at the hands of novelists than Elizabeth herself). It also has the merit of being readable. Perhaps some novelist will follow suit and depict this queen as a complex human being instead of a caricature.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:04 AM 0 COMMENTS

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2005
Edward II in Fiction
Someone on a mailing list I belong to mentioned the Alison Weir book on Queen Isabella and said that someone should write a novel about her. Naturally, I couldn't resist pointing out that I had written a novel in which she appears, and that there's a slew of books out there in which she is the main or a major character. Want a list of them? Wait no longer! Just check out the "Edward II in Fiction" page on my website, www.susanhigginbotham.com or www.thetraitorswife.com!
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:48 AM 0 COMMENTS

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2005
Alison Weir's latest on Queen Isabella
[Note from 3/10/2006: Alianor in her blog has since reviewed this much more thoroughly]
Finally drove down to the bookstore yesterday in my shiny new used van (there's nothing like a transmission going to get Mom new wheels) and picked up Alison Weir's latest biography, Queen Isabella: Treachery, Adultery, and Murder in Medieval England. Lots going on here, as you can tell from the subtitle!

Truth be told, I had picked up a proof copy of the British version of the book a couple of months ago (Ebay is a wondrous thing), but had refrained from writing much about it in the hopes that the errors I found would have been corrected when the book was published. They weren't.

The errors weren't major ones by any means, but they're bothersome, and they have the unfortunate effect of making Isabella look rather nicer than she was. For instance, Queen Isabella's archenemy was Hugh le Despenser the younger, whom she had hung, drawn, and quartered (nasty business). Weir gets that right, of course. But her account of what happened to his family is quite wrong, even though the primary documents are there in plain English even for a nonhistorian like myself to see. Weir writes that Hugh's eldest son was pardoned a few months after his father's death. This is true, but what she fails to mention is that despite the pardon, he was imprisoned and stayed that way for four years, getting out only after Isabella was removed from power and her lover Roger Mortimer executed. She also writes that Hugh's young daughters (none of the children was over 18 when their father died) were sent to stay in convents while their mother was imprisoned and that three of them later became nuns. In fact, the three girls who became nuns had no choice in the matter--Isabella forced them to take the veil just six weeks after their father's death.

Minor details, true. But the impression one gets from Weir is that Isabella was merciful in her treatment of her enemy's family, when in fact she was quite mean-spirited, forcing a young man into prison and little girls to become nuns because of their father's misdeeds.

The most controversial aspect of Weir's book, however, will probably be her agreement with the theory that Edward II was not killed by his queen and her lover, but escaped and lived the rest of his life as a hermit on the Continent. This theory has gained popularity lately, and has been argued most recently by Paul Doherty and Ian Mortimer. Weir, however, doesn't argue her theory very convincingly, which is unfortunate, because her sympathetic assessment of Isabella hinges in great part on her belief that Isabella was not a murderess, merely an adulteress who was driven into her lover's arms by her husband's shortcomings.

So is this book worth reading? Definitely--it's a thorough account of Isabella's life; its treatment of Edward II, who's often caricatured even by historians as a swishy misogynist, is relatively evenhanded; and it's quite readable. Just take it with a grain of salt in places.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:17 AM 0 COMMENTS

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2005
My minivan strikes again
I had every intention of buying Alison Weir's new book on Queen Isabella today (the very same one who appears in The Traitor's Wife) and blogging on that, but my minivan would have no part of it. It started letting out these screeching noises and acting most peculiar (well, more peculiar than usual). We took it to the garage where it spends much of its time and they gave us the cheery news that its transmission is going.

This is obviously its childish revenge for us looking at new minivans (well, used ones that were built within this millennium, at least) the other day. But we may just have the last laugh if we can trade it in . . .

Just ran a spellcheck and discovered that the online dictionary didn't know the word "blogging." Time to get with the program, folks!
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:14 AM 0 COMMENTS

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2005
P. D. James's The Murder Room
I watched Part I of the television adaptation of P. D. James's The Murder Room last night. When I read the novel, I didn't find it to be P. D. James at her best--in fact, I'd forgotten whodunit! So watching the show last night was more entertaining than usual, since I didn't remember a lot of the action or characters. (Usually when I'm watching a TV adaptation, I keep thinking, "Why did they leave that out?" "That's not what she did," and so forth.)

But I have a bad habit when I read novels--I peek at the ending long before I've gotten very far in the beginning of the novel. (I don't know what I would have done in the days of serial publication where I would have had to wait a month for the next installment.) So having forgotten how the book ended, I naturally had to dig out my copy and find out who the murderer was. (Don't worry. I'm not telling!) So now I know--and I probably won't enjoy the next episode as much as I did this one.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:00 AM 0 COMMENTS

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 07, 2005
Looking forward to the BBC Bleak House
I've been looking forward excitedly to the BBC's upcoming adaptation of Bleak House, and today I was pleased to learn that it will be broadcast in the States beginning in January 2006! That's fast, considering how long it takes some things to get over here. I don't know which station is carrying it in the US, but I hope it's not BBC America. When BBC America broadcast Our Mutual Friend over here a few years back, following the PBS broadcast, the BBC America version chopped the episodes quite brutally for commercial breaks.

Anyway, back to my reading blog! My husband and I couldn't resist the opportunity to buy four books for a buck from a book club, and one of the ones I selected was Miri Rubin's The Hollow Crown: A History of Britain in the Late Middle Ages. It's quite readable.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:06 AM

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 05, 2005
Richard III
Ever go to one of those job interviews where the interviewer asked, "What is your greatest weakness?" Needless to say, no one ever answers, "Stealing from the petty cash by the coffee machine," or "Sexually harassing my subordinates." Instead, one comes up with, "I just tend to get too involved with my work," or the like.

This reminds me of recent novels on Richard III, where the king's few faults are all of this sort--not real faults, but excesses of virtue. Now, the facts we know about Richard III are open to varying interpretations, so if a writer wants to paint him as a sympathetic character, I've no trouble with that. But why paint him as a saint? And why villify everyone else who isn't Richard III? In the most recent novels I've read about the king, he's a brave soldier, a devoted friend, a considerate lover, a good son, and a loyal brother--while nearly everyone else around him is self-seeking, corrupt, greedy, lecherous, and scheming. But the known facts about Richard III--for example, his execution of Hastings without trial, his haste to have his brother's children declared bastards without bothering to submit the issue to the ecclesiastical courts where it belonged--show him to be a much more complicated character. Just for once, I'd like to see a novel that reflected this reality.
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:33 AM 0 COMMENTS

Welcome to my reading blog (I hope!)
Well, I think I figured my blogging out!

I can't imagine anyone being interested in what I eat for dinner each night (though if you are, Tuesday is usually sausage pizza night). Instead, I thought I'd post on different things that I'm reading.

As I said in an earlier post that got wiped out with my blogging experiments, since reading Sandra Gulland's trilogy about Josephine Bonaparte, I've become somewhat interested in the French Revolution. Because of this, I picked up Carolly Erickson's new novel, The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette. Though I found it very well written and (as far as I could tell) well researched, I was a little disappointed. There are a few well drawn characters, but most of the historical figures are merely sketched in, even those who were important to Marie Antoinette. This leads to some odd moments. For instance, when the Princess Lamballe's severed head and genitals are paraded in front of the queen by the mob, this ought to be as horrifying to the reader as it is to the queen, but as the princess has appeared only a few times in the novel, and then only to say the equivalent of "Please pass the salt," one feels only a detached sense of disgust at the mob. Erickson does a lot better at bringing these events to life in her biography To the Scaffold.

Time to see if this posts right!
POSTED BY BOSWELLBAXTER AT 12:15 AM 0 COMMENTS

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 04, 2005
Trying to figure this out
Well, I'm trying to figure out how to post my blogs! We'll see if this works.

Historical Accuracy in Historical Fiction

Both on this blog and on other sites I've visited, the question of historical accuracy in historical fiction has come up. As I said in one of my earlier blog posts, I think it's the reader's ultimate responsibility to check the accuracy of what he reads. Historical fiction, after all, is exactly that--fiction.

By saying that, however, I don't mean to let writers off the hook, because I think that a writer of historical fiction has a responsibility not to distort known facts to suit her purposes—or at least if she does, to let the reader know what has been done. To me, it's an ethical obligation. That's not to say that it's an obligation that should be forced upon novelists--it couldn't be without imposing some degree of censorship, and that's certainly not what I or any other sane author or reader wants.

Ideally, the marketplace would reward those novelists and other storytellers who adhere to this ethical code (and, by the same token, penalize those who don't give a flip for accuracy). More often than not, it doesn't. The historical inaccuracies of Braveheart, for example, have been pointed out countless times, and I doubt its producers have lost a penny as a result. (Hey, they even got my penny--through ratings figures--the other night.) And readers, of course, don't always appreciate accuracy. Take a look at the Amazon reader reviews for Virginia Henley's historical romance The Marriage Prize. Several readers gave Henley two- or one-star ratings simply because she followed history in killing off Simon de Montfort. Of course, romantic fiction has a convention where one doesn't kill off the hero, but Montfort wasn't the hero of this particular novel.

There's a core of readers who both want accuracy and appreciate it, however, and I'm one of them. How to make our voices heard? Post--on our blogs, on Amazon, anywhere. Praise an author when he makes an effort to be accurate, criticize him when he deliberately distorts and leaves the reader in the dark that he's done so.

If nothing else, do this: Buy Mr. Accuracy's books new, buy Mr. Inaccuracy's books used.

That'll show 'em.