I remember getting my first library card. I was six years old, and had to stretch to reach the check-out counter. My mother brought me to the library every week so we could check out books. But I wanted to be a big girl and do it myself. There was, however, an obstacle. The librarian wouldn’t issue me my own card until I could print my name, and printing wasn’t my strong suit. The day I succeeded was a milestone in my life. I still went to the library with my mother, but I could check out my own books.

Every time a research library grants me access to its magic, I mentally echo Lucy Van Pelt’s declaration in Peanuts: “Happiness is having your own library card.”

At the time, I had no idea how important libraries would be in my life. Public Libraries. School Libraries. University Libraries. Research Libraries. And now, On-Line Libraries. I really like libraries. I like finding information. I like the quiet. I like nodding at other patrons, each on their own quest for knowledge. Even now when I do much of my research via online portals, I still like physical libraries and all they represent.

National Library Week, April 6-12

Growing up, I thought everyone had access to a library. This was and is hardly the case. Those who could afford it had private libraries. Ever wondered about the libraries in stately homes like Downton Abbey? The books were collected over generations. Publishers printed catalogs they sent to their patrons. When enough people subscribed to the book, the publisher printed it, sent it, and the patron added the new volume to his or her library.

Today we assume that public libraries are available and free to use. We expect them to provide more than books – though we often don’t provide adequate resources for the tasks we expect. Libraries provide computer and internet access for those who don’t have such personal luxuries. They offer meeting spaces. Librarians still offer story hour for children. Libraries allow those without shelter to access heat in winter and air conditioning in summer. Seventy-five percent of public libraries offer career services. Libraries also offer classes in English as a Second Language and General Education Development courses leading to a high school equivalency diploma. To celebrate these and innumerable other services offered by public libraries, the American Library Association sponsors National Library Week.

The First American Subscription Library

Libraries open to the general public didn’t always exist. The first library in America was a subscription library in Philadelphia founded by Benjamin Franklin and other members of his Junto club. Also known as the Leather Apron Club, Franklin established Junto in 1727 as a venue for the mutual improvement of its members. The twelve members discussed questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy. Initially, the club met at Nicholas Scull’s Bear Tavern.

In their broad ranging discussions, members often disputed among themselves about facts that could be investigated in a decent library. Books were too expensive for any one member to have an adequate private library. However, if members pooled their resources they could purchase books and share them among themselves. On November 10, 1731, ten members paid forty shillings each to establish the Library Company of Philadelphia. The Library Company still exists as a non-profit research library in Philadelphia.

Andrew Carnegie’s Library Endowments

In 1848 Andrew Carnegie and his parents emigrated to Pennsylvania where he began his professional career as a bobbin boy in a textile mill. He worked twelve hours a day, six days a week. His wage was $1.20 per week [about $44.00 today]. In 1849 Carnegie became a telegraph messenger boy earning $94.00 per week, a substantial raise. Carnegie did well at his new job, but what changed his life was Colonel James Anderson’s decision to open his personal library of 400 books to working boys every Saturday night. Carnegie went every week, and resolved that if he became wealthy, he would provide similar opportunities to other working boys.

As it turned out, Carnegie became a self-made millionaire. In 1901, Carnegie sold his shares of U. S. Steel Corporation for $225.64 million [about $8.53 billion today], and embarked on a new career as a philanthropist.

In particular, Carnegie established over 3,000 libraries around the world. The first Carnegie Library opened in 1883 in Carnegie’s home town of Dunfermline, Scotland. Two years later, Carnegie donated $500,000 to establish a public library in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Carnegie had specific criteria for his library donations, and would only build and furnish a library if the city agreed to maintain and staff it. In keeping with Carnegie’s belief that dispensing wealth to benefit society must support the community’s responsibility, funds were granted only after the local government provided a site for the library and passed a law that future book purchases and staffing would be paid for through local taxes. Carnegie also required his libraries to be public libraries with no costs for patrons.

Requests for funding came from all over the country, with justifications ranging from a need to counteract the influence of saloons to providing the same resources as a rival town. Carnegie donated over $60 million to support libraries.

But, How Can I Locate A Specific Book?

At the time public libraries became more common, patrons could not wander the closed stacks to find a book. They had to ask a librarian for assistance. Traditionally, any book acquired by a library was assigned a specific permanent place on the shelf which might be based on the book’s height or date of acquisition. Consequently, library stacks were generally closed to patrons. No idle wandering allowed.

There were, however, book catalogs that listed every book in the library. The catalog might be a handwritten ledger or a printed pamphlet. In the late 18th century small cards or paper slips replaced the ledger. The first catalog cards might have been French playing cards which were blank on one side. In 1791, French bibliophiles developed the French Cataloging Code which in 1876 evolved into the Dewey decimal system which is still used in smaller libraries. Open shelving for public perusal became practical.

Melvil Dewey, a founding member of the American Library Association, developed a system based on decimal numbers so books could be shelved in relation to other books. His work led to the Library Bureau, an entity that focused on machine cut index cards and the trays and cabinets that contain them. With the new system, library location designations became standard, and patrons looking for books on a specific topic perused the cards that directed them to a book’s location. As a history major and graduate student, I spent many hours collecting location information from the card catalog before heading for the stacks.

Meanwhile, the Library of Congress developed its own classification system which is now in use at most academic and research libraries. Even as Dewey developed his classification system, librarians at the Library of Congress with over a million volumes to classify found the new system too restrictive and began developing their own system in 1897.

Without libraries what have we? We have no past & no future. —Ray Bradbury

In our present cultural climate, libraries and public access to information are increasingly under attack with school libraries and public libraries the most affected. According to the American Library Association, in 2023 pressure groups targeting targeting school and public libraries emphasized books representing the voices of black, indigenous and people of color [BIPOC], and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual [LGBTQIA].

“Every challenge to a library book is an attack on our freedom to read.”

— Emily Drabinski, ALA President 2023-2024.

Celebrate National Library Week next week

Visit your local public library & see everything they offer. It’s free.

Monday, April 7 — Right to Read Day

Tuesday, April 8 — National Library Workers Day

Wednesday, April 9 — National Library Outreach Day

Thursday, April 10 — Take Action for Libraries Day

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Sandra’s Books: Sea Tigers & Merchants. Ambition, Arrogance & Pride. Saxon Heroines. Two Coins. Rama’s Labyrinth.

Illustrations & A Few Sources

Child Reading, from A Child’s Garden of Verses, by Jessie Willcox Smith 1905; “Drawn to the Library” National Library Week shared by ALA; Abbotsford House Library by Michael D. Beckwith; Benjamin Franklin 1767; Andrew Carnegie 1895; Andrew Carnegie’s Philanthropy as a Gold Shower by Louis Dalrymple, 1903; Melvil Dewey, 1891; Card Catalog at Univ of Michigan Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library by Elizabeth Skene. “Banned & Challenged Books.” American Library Association. Georgia Jensen. “Public Libraries are Essential Resources.” truthout. July 7, 2024.

The post “Your Library is Your Paradise” – Erasmus first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

In 1929 Virginia Woolf published A Room of One’s Own in which she argued that if a woman is going to write fiction, she must have money and a room of her own. Woolf developed her theme by looking at female writers in history, many of whom did not publish their writings.

In her observations Woolf asserted that in her opinion, Aphra Behn turned an important the corner for female writers.

Mrs. Behn, Woolf wrote, was a middle-class woman with all the plebeian virtues of humour, vitality and courage; a woman forced by the death of her husband and some unfortunate adventures of her own to make her living by her wits. She had to work on equal terms with men. She made, by working very hard, enough to live on. The importance of that fact outweighs anything that she actually wrote.

Aphra Behn, Woolf continued, opened the door for women to write as they pleased and earn money, despite the fact that Behn’s free lifestyle closed it again. Nevertheless, by the 19^th century women began writing publicly. For that reason, Woolf claimed, All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.  Aphra Behn, shady and amorous as she was, made it possible for women to earn money by their wits.

Woolf’s acknowledgement brought Aphra Behn into modern academic discourse. Women wanted to know who this woman was and what made her shady.

If nothing else, Aphra was adventurous. During her twenties she traveled to Surinam, a sugar colony in South America, with Bartholomew Johnson and his family. It’s thought that he died on the journey, though his wife and children remained in the country for a time. No one really knows. However, while Aphra was in Surinam she met an African slave leader who became the basis for her later novel Oroonoko. One of the first novels of ideas, Oroonoko called for the abolition of slavery before the anti-slavery movement had begun in England.

After her return to England, Aphra married a merchant, John Behn, who died shortly thereafter, possibly from the plague that was rampant in London in 1765-66. After her husband’s death, Aphra a staunch supporter of Charles II, became a spy in Antwerp during the Second Dutch-Anglo War. Her Code Name: Astrea. 

Aphra’s mission was to establish a close relationship with a soldier named William Scot and turn him into a double agent. She was also supposed to report on any English exiles plotting against Charles II. There is some evidence Scot betrayed Aphra to the Dutch. In any event, Aphra returned to England and petitioned the king for payment, but never received it.

She did, however, obtain work for two theater companies: the King’s Company and the Duke’s Company. As a playwright, Aphra’s first commercial success was The Rover, or, The Banished Cavaliers in 1677. The play, revived for performance in the 1970s, is a bawdy Restoration comedy about the romantic intrigues of an English gentleman in Naples over carnival weekend. The play was a resounding success with a long run, and Aphra received a share of the box office proceeds.

Some of The Rover’s initial popularity can be traced to the actress Nell Gwyn, one of Charle II’s many mistresses, who took a major role in the production.

Over time, Aphra wrote 19 plays, in addition to novels and poems.

From Aphra Behn’s The Willing Mistress

Down there we sat upon the moss,
And did begin to play
A Thousand Amorous Tricks, to pass
The heat of all the day.
A many Kisses he did give:
And I returned the same
Which made me willingto to receive
That which I dare not name.
His Charming Eyes no Aid requir’d
To tell their softening Tale;
On her that was already fir’d,
’Twas Easy to prevaile.
He did but Kiss and Clasp me round,
Whilst those his thoughts Exprest:
And lay’d me gently onthe Ground:
Ah who can guess the rest?

Aphra died in 1689 and was buried in the East Cloister of Westminster Abbey. The inscription on her tombstone reads: “Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be Defence enough against Mortality.”

? ? ?

Illustrations

Aphra Behn by Peter Lely, c. 1670

A chart of Surinam, indicating different plantations and their owners. Between 1737 and 1757.

Cover: Oroonoko. 1688.

Nell Gwyn by Simon Pietersz Vereist.

Aphra Behn’s Grave. Photo by Tonya.howe.

Megan Rosenfeld. “The Bawdy Plays of Aphra Behn.” The Washington Post. Jan. 5, 1982.

Belinda Webb. “Aphra Behn: Still a Radical Example. The Guardian. Nov. 13, 2007.

The post Aphra Behn: Restoration Playwright first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

I kicked off this year’s Summer Reads with murder mysteries set in Yorkshire, so perhaps it’s fitting to end the series with a darker story set in the same locale.

Grimm Up North by David J. Gatward

Grimm Up North: A Yorkshire Murder Mystery is the first volume in the DCI Harry Grimm crime novels. In addition to the title, each volume has an extra phrase. This title includes Yorkshire Born and Dead — a play-on-words for the common expression Yorkshire Born and Bred.

And the title — Grimm Up North — is another play-on-words. When people in the south of England consider the weather and sometimes bleak terrain of Yorkshire, they often say, “It’s grim up north.”

Now for the story. DCI Harry Grimm is a former member of the British Parachute Regiment with a severely disfigured face caused by an IED [Improvised Explosive Device]. That and Grimm’s large frame make him an intimidating figure.

In this series kick-off, Grimm is transferred from a life undercover in the urban spaces of Bristol to the small village of Hawes, an actual market town in the Wensleydale region of Yorkshire. Today the village is known for the Wensleydale Creamery where artisans follow 12th century recipes to create the famous hand-crafted Wensleydale cheese.

Grimm hates cheese, and the way his new colleagues put cheese on everything. Upon arrival, he’s not too keen on village life either, though, of course, it will grow on him.

The plot begins with a runaway teenager and grows to include a murder with a surprise ending. It’s an interesting read with lots of Yorkshire slang.

House By The Sea by Louise Douglas

House by the Sea has puzzles to unravel, but is really more a novel of personal growth and redemption. When the novel opens, Edie is flying from London to Sicily. Under normal circumstances, this might be the first day of Edie’s holidays. Instead, it marks Edie’s final effort to remove the ghost of her mother-in-law from her life.
The Villa della Madonna del Mare [House by the Sea] was Anna de Luca’s childhood home. Anna bequeathed the house to her son, Edie’s ex-husband, and Edie. Both arrive by separate routes with a shared goal: fix up the house, sell it, and go their separate ways.

But what mysteries does the house hold? Who is sabotaging restoration efforts? What caused this couple to part ways? And, finally, what happened to the Madonna del Mare, a well-known painting that is now missing?

With vivid description, Douglas weaves a story that in many ways could happen to any of us.

The Lighthouse Keeper by Cynthia Ellingsen

The Lighthouse Keeper is a good candidate for a Hallmark movie, which may tell you everything you want to know. Dawn Conner’s parents specialized shipwreck explorations, and gave their daughter a childhood filled with love and relocation. Not surprisingly, Dawn chose a solid career path in Boston and a stable, predictable boyfriend. Both choices implode. On top of that, various people, including investigators from an insurance company, think Dawn’s grandfather absconded with stolen silver. To deal with this cascade of chaos, Dawn goes to her local coffee shop and orders chai.

Later, while perusing a web search, Dawn sees that the lighthouse at Starlight Cove, Lake Michigan is for sale by auction. She submits her sealed bid, and wins. Starlight Cove is the closest Dawn has to a pemanent family home. She expects to renovate the lighthouse, sell it, and return to the big city. Instead, she enters into a search for the missing silver, makes friends, puts down roots, and, of course, meets a handsome man.

The Lighthouse is a good cozy mystery — a nice escape for a stressed-out mind, but not overly absorbing.

Illustrations

Man Reading Under a Tree, 1826.

Fields Above Hawes by Nilfanion.

Wensleydale Cheese.

Lighthouse on Lake Michigan by Alex Ford.

The post More Mysteries: Dark, Cozy, & Curious first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

I like good historical fiction, but while in mindless escape mode as I lie on a hammock,  I want stories that engage my attention but don’t require much thought on my part. My recent reading choices lean towards mysteries that don’t dwell too much on crime details. And if there’s a dash of romance involved, so much the better. These three books fit my escapist requirements, and might do the same for you. 

Winter Cottage by Mary Ellen Taylor

Mary Ellen Taylor is reliable. When you pick up one of her books, you know that the story is probably set in Virginia, that the female protagonist will be trying to “find herself,” [coming-of-age in key word categories]. There’s also an historical aspect to the story.

In Winter Cottage the “cottage” in Cape Hudson, Virginia begins its life as the summer home of a wealthy New York family, complete with staff. Over time, the property falls into mild neglect as it passes through various heirs.

Protagonist Lucy Kincaid is beyond down on her luck when she arrives from Nashville to collect her inheritance. The Winter Cottage, which she never heard of before, belongs to her . . . if she stays there for a year. There are, of course, obstacles to overcome and relationships to untangle.

Taylor’s novel intriguingly contains a time-travel aspect about Catherine Buchanan’s life and love. Catherine is key to the story, because she made the inheritance stipulations that brought Lucy to the cottage. I enjoyed the entire novel, but this aspect with its peek of life in the early twentieth century, was the most interesting.

The Perfect Marriage by Adam Mitzner

It’s interesting how many lawyers turn to writing crime novels or thrillers. It’s like a sort of busman’s holiday. The Perfect Marriage is Mitzner’s ninth novel. The title intrigued me, because there is no such thing as a perfect marriage. Happy, yes. Companionable, definately. But perfect? The title suggests Mitzner’s plot will pull back the curtain to reveal two people whose marriage may have been perfect in some ways, but had its challenges in others. Like what? I wondered. My eye was also drawn to the cover which invites readers to peer through the windows to discover . . . what?

The book opens with James & Jessica Sommers’ first anniversary party. They are a devoted couple, but there are a few flies in the marital ointment. Each has an ex-partner; one more than a little bitter, the other barely holding life together. Jessica also has an unsettled teen-age son undergoing cancer treatment

Nevertheless, their lives continue on a predictable path until James Sommers winds up dead. Slowly, clues to the crime unfold around James’ life as a husband, father, and career as an art dealer. Unknowns become known, and though the Sommers marriage may not have been perfect, it wasn’t more imperfect than many others. 

Say You’re Sorry by Melinda Leigh

Morgan Dane returns to her home town to rebuild her life. Newly widowed with small children, she’s back in her father’s house and has just been offered a position in the town prosecutor’s office. Then Morgan’s babysitter is murdered, and Nick, a young man Morgan has known all her life, is accused of the murder. For the first time, Morgan will be at the defense table, but to win, she has to find out what actually happened. The quest is filled with twists as secrets reveal themselves, and, as in many good mysteries, the protagonist learns about herself while uncovering clues about the crime’s perpetrator.

The post Mystery Reads first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

In honor of Halloween, I’m sharing Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow this month. It’s about more than a wild horseback ride in the dead of night. Last week we met Ichabod Crane, a man of unfortunate appearance and few prospects. Nevertheless, Ichabod persevered in his quest for a comfortable life.

Ichabod set his matrimonial sights on Katrina Van Tassel, a student in his singing class. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father’s peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. Katrina was also the only child of a wealthy farmer. Ichabod dreamed of a sumptuous family life with Katrina by his side.

Whenever Ichabod walked over to Heer Van Tassel’s farmhouse, he couldn’t help but notice the vast barn, that might have served for a church; every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm.  

Sleek unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens, from whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. 

A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard.

Ichabod’s mouth watered in anticipation of the feast these creatures could provide. In his devouring mind’s eye, he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth . . . . In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing.

In short, Ichabod lusted after every creature and crop on the Van Tassel farm. Consequently, when Ichabod rolled his eyes over the fat meadows and rich fields, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains.

And then there was the farmhouse itself, and its furnished parlor where claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops . . .and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china.

One might wonder what Katrina wants. The pretty eighteen-year-old has an indulgent father who probably grants her every request. She enjoys attention from every male in the area; married or single, young or old. Many suitors have a respectable amount of property and family status. All flatter Katrina for her beauty and skill. She probably enjoys playing them off against each other. She’s no doubt attracted by the town “bad boy” Brom Van Brunt, if only because he pretends to be unaffected by her wiles.

Ichabod Woos Katrina

Ichabod exhibits surprising self-confidence in wooing Katrina. He is sure his education, erudition, singing voice, and dancing ability outshines all other suitors, including Brom Van Brunt. Katrina hasn’t given Ichabod her exclusive attention, but she hasn’t rejected him either. Could Katrina be playing one suitor off against another? Such a thought doesn’t cross Ichabod’s mind when he accepts the invitation to a quilting-frolic at the Van Tassel farm.

Ichabod carefully prepares for the evening. In order to cut a more attractive figure, he borrows a horse named Gunpowder. The horse is gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck, and a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail [are] tangled and knotted with burs; one eye [has] lost its pupil, and [is] glaring and spectral, but the other [has] the gleam of a genuine devil in it.

Mounting his steed, Ichabod rides with short stirrups, which [bring] his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle; his sharp elbows [stick] out like grasshoppers’ . . . and as his horse [jogs] on, the motion of his arms [is] not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. In short, Ichabod won’t win Katrina by looking good in the saddle.

Brom rides up to the Van Tassel farm on Daredevil, a black, muscular horse no one else can ride. No doubt, Brom galloped up to the house with Daredevil’s tail streaming in their wake. Everyone admires Brom’s equestrian prowess and the beauty of sweating Daredevil.

Upon entering the mansion’s hall, Ichabod immediately goes to the refreshment table to indulge in all manner of delectable dishes, in keeping with fall harvest season. There’s ham, smoked beef, and roasted chickens; dessert offerings of cakes [sweet, short, ginger, or honey] and pies [apple, peach, or pumpkin]. Ichabod chews his food with the expectation that once he marries Katrina, he’ll eat like this every day. In the next room, musicians tune up for dancing. Ichabod puts down his empty plate and prepares to woo Katrina on the dance floor.

You might think that after such a meal, Ichabod would be too sluggish to dance. Not so. In fact, Ichabod prided himself on his dancing ability, easily leading Katrina through the steps. For her part, Katrina felt nearly everyone’s eyes follow her graceful movements—everyone except Brom who stands off to the side clenching his jaw.

Tales of Ghosts & The Headless Horseman

When the dancing ends, Ichabod joins guests telling each other legends and ghost stories. Soon attention turns to the Headless Horseman who had been heard several times of late, patrolling the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard. No doubt, Ichabod felt a delicious shiver up his spine.

There was the story of old Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the Horseman returning from his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to [mount] behind him; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge; when the Horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of thunder. Listeners drop their jaws, imagining Bouwer’s encounter.

Brom stands the floor, and tells the credulous crowd he knows for a fact that the Headless Horseman is nothing but a jockey. To prove his point, Brom tells the group that one night while returning from the neighboring village, he encountered the midnight trooper on the road. Holding his audience’s attention, Brom says he challenged the horseman to a race. The loser would pay for a bowl of punch. The two horsemen set off at a gallop. Brom claims, Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow. But they never finished the race. Just as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and vanished in a flash of fire. The room falls silent. Brom raced the Hessian devil and won! Katrina looks at Brom, her blue eyes wide with admiration.

Well, Ichabod thought, Brom isn’t the only one to defeat the supernatural. Ichabod stands to get the audience’s attention and shares his experiences walking home on dark nights. Ichabod admits he hasn’t seen the Headless Horseman, but swears he knows about ghostly figures who accost innocent travelers. Guests finish their drinks and tap the ashes out of their pipes. They rise and stretch. The party breaks up. Brom mounts Daredevil and gallops away to unknown late-night pursuits.

With Brom out of the way, Ichabod looks for Katrina. Perhaps, he thinks, she’ll accept me as a serious suitor. Ichabod finds his beloved. Perhaps he takes her hand and begins to declare his love. Ichabod emerges from the house a short time later with a desolate expression. Did Katrina laugh at Ichabod’s wooing? Did she use him to make Brom jealous? Ichabod doesn’t say anything as he walks to the stable. The spurned suitor saddles Gunpowder, mounts, and begins the long journey home.

‘It was the very witching time of night.’

???

Illustrations

Katrina

Roast Turkey by Mark Miller

Canada Geese by Rhododendrites

Old Dutch Farmhouse 1906

Katrina spinning

Jumping Black Stallion by Deathfly0

Ichabod Crane and Katrina by Daniel Huntington

Ichabod Crane Imagining the Phantom by Frederick Simpson Coburn

Courtship in Sleepy Hollow by John Rogers.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Gutenberg Project.

Jacqueline Smith.  “Halloween History: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” New York Historical Society. Oct. 25, 2013.

The post Ichabod Crane Goes a-Courtin’ first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

Before we bid farewell to summer, there’s still time to enjoy a final three fictional escapes. Each story is attached to a place, and one or more points in history. Each involves at least one feisty heroine who takes control of her own life, however reluctantly. 

I almost didn’t pick up The Lions of Fifth Avenue. For some reason I thought it was about financial titans or young lawyers. But I was wrong. The sculptured lions in Fiona Davis’ intriguingly mysterious historical novel, lie on either side of the main Fifth Avenue entrance to the New York Public Library.

Before diving into the book, lets pause for a couple historical notes. The lions themselves were designed by Edward Clark Potter in 1911, and were carved from Tennessee Pink marble. Facing the entrance today, the lion on the left, south side is Patience, and the one on the right, north side is Fortitude.

It wasn’t always so. They were first called Leo Astor and Leo Lenox after two of the library’s founders. At some point, people began calling the lions Lady Astor and Lord Lenox. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia dubbed the feline guardians Patience and Fortitude, two attributes New Yorkers needed to get through hard times.

At its dedication in 1911, The New York Public Library was a marvel of its time. It featured a huge reading room sitting above seven floors of book stacks housing 75 miles of shelving and over one million books. Transmission of the books to the reading room was via the most rapid delivery system in the world.

Fiona Davis’ meticulous research reveals many more aspects of the massive library as it was in both 1914 and 1993. In developing her characters, Davis humanizes the early days of the women’s rights movement. In 1914 women didn’t have the right to vote, but they could test social norms and their own assumptions. Laura Lyons, the initially conventional main character, has a husband, a son, and a daughter. She would also like a life for herself. In her pursuit of a journalism career, Laura ventures away from Fifth Avenue to Greenwich Village, and away from meeting other people’s expectations to finding her own.

This is a time-slip novel with the parallel story of Sadie Donovan, a curator at the library who happens to be Laura’s granddaughter. Sadie isn’t a woman who wants to break barriers, but she stands up for herself. The year, by the way, is 1993 which is now sufficiently long ago to qualify as a period of historical fiction. [Ouch!]

An overarching thread is a mystery of disappearing books. Thefts in 1914 become tied to  missing books in 1993. I thought the solution to the mystery was satisfyingly unexpected, though better sleuths than I may devise the answer sooner.

An absorbing read as well as a Good Morning America Book Club Pick

Honeysuckle Season by Mary Ellen Taylor is another piece of historical fiction. Set in Bluestone, Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains, this family saga opens with Libby McKenzie who is trying to sort out her father’s estate and her own life, while establishing herself as a wedding photographer. Elaine Grant, owner of nearby Woodmont Estate, invites Libby to cover a wedding on the premises.

Not surprisingly, Woodmont Estate is filled with unspoken secrets resembling the honeysuckle vines that grew up around the abandoned greenhouse. As the vines are removed so the greenhouse can be restored, stories emerge.

One is about Olivia Carter who fled the London Blitz to marry the doctor who then owned the estate. Another is about Sadie, whose family was known for their distinctive honey flavored moonshine.

Time alternates between 1994 and the 1940s. When all is done, Libby is a better place than she started. 

A good read on a lazy, humid day.

No Place Like Home, wherever that may be, takes the reader to Hilo, Hawai`i, my home town, with a focus on haole residents, both, as the author writes, home grown & flown, who for various reasons, live in East Hawai`i. Among them, Griff lives over a lava flow in Puna; teen-age Mahina hangs out in pricey Sunrise Ridge with her mother Iris. George has a house further up the mountain that he shares with his partner Cal. Desiree and her children perch in a hot, tiny apartment in downtown Hilo. Additional characters wander through the pages to fill out the cast for the Palace Theater’s fall musical production The Wizard of Oz.

By the time the musical opens, drug deals have gone down, romance has blossomed as well as died, good luck has triumphed over evil, and most of the characters have identified the next steps in their lives.

The Palace Theater was built in 1925  and is on the National Register of Historic Places. At the time it was built, the Palace was the grandest theater outside of Honolulu. It was constructed with redwood timber imported from the Pacific Northwest. The roof, sides, and back where sheathed in sheet metal, a standard tropical construction method. The front facade is in the Beaux-Arts style executed in stucco with wood moulding.

In 1930 Consolidated Amusements bought the theater and ran it until the company closed it in 1984. During the 1990s, restoration work began. The Friends of the Palace Theater formed in 2000 to continue renovating and modernizing the building. The fall musical is an important part of the fundraising process, which brings us back to No Place Like Home.

Debut author Susan Wackerbarth knows the Palace Theater from both the front and back of the house. Her deft characterizations of the theater and the people who love it are based in reality. No Place Like Home is a a fun read.

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Illustrations

Ribeira das Naus, Lisbon Portugal by Pedro Ribeiro Simoes.

New York Public Library Post Card 1920.

Lion statues outside main branch by Ken Thomas. Released to public domain.

Palace Theater, Hilo HI by Reweaver33

Fiona Davis

Mary Ellen Taylor

Susan Wackerbarth

Palace Theater, Hilo HI

New York Public Library History

New York Public Library Lions

The post Last of the Summer Reads first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

It’s the end of July, the height of the summer season. Many of us have emotional baggage — those suitcases and backpacks that finally accept they won’t be going anywhere this summer. But we can still escape into other worlds via mysteries with intriguing locales.

This month’s episode of Summer Reads features mysteries in locales so enticing, the setting becomes as much a character as the perpetrator and the detective. 

Bruno, Chief of Police

The Bruno, Chief of Police series introduces Benoît Courrêges, henceforth referred to as Bruno, the Police Municipale in the fictional village of St. Denis within the Périgord region of southern France.

Bruno is an endearing character, a veteran of the French Army wounded in Sarajevo who relocates to St. Denis and embraces its way of life. He’s a simple man who likes good food and wine. He loves the village and its people. Bruno cooks, hunts, and occasionally solves a crime. 

Writer Martin Walker, who lives in the Périgord region brings it to life, as in this sampling from The Dark Vineyard:

“Bruno took the familiar road past the railway bridge and along the path to Pamela’s home. It was one of his favorite spots in the region; the familiar mixture of the honey-colored stone and the dark red roof tiles, the crushed chalk casting of the courtyard and the lush greens of garden and countryside had come together here in a particularly satisfying harmony. Perhaps it was the way the hill curled down to nestle the property like jewel in its setting, or the contrast between the shielding stand of tall poles and the low cluster of buildings.”

My mind’s eye sees everything clearly, and Walker’s description becomes a tiny escape from reality.

Bruno, Chief of Police: A Mystery of the French Countryside (2009) is the first book in the series. Readers meet Bruno who has to solve the murder of an elderly North African veteran of World War II, but along the way there is food to prepare and enjoy, chickens to feed, a hunting dog named Gigi, and a hint of romance with a female detective from Paris.

Book number 2, The Dark Vineyard (2010), moves beyond murder to arson and intrigue among members of a wine making family. One branch wants to buy up the local vineyards; the other wants revenge. And there are two suspicious deaths. Bruno goes about his duties with curiosity about the other participants. The American winemaker, the Canadian student of wine who isn’t who she seems to be, and the handsome young man who grew up on the local Commune. And there’s still time for Bruno to prepare a sensual dinner that features a truffle omelette and grilled bécasses with suitable wine pairings.

There are 15 books in the Bruno series, enough provide me with armchair escape until at least September.

Chen Su Lin Investigates

If you want a break from the beauties of Périgord, a mystery set in Singapore may just do the trick. Author Ovidia Yu’s cozy Colonial Crime Series takes readers to 1936 Singapore where they meet sixteen-year-old Chen Su Lin, a young woman determined not to be a bride in an arranged marriage. In the first book of the series, Chief Inspector Thomas LeFroy agrees to employ Chen Su Lin as his assistant and housekeeper, thus forging what will become an efficient “detecting relationship.”

The Frangipani Tree Mystery (2017) opens with an unexplained death.Why did the nanny in the governor’s household fall to her death through the branches of a frangipani tree?

Chief Inspector Thomas LeFroy doesn’t know. A chain of events places Chen Su Lin as the new nanny in the household. And the investigation begins.

Yu sprinkles her story with observations about Singaporean culture, such as, “A Singaporean never missed the chance to gamble.”

And this, “The frangipani tree, so the verse says, is the essence of graveyards, growing on the blood and bones of dead bodies. It is considered bad luck and some people, especially the older ones, avoid its flowers because it is said their lovely fragrance comes from unhappy female spirits. . . . Europeans had their own superstitions, like wearing shoes all the time, even indoors, and not eating the heads of fish or the feet of chickens. But they obviously didn’t mind tree spirits. Why else would they have planted so many frangipani trees around Government House?”

In The Betel Tree Mystery (2018), Chen Su Lin has become Inspector LeFroy’s secretarial assistant and works in the new Detective and Intelligence Unit when Victor Glossop is found dead at the Farquhar Hotel. Chen Su Lin wouldn’t normally enter such a place “but a dead body makes any hotel irresistible.” 

Glossop’s American fiancee Nichole Covington falls under suspicion. Chen Su Lin becomes part of the afflicted household, but her narrative takes time for a slight detour to describe the tea room of the Farquhar Hotel  as a “cheerful, airy space with light metalwork chairs set round tables covered with white line. The open balcony faced the sea, which could be glimpsed between gigantic palm trees and jasmine and bougainvillea bushes. Even the gentle flapping of the rattan screens was regular and soothing.”

I imagine the Farquhar Hotel Chen Su Lin visited looked something like this 1932 picture of Raffles Hotel.

There are four books in Yu’s Colonial Crime Series, the most recent published this year.

A well-written book takes the reader outside of herself. In times like these when it is difficult to travel, a mystery in an exotic setting gives a bonus pleasure beyond the enjoyment of a good story by either evoking fond memories or inspiring visions of future travel. It seems like this is a good time join Inspector Bruno as he indulges in a glass of wine and contemplates the view.

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Illustrations

Boy reading a book decorates the roofline of a building on Amatu Bela Street in Live Square in Riga, Latvia. Photo by Author.

The River Dordogne in Perigord, France, near Castelnaud-la-Chapelle by Luc Viatour.

The entrance of Raffles Hotel, Singapore, 1932 from the Tropenmuseum, part of the National Museum of World Cultures.

Glass of red wine with a candle. Public Domain.

Bruno, Chief of Police. Martin Walker’s website.

Ovidia Yu.

The post Summer Reads: Mysteries in Exotic Places first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

Summertime and the reading is easy. Many people imagine a summer vacation that includes lying on a beach reading a book, while the sound of waves serenades our ears. People select all kinds of books for beach reads. A few of them are historical fiction.

Historical fiction is a broad category. On one extreme, it can be a story set during an historical period, but not focusing on a particular event or person. The other extreme is the story of events or persons rooted in the past. Good historical fiction requires extensive research and nuanced interpretation to bring people and events to life.

Echos of the Runes

Christina Courtenay’s Echos of the Runes (2020) is a more escapist form of historical fiction. This is a time-slip novel, which means there are two connected stories in two separate time frames. The stories also cross into the genres of romantic fiction and coming-of-age fiction.

Mia is a modern career woman, specializing in Celtic artifacts at the British Museum. Her background is half-Swedish and half-English. Growing up, Mia spent her summers at her grandmother’s lake cottage in Sweden. But now she lives in London with her fiancee who has no interest in Mia’s Swedish roots.

Mia also possesses a distinct gold ring that has been passed down through the women in her family. Visiting a museum in Stockholm, she sees an identical ring on display, and meets archeologist Haakon Berger.

In the ninth century, Haukr Erlendrsson leads a raid to Briton for treasure and slaves. One of his captives is Ceridwen.

The two stories intertwine when Mia and Haakon lead an archeological dig at her grandmother’s lake cottage.

What sets Echos of the Runes apart from an average historical romance is Courtenay’s meticulous research into the material culture of ninth century Vikings.

Echos of the Runes is a good summertime beach read, engaging without demanding too much of the reader.

The Mirror & The Light

Hilary Mantel’s three volume history of Thomas Cromwell and his times is historical fiction at its most immersive. Mantel views events through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s most consummate servant.

Mantel published the first installment, Wolf Hall, in 2010. Bring Up The Bodies followed two years later. Fans waited ten years for The Mirror & The Light. The final volume immerses readers in Henry VIII’s court for 764 pages.

During the last four years of his life, Thomas Cromwell was both Earl of Essex and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal for services rendered to Henry VIII. Cromwell flatters his master, saying Henry is the mirror and the light for all other kings and princes in Christendom. Behind the scenes, Cromwell carries out the business of governance.

Cromwell is a busy man. He confiscates wealth from monasteries for the Henry’s treasury. He arranges a diplomatic marriage between Henry and Anne of Cleves in order to provide England with Protestant allies in the conflicts with Catholic Spain, France, and Germany. But Henry doesn’t want an alliance. He wants a bride to his taste, and Anne of Cleves doesn’t meet the mark. Cromwell facilities a divorce in which Anne keeps her head, and Henry is free to pursue Catherine Howard. All should be well, but Henry doesn’t forget Cromwell’s misstep.

Cromwell is kind to Henry’s officially bastard daughter Mary. Does he think to marry her? Is he trying to reach for the throne? Who can say? But the thought is there. In 1540, Henry orders Cromwell’s arrest for treason and heresy. He who sent so many to the tower, now resides there himself. 

Each event is skillfully drawn in this rags-to-riches-to-execution story.  On occasion the wealth of detail is too much to take, but it never detracts from the primary story. If you want to dip into a book throughout the summer months, The Mirror & The Light is an excellent choice.

Bearing in mind her distinctive accent, if you’d like to hear Hilary Mantel read from The Mirror & The Light, here’s a 3 minute clip.

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Illustrations

Woman reading at the beach by jgoge.

Rune Stone of Jellinge, Denmark by Sven Rosborn.

Hoard of Viking treasure in Leiden Museum by Marieke Kuijjer. [Objects are silver.]

Thomas Cromwell after Hans Holbein the Younger, 1537.

Anne of Cleves by Hans Holbein.

Portrait of Mary, Queen of England.

The post Summer Reads: Historical Fiction first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

Summer is a nice time to get away from my usual reading topics and look for something off my beaten track. And one of the side tracks I most enjoy is a “thriller” that is more mystery than violence; more story than hard-boiled detective. Which brings me to John Grisham, prolific writer of 29 novels that entwine good writing, intriguing cases, and enough danger to keep things interesting. They are great vacation reads — no heavy thinking necessary.

In The Whistler [2016] protagonist, Lucy Stoltz, is a judicial investigator for the State of Florida. A job more about reports than danger. If someone has a complaint about a state judge, Stoltz and her partner Hugo Hatch check it out. Stoltz is neither well-paid, nor a person running on adrenaline until this case lands on her desk. Her informant, Greg Myers, is a disbarred lawyer who gets his information from someone who receives the details from a so-called whistler [slang for whistleblower.]

The plot twists and turns on issues of gambling, Native American lands, a mob boss, and a corrupt judge. Each piece of Grisham’s puzzle demonstrates how seemingly smooth rocks can be lifted up to show all manner of creatures with both simple and complex motives for their corrupt lives. As the truth comes out, the perpetrators receive their just rewards, even as corruption itself continues.

In his next book, Camino Island [2017], Grisham takes a break from his usual plot line — much to the disappointment of many readers. The book opens with a heist of rare F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts from Princeton University, but turns its attention to small Camino Island off the Florida coast and rare book dealer Bruce Cable. Is he fencing the stolen manuscripts? The insurance company wants to know, and recruits Mercer Mann, a young writer drowning in student debt, to find out.

More mystery than thriller, Camino Island is well-written escapism.

John Grisham is a hard act to follow, but that doesn’t stop multitudes of writers from launching their own thrillers. Thin Air [2019] launches a new crime writer, Lisa Gray, and a new female detective, Jessica Shaw.

As the story begins, Jessica opens an email asking her to find a child kidnapped twenty-five years before. Jessica recognizes her three-year-old self in the attached photo.

Gray’s novel ties together two murders, twenty years apart, and point-of-view chapters for Jessica, Amy Ong, Jason Pryce, and Eleanor Lavelle. The tie that holds them together is closely guarded until the unexpected conclusion.

Reading in a Hammock. Public Domain.

Janet Maslin. “Review: In John Grisham’s ‘The Whistler,’ a Serious Woman and Serious Crime.” NY Times. Oct. 26, 2016.

Ken Tucker. “In ‘Camino Island,’ John Grisham takes a vacation from Writing John Grisham Novels.” NY Times. June 12, 2017.

The post Summer Reads: 3 Thrillers for Summer Afternoons first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

This installment of Summer Reads is a bit on the serious side, because early in the summer I’m still picking through my history reading pile. The first book is historical fiction; the second, narrative non-fiction that is partly biography, and partly a great deal of information on Elizabethan building techniques. Taken in chronological order, let’s start with Philippa Gregory’s Three Sisters, Three Queens (2016)

I doubt if any woman in the Plantagent or Tudor families has escaped Gregory’s in-depth perusal. In Three Sisters she turns her focus on Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York; Mary Tudor, their youngest daughter, and Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first queen.

The story is told from the Margaret’s point of view. When the story opens, Margaret is an opinionated, arrogent twelve-year-old princess preparing for the wedding of her brother Arthur and Catherine of Aragon, and sister Mary is age five.

This is Margaret’s story: her marriage to James IV of Scotland and subsequent widowhood; her shortlived Regency for her son; and her impetuous, ill-advised second marriage to Archibald Douglas, the sixth Earl of Angus which quickly went downhill. Eventually there’s a divorce and second marriage. From first to last, this is Margaret’s story.

As for the sisters, Catherine’s fate is fairly well-known. Married to Arthur, she becomes an impoverished widow. Married to Henry VIII, Catherine shines as queen, until Henry rejects her and sends the one-time queen back into poverty.

Mary Tudor is a the shadowy figure. Her brother Henry VIII sends her into marriage with Louis XII of France. For three months, Mary is an admired queen. Taking advantage of her widowhood, Mary elopes with Charles Brandon, her brother’s friend, and has four children. Of the three, Mary seems to be happiest with her life.

I enjoyed the book, though I found Margaret to be self-centered and annoying. Other than Margaret’s granddaughter Mary, Queen of Scots, few stories have been told about the queens of Scotland.

As always, Gregory’s reseach is thorough, and her storytelling skills adept

Authors of non-fiction books have a different challenge, becasue no matter how well they can weave a story, they are still bound to the record. The subjects can’t express themselves, unless the diaries or letters that make up the record share the innermost thoughts of the subjects.

Devices and Desires: Bess of Hardwick and the Building of Elizabethan England (2019) by Kate Hubbard takes Bess of Hardwick as its subject. Bess isn’t too good about sharing her thoughts, but meticulous in her accounts and frequent in correspondence. She was a consummate builder. Among her projects was the first iteration of Chatsworth House. And she outlived four husbands, each of whom lifted her further up the social scale until Bess was a confident of Queen Elizabeth I and one of the wealthiest women in England.

Queen Elizabeth selected Bess’s last husband, George Talbot, the sixth Earl of Shewsbury, as guardian of Mary,  Queen of Scots. An expensive honor.

Bess excelled as a business woman. She lent money at interest, advised her husbands on financial matters, and made advantageous marriages for her children, including a marriage between two of her children with two of Talbot’s children. Bess believed in keeping property within the family, and this was the most efficient way to do it.

Building projects were Bess’s true passion, particularly Chatsworth House which she began with her second marriage to William Cavendish and continued with funding from her third and fourth husbands. That structure was demolished in the 18th century to make way for the current Chatsworth House.

In her discussion of Bess’s projects, Hubbard’s attention diverts to architecture, construction practices, and the men who created great houses of the Elizabethan era.

Bess kept records of daily life in these lavish houses. At Hardwick in the 1590s, Bess wrote about the sale of cattle and sheep, the blue cloth she bought to make livery, the oysters sent by her son-in-law, the herrings purchased from Hull. The detail is fascinating.

Filled with detail of society, marriage politics, and domestic arrangements, Devices and Desires is an engaging read, but as non-fiction, it can’t lift the people out of their of their documents.

For an aerial view of Bess’s masterpiece, enjoy this quick video

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Margaret Tudor by Daniel Mytens

Katherine of Aragon by Michael Sittow

Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon by Jan Gossaert

Bess of Hardwick by rowland Lockey

Hardwick Hall by Thomas Allom

The post Summer Reads: Prominent Women Lost in Shadow first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

I always associate summer with time for leisure reading, whether it’s a day at the beach, a Saturday afternoon in a hammock under a shady tree, or on an airplane. [Sidebar: I do hope these young women remembered to Slip-Slop-Slap, as well as Wrap their eyes in sun glasses. But I digress.]

Today’s blog begins my occasional summer reading series. I feature books that held my attention and introduced me to something different, whether from the story itself, the subject matter, the location, or just good writing. Our reading adventure begins with three novels by Lindsay Jayne Ashford.

Ashford was the first woman to graduate from Queen’s College, Cambridge. She took her degree in criminology before turning to journalism. She began her writing career with the Megan Rhys Crime Novels before turning her attention to historical fiction based on real women.

WHISPER OF THE MOON MOTH

I selected Whisper of the Moon Moth (2017), based on the life of actress Merle Oberon, because it opens in 1931 Calcutta. Ashford deftly creates a believable atmosphere as she opens her story about Estelle Merle Thompson, a young Eurasian girl who loves movies, amateur dramatics, and nightclubs where she gains entry passing as white. One night she meets one-time actor Ben Finney who takes her along on a very interesting safari. As he says farewell, Finney gives Estelle the name of a producer in London.

Estelle discovers the London of her dreams is not the one she’s living in. She takes a job as a club hostess, takes a screen test, and eventually comes to the notice of producer/director Alexander Korda who mentors Estelle’s film career, beginning with her name change to Merle Oberon, and a new identity unconnected to India. 

Whisper of the Moon Moth is an engaging story of secrets and self-termination.

THE WOMAN ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

I was a bit leery about The Woman on the Orient Express (2016). The title seemed too contrived in its association. The words woman and Orient Express can only lead to Agatha Christie. And, indeed, the historical novel is based on an episode in Christie’s life. In the autumn of 1928, after her divorce became final, Christie boarded the iconic train, and met Katherine Keeling, later Kathrine Woolley, who invited Christie to the archeological dig at Ur in Mesopotamia. Both women are running away from an unpleasant past featuring a failed marriage. Both women have secrets.

Once again, Ashford deftly draws her characters and locations. Agatha Christie is known for her mystery novels. Christie drew on Katherine Woolley as the muder victim in Murder in Mesopotamia. But Woolley was more than a character inspiration. She illustrated the objects catalog for the Ur excavations and assisted in the reconstruction of objects recovered from the site. 

I liked The Woman on the Orient Express more than I thought I would, both for revealing more about Agatha Christie’s early life, and introducing me to Katherine Woolley.

THE SNOW GYPSY

Having enjoyed two of Ashford’s books, I picked up her most recent book, The Snow Gypsy (2019). Rose Daniel, the lead character, is based on herbalist and author Juliette de Baïracli Levi who pioneered holistic veterinary medicine, doing much of her research among peasants in Spain.

The story focuses on Rose Daniel, a British veterinarian, in post World War II Spain. Before the war her brother went to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He never returned. Rose has his letters. There was a pregnant girlfriend. A village.

The secondary character is Lola Aragan. During the war, her family was massacred. She survived, along with a newborn child she rescued. Lola is a flamenco dancer.

Rose has a fling with Lola’s brother, who turns out to be married. She has a deeper relationship with a man who turns out not to be what he appears.

Though Rose strikes out on relationships, she does find out what happened to her brother, and the book finally ends.

If you’re looking for an engaging read about strong women in the early twentieth century, I can recommend both Whisper of the Moon Moth and The Woman on the Orient Express.

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Illustrations:

La plage aux dunes de Dovela [the beach at the dunes of Dovela]  by Bruneau Pierre

Merle Oberon from Stage Door Canteen, 1943

Agatha Christie 1925

The post Summer Reads: 3 Novels by Lindsay Jayne Ashford first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

At the time of her birth in 1858, Rama was an unlikely candidate for Christian recognition. Her father was an itinerant shastri who took his family from temple

to temple. He recited scripture for alms. It was a hard existence for Rama, her brother, and her sister. There were two other unusual aspects to her childhood. Rama’s father taught her to read, and he didn’t arrange a marriage for her.

In 1876 famine took everyone in Rama’s family, except her brother. They continued to wander and recite until they arrived in Kolkata, where Indian reformers were enchanted to meet an educated woman, a woman who hearkened back to an earlier age. Rama lectured, married, and bore a child. She lost her brother and husband to cholera. Most people would have given up on life, but Rama made friends with nuns from England who sponsored Rama’s journey to their mother house at Wantage, and her education.

At Wantage, Rama accepted baptism for herself and her daughter. She also decided to open a school for Hindu half caste widows, and went to America to raise the funds.

Rama went back home and opened her school. She also founded an ashram at a small village near Pune. The ashram, Mukti, still cares for women and children. All of these accomplishments are noted in the church explanation for recognizing Pandita Ramabai.

But they don’t discuss Rama’s exploration of a more personal, emotive faith led to the first pentecostal revival in 1905. The narrative passes over that to emphasize Rama’s translation of the Bible into Marathi, a massive undertaking Rama completed just before her death.

In writing Rama’s Labyrinth, A Biographical Novel, I was continually struck by Rama’s shear force of will, a tsunami that removed all obstacles in her path. I didn’t find her personally likable, zealots seldom are. But she was mesmerizing. Learning about and writing Rama’s story, I sometimes felt I could sense her approval and/or disapproval of what I wrote.

I’m glad the Episcopal Church honors Pandita Ramabai for her life’s work. I wish they mentioned the Holy Ghost Revival she ignited in 1905.

Black & white illustrations in public domain.

Rama’s Labyrinth: A Biographical Novel. Publication details at bottom of page.

The post PANDITA RAMABAI’S DAY OF RECOGNITION first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

The question came up yesterday. If I could have dinner with any literary heroine, who would I invite?  I felt like should choose Elizabeth Bennett, because her character resonates with modern readers. But then I thought, one has tea with Elizabeth Bennett, not dinner. So, I set her to the side.

Next I thought of Draupadi, the woman in the Mahabarata who simultaneously marries five brothers, but I’d be thinking of her household arrangements which seems a bit intrusive for dinner conversation.

And then it struck me. Though she flickers in the background of Homer’s Odyssey, Penelope, wife of Odysseus, is a most  interesting character. Any woman with over a hundred suitors in her palace would have to be pretty quick-witted to remain faithful to a husband who left twenty years before. Now that would be an interesting dinner conversation.

Penelope’s parents were Icarius, King of Sparta, and Periboea, a Naiad-nymph. Icarius was a champion runner, and refused to let anyone marry his daughter unless the suitor could defeat him in a footrace. Naturally, Odysseus triumphed. Icarius offered Odysseus inducements if he would stay in Sparta, but Odysseus left for Ithaca with his bride. Icarius followed them, and begged his daughter to stay behind.

Odysseus offered his wife the choice of going him with him, or going back to Sparta with her father. Penelope was as young as fourteen or as old as sixteen. She’d never been anywhere beyond Sparta’s palace. Her bridegroom was a handsome, strong young man. And what would become of her if she wasn’t married? Penelope never even voiced her choice, but modestly drew her veil over her face. A bride’s veiling indicated her separation from her prior status. She was the property of her husband. Nothing needed to be said, and she was smart enough to understand her husband’s offer wasn’t serious.

When Penelope arrived at her new home, she learned her husband was wealthy and that though his father Laertes was alive, Odysseus ruled Ithaca. She settled in, and produced a son and heir, Telemachus. So far, so average. But then Odysseus was called to fight in the Trojan War, and left his wife in charge. His son was an infant; his father unable. For twenty years, Penelope functionally ruled Ithaca without crossing behavioral bounds.

After ten years, the Trojan War was over. Men returned home. But not Odysseus. He embarked on his ten year odyssey, including seven years spent with the goddess Calypso.

Meanwhile, Penelope played hostess to a hundred suitors hoping to marry Odysseus’s widow and claim her husband’s wealth. As a chaste woman, Penelope couldn’t mingle with the men. As a hostess, she couldn’t throw them out, so she watched them consume her husband’s resources. Pressure mounted. Penelope must choose a husband. She agreed, but said she couldn’t until she honored her father-in-law by weaving his funeral shroud. She could take her time with this project, since Laertes was alive, and the men had no idea how long it takes to weave cloth. Chaste Penelope dutifully wove every day. Clever Penelope pulled out the threads every night. She got away with her ruse for three years, which is pretty good. The men didn’t catch on until one of Penelope’s maids betrayed her.

One day a beggar showed up. Guess who’s back? Penelope did, but her suitors didn’t. She started demanding gifts as evidence of their sincerity. The disguised Odysseus rejoiced at her cunning, “ luring gifts from her suitors now, enchanting their hearts with suave seductive words but all the while with something else in mind.”
Then Penelope agreed to marry the man who could string the bow Odysseus received after his first boar hunt, and shoot an arrow through twelve axe heads. She set the stage for the beggar to compete. Just when things became interesting, Telemachus, her son, ordered Penelope upstairs because this was men’s business. Perhaps that’s just as well. Odysseus won the contest, revealed his identity, slaughtered the suitors and told his son to execute the serving maids.

But Penelope had a final test for her husband. She told her servant to move the marriage bed. Whereupon, Odysseus

Blazed up in fury, lashing out at his loyal wife;
‘Woman, — your words, they cut me to the core!
Who could move my bed? Impossible task,”
[It seems he built one of the bedposts from a living olive tree.]
“Does the bed, my lady, still stand planted firm? —
I don’t know — or has someone chapped away
That olive-trunk and hauled our bedstead off?”

Shortly thereafter, Odysseus “wept as he held the wife he loved,” and she “embracing his neck would never for a moment let him go.”

To answer the original question, if I could have dinner with any fictional character, I would ask Penelope to join me. I’d like to hear her explain why she made the choices she did. For herself? To protect her son? Out of loyalty to a husband who went missing for ten years and suddenly showed up, only to challenge her faithfulness? And, most important, did she make the right choice?

Which fictional heroine would you invite for dinner? Leave your answer with the comments.

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Odysseus and Penelope by Tischbein. Public Domain.

Tea for Two. Photo by Author.

Greek Macedonian Bride’s Dress. Public Domain.

Calypso by Jan Styka. Public Domain.

Weaving Frame. Изображение с греческой вазы. Пенелопа и Телемах у вертикального ткацкого станка. From Wikimedia Commons. US Public Domain.

Archery Challenge. Public Domain.

Greek Food by Rennett Stowe.

Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by Robert Fagles. Penguin. 1996.

Madeline Miller. “The Wily Wife.” The Telegraph. Apr. 8, 2018.

Emily Wilson. “A Translator’s Reckoning with the Women of the Odyssey.” The New Yorker. Dec. 8, 2017.

The post Dinner with Penelope first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

Two Coins focuses on the libel case Mary Pigot filed against The Reverend William Hastie. Though I searched everywhere I could think of, I found no likeness of Miss Pigot. A contemporary newspaper description of the plaintiff and defendant at the 1883 trial gives some idea of Miss Pigot’s appearance.

“Miss Pigot is a lady-like looking Eurasian, not giving one the impression from her looks of anything but strict propriety; indeed, with the profoundest respect to the lady, it seems difficult to conceive of any man conducting himself towards so respectable and rather interesting a person otherwise than with rigid decorum; Miss Pigot’s appearance would certainly not be denominated attractive by a romance writer.”

William Hastie, on the other hand, presented the newspaper reporter with a very different visage. “The defendant, the Rev. W. Hastie, is a hard-featured, canny-looking north countryman, wearing a close dark beard, moustache, [sic] and whiskers. He and the plaintiff impress one as being of about the same (anything but frivolous) age, say, 40 to 42.”

Mrs. Monomohini Wheeler, Inspectress of Girls’ Schools and Zenanas in Bengal, presents an appearance not unlike what I’m sure Miss Pigot adopted. The dress is plain; the hair, severe. Mrs. Wheeler testified on behalf of Reverend Hastie, supporting the defense that Miss Pigot failed in her duties to properly manage the Female

Orphanage. The illustration of a Mrs. Branden, Senior Inspectress of Schools in Madras, gives further insight into the fashion style of women involved in education.

The Reverend Bipro Churn Chuckerbutty was a prominent convert and minister of the Church of Scotland mission in Kolkata. Records indicate that Rev. Chuckerbutty was born in 1823, and may have been the last Hindu boy to light a funeral pyre for his mother. He received Christian baptism in 1843 and went on to a career in the church. Churckerbutty received ordination in 1872 and raised funds to build the Bengali church in 1875. In the aftermath of the case of Pigot v. Hastie, Reverend Chuckerbutty retired in some disgrace.

Missionaries operated in their own structural context, not that of British Civil Servants. These illustrations give some indication of what Miss Pigot’s students may have looked like.

 Lieutenant-Colonel R. Alexander Walker was a member of the Royal Artillery at Dum Dum, near Kolkata. He was a close friend of Rev. Hastie, an enemy of Miss Pigot, and a prominent member of St. Andrew’s Kirk and the Scottish missionary community. His wife, Mrs. Amber Walker, and sister-in-law Miss Georgiana Smail played significant roles in gathering the charges made against Miss Pigot. I don’t have a picture of Lt. Col. Walker, but provide this one to demonstrate the type of culture he upheld. The social gap between a lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Artillery and an unmarried Eurasian professional woman working for the Scottish mission was insurmountable.

Dr. Archibald Scott was, among many other posts, the convener of the Foreign Mission Committee of the Church of Scotland. From his position in Edinburgh he greatly influenced the fate of everyone connected to the case of Pigot v. Hastie.

***

The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, 2012. By Sgt Adrian Harlen.

Image of Dr. Archibald Scott from the Internet Archive Book Image. Flickr.

Other images in public domain.

The post Two Coins: A Few Character Profiles first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

While doing research for Rama’s Labyrinth, I ran across several references to the case of Pigot vs. Hastie, a civil suit filed in the Calcutta High Court in 1883. In its bare bones, the case concerned Mary Pigot, Superintendent of the Female Mission in Calcutta, and The Reverend William Hastie, Principal of the General Assembly’s Institute. Both organizations were part of the Church of Scotland. Among the charges Miss Pigot refuted, there was an allegation of illicit relations between Miss Pigot and Babu Kali Churn Banerjee, a native Christian, and also between Miss Pigot and a married missionary, Mr. James Wilson. Mary was most often mentioned as someone who violated rules of inter-racial relations. I thought there was more to the story, and began my own investigation.

KOLKATA

Calcutta was the capital of British India until the government transferred to New Delhi in 1931, so one area of interest was what life was like in the colonial city. I researched the town plans, domestic arrangements, and menus. I wanted to understand what life was like in this city on the Hugli River where modernity hasn’t removed historical traces. In 2016 I traveled to Kolkata, to see where events took place.

This scene on the Hugli River, for example, has a modern suspension bridge in the background, but the small boat hasn’t changed radically from what its ancestor looked like. Images for Durga Puja aren’t so different from what they were in the 19th century. St. Paul’s Cathedral, where Mary Pigot was baptized, is an incongruous European structure, as is St. Andrew’s Kirk, the religious center of the Scottish community. As Superintendent of the Female Mission, Mary was supposed to attend St. Andrew’s, but she preferred the native Indian church. A preference her detractors saw as flouting their authority.

Scottish Church College began its life as the General Assembly’s Institution. When Reverend William Hastie arrived in 1879 it was as Principal of that educational institution, a position he thought placed him as head of the entire Scottish missionary enterprise. Mary Pigot disagreed, and the seeds of discord were sown.

EDINBURGH

William Hastie observed that he always knew he was home when he could see Edinburgh Castle.

I went to the Edinburgh to consult the records of the Scottish Missionary Society and the Ladies’ Association, now located in the National Library of Scotland. Here I found minutes and reports, often containing pictures of people involved in the case. And I went in search of Number 23 Princes Street, where Mary met with members of the Ladies’ Association. The building where Mary’s interrogators questioned her abilities, now appears hidden behind the bay windows in back of Whittard’s.

My last research stop was the British Library in London where I was able to read daily accounts of the trial of Pigot v. Hastie in the Indian Daily News.

Intrigued? I hope so. Two Coins is available in an eBook edition at Amazon, iBooks, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo. The print edition is at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Next week: Illustrations of the people in Two Coins.

Photos by Author

The post Two Coins: A Sense of Place first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

Today I want to introduce you to the two living authors who influence my writing: Antonia Fraser and Philippa Gregory. Both are prolific writers and excellent researchers. Both bring their subjects to life with descriptions that give the readers a “you are there” feeling. Allow me to introduce them to you.

ANTONIA FRASER

Antonia Fraser read History at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She writes History, not historical fiction, about women, men, and events. Her first book Mary, Queen of Scots, appeared in 1969 and broke all sales records for a book about a historical woman written by a female author.

The Weaker Vessel: Women’s Lot in Seventeenth Century England came out in 1984 and is an important book for the field of women’s history. As Fraser wrote about James I, Oliver Cromwell, and Charles II, she found many glimpses of women’s lives and compiled them by occupation. Wives, widows, noblewomen, preachers, writers, actresses, businesswomen, nuns, and midwives all appear in The Weaker Vessel.

Fraser’s writing style brings historical documents to life. For example: “At Francis Coke’s marriage, James I himself gave away the bride. Splendid court festivities ensued and the King rounded off his own enjoyment of the proceedings by sending a directive to the newly married pair to the effect the they should be in no hurry to end their wedding-night. He intended to visit them personally, lying in bed, sometime after noon the next day, to hear details of what had transpired. Such visits were a royal hobby.” [1]

Fraser’s daily writing routine is mornings from 9:30 until lunch. Her writing room is at the top of the house, her cats banished to wait outside the door. At noon she goes to a local Italian restaurant and has a glass of pinot grigio with lunch. If it’s been a good morning, the wine is celebratory. If the morning hasn’t gone as well as she hoped, the wine is in consolation. Fraser doesn’t work after dinner.

PHILIPPA GREGORY

Philippa Gregory is a more controversial figure among historians because she writes historical fiction, which of necessity is less anchored to the historical record than narrative history. She read history at the University of Sussex, and completed a doctorate in 18th century literature at the University of Edinburgh. Gregory expected to get an academic position, but after the success of her fist novel, Wideacre (1987), she began writing full time.

Gregory is best known for her fifteen Plantagenet and Tudor novels. I’ve read about half of them. Most are written in the first person which makes events immediate for the reader, as in this example from The King’s Curse written from the perspective of Margaret Pole.

“My son Arthur, Sir Arthur as I delightedly remind myself to call him, rows in the regatta and beats four other boats before coming in second to a brawny waterman with arms like legs of ham. My son Montague takes bets on the riverbank and wins a purse of gold from the king himself. The happy, noisy court ends the day with a battle of boats with the king’s barge leading the charge against a small flotilla of wherries.” [2]

If you compare this excerpt with the one from Fraser, the difference between narrative history and historical fiction becomes clear.

Gregory’s writing day begins after breakfast when she edits her work from the day before. Then she moves the story forward. Gregory begins her research with a total biography of a person, and focusses on interesting aspects of the individual’s life that become the foundation for the novel.

My recent books aren’t set in England, but Antonia Fraser and Philippa Gregory’s commitment to solid research and good writing influence my work, because it’s not about the setting or the subject, so much as a commitment to excellence.

1. Fraser, Antonia. The Weaker Vessel. NY: Alfred A. Knoph. 1984. p13.
2. Gregory, Philippa. The King’s Curse. NY: Simon & Schuster. 2014. p291.

Illustrations

Woman Reading by Kuroda Seiki. Public Domain.

Antonia Fraser by englishpen. Creative Commons Attribution.

Philippa Gregory. Attribution: Larry D. Moore

Jester reading book. Public Domain.

Philippa Gregory

Antonia Fraser. “I was forced to learn typing.” The Guardian. Nov. 11, 2017.

The post LAST OF THE SUMMER READS first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.