Susanna Calkins, Author
  • Home
  • Lucy Campion Mysteries
    • A Murder at Rosamund's Gate
    • From the Charred Remains
    • The Masque of a Murderer
    • A Death Along the River Fleet
    • The Sign of the Gallows
    • The Cry of the Hangman
    • Death Among the Ruins
  • The Speakeasy Murders
    • Murder Knocks Twice
    • The Fate of a Flapper
  • Short Stories
  • Blog
  • News & Events
    • Event Photos
    • Archived Guest Posts & Interviews
  • The Roaring Twenties
  • 17th c. England
  • Writing Resources
  • Nonfiction
  • New Page

If you need me, I'll be at the coffee house. Or maybe a tavern...

4/25/2012

4 Comments

 
Picture
(1675) Wing / 1298:09

O

Oh Ale-Wife! Oh, Coffee-Man! Can't we all get along?  I promise, I'll divide my time among your fine establishments! 

I'll be taking a short break from writing my blog for a while, well, to get some writing done. I'm about halfway finished my copy edits for A Murder at Rosamund's Gate.  I'll also be working on the second  draft of From the Charred Remains soon, gnashing my teeth over the feedback from my alpha reader.

In the mean time, I'll leave you to contemplate how the ale-wife and coffee-man, long embroiled in cantankerous railing (stealing each others' customers!), came to enter a "friendly consultation." The ale-wife promised that "any person being reelingly drunk may be entertained in a coffee-house to make himself sober..." (Essentially, she promised to get her customers as drunk as possible and send them over to the Coffee-House, to improve the coffee man's coffee sales.)

Similarly, the Coffee-Man agreed to send any of his customers who were tired of "superior speech" and "prittle prattle" over to the Ale-House. This way,  they could get on with the business of "honest drinking."  See, everyone wins!

All this to say, if you need me, I'll be at the coffee house.
Or at a tavern. Or on a seventeenth-century walkabout. (Okay, maybe grading papers.  Maybe doing my day job.) Certainly writing. But I won't be on my blog. At least, not for a few weeks.  Cheers!

4 Comments

It's official...We've renamed my book!

4/19/2012

25 Comments

 
Picture
Yes, it's true!  We've changed the title of my first novel to....

drum roll!!!

drum roll!!!

drum roll!!!



A Murder at Rosamund's Gate


My original title, Monster at the Gate, was deemed by the good people at Minotaur/St. Martin's to sound a little too harsh, a little too supernatural--and more importantly--a little too different in style from the type of book I had actually written. 

I get that, actually.  In one of my first blog posts, I talked about how the word "monster" was understood in seventeenth-century England, back when it didn't carry the supernatural "Frankenstein's Creature" connotation that it does today.

But you know what? I love my new title. I think it captures the essence of my book better than the first title did.  And hopefully, you'll see why, when my book comes out in early 2013. 

For now, you might imagine strolling through the beautiful garden pictured above. Birds, trees, seventeenth-century stonework...and oh no! a body...

25 Comments

Writing bravely, writing openly--lessons from early Quaker women

4/17/2012

6 Comments

 
Picture
Esther Biddle, Quaker, 1660
This weekend I had the fun of seeing my first guest blog "Prophecy and Polemic— The Earliest Quaker Women" posted on the English Historical Fiction Authors website.

There, I discuss why Quaker women were so political and how they differed in one particular way from most other women at the time--even members of other non-conformist sects (such as the Diggers, the Ranters, the Levelers etc). 



And oh! how they expressed themselves...

Dressing in sack-cloth

           
"Running naked as a sign"

                            Refusing to bow to authority

But that wasn't all...

Quaker women were different because they wrote.  And they wrote. And they wrote. And they wrote. 

In fact, as a group, Quaker women wrote 220 tracts before 1700, more than any other women.  Petitions, broad-sides, chapbooks--all carrying admonitions to King, Parliament and clergy to recognize sinful acts,  accounts of injustices and cruelties to their members, and pleas to release their religious brethren from prisons and authorize non-conformist worship in England, and the American colonies.

I've always respected the bravery and creativity shown by the earliest Quakers, in their attempt to get their message heard.  I've often thought how hard that must have been for them to write these open pieces.   They were not just challenging Parliament, Magistrates, Churchmen and the King: they were challenging convention and the very heart of patriarchy, often risking public ridicule, shaming, abuses and imprisonment.

Taking the mantles of Old Testament prophets, mid-seventeenth century Quaker women wrote openly about the social wrongs they perceived around them, especially those caused by the (imagined and real) abuses of men in power.  In the soul-examining spirit of the time, Quaker women--like their male counterparts--also wrote publicly about their own struggles to find the "Inner Light" and to give up earthly fripperies. (Poor Susannah Whitrowe--she really wanted to cling to her ribbons, but knew she wasn't supposed to) They wrote about death and heartbreak, joy and promise. (This is not too suggest that they did not use their expressions of suffering to advance their cause--both politically and religiously--but there is an honesty to their expression that is admirable).

At a time when women who wrote were disparaged as "petticoat authors," early Quaker women persevered to make their voices known. Just as they "ran naked as a sign" to convey their discontent to religious and secular authorities, they wrote nakedly too. They laid their emotions and concerns bare, for public consumption, expressing themselves in ways that were both daunting and inspiring.

As I writer, I certainly struggle to lay my words bare on the page. Those little editorial voices are hard to muffle! I'm hoping, with time, to find my most authentic voice.   How about you?



6 Comments

The most beautiful library in the world...

4/8/2012

28 Comments

 
Picture
Wynnefield Library
Anyone who knows me, knows I love libraries.  If I have a few hours to myself, then I'll often find a library (or a coffee shop, these days) to read, write, think.

And during my life, I've certainly had the opportunity to visit some beautiful and impressive libraries--Trinity College Library (Dublin), the British Library (London), the Oxford Library, the Biblioteque Nationale (Paris), the Newberry Library (Chicago), the Free Library of Philadelphia (main branch)...to name a few.  And certainly, I live near some lovely libraries now in Highland Park and Lake Forest (Illinois).

But for me, the most beautiful library in the world is the Wynnefield Library, a branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, located just a few blocks from where I grew up in West Philly.  It's not fancy, it's not glamorous--in fact, the modest 1960s exterior has a lot to be desired visually. A gently flowering tree gracing the red brick walls might look to be the library's only beauty. Certainly, no Baroque drama, no Georgian curves here, not even a whit of Victorian indulgence to be found.

Picture
Posters like these urged kids to read
The interior is equally simple.  If I'm remembering correctly, a main circulation desk greets you when you enter, and just after,  the young adult section. Beyond that lay the Adult Reading Room. (I only ventured in there looking for my mother, usually finding her in the mystery stacks. To this day, I'm fairly certain that the area would still feel off-limits to me).

To the left, the children's area awaited.

There, the children's librarians (especially dear Ms. Naismith) knew our names, often greeting us with recommendations and new readings to share. As an inner-city regional branch, I can only imagine now how limited the holdings must have been, how few the copies of popular books,  and how few new books ever went into circulation.

Yet, I can remember leaving most days with one, two, three, even up to the maximum twelve books we were allowed to check out on a given day. (Thank goodness it wasn't twelve books total, especially with my--ahem--terrible allergy to returning books on time! I'd never get anything new.) The books were much-handled, many were stained,  but I don't remember ever minding their careworn pages.

The library brought us together in ways I can scarcely make sense of now. The librarians didn't just read us stories; they helped us form book clubs, let us put on plays, and stimulated our curiosity in new worlds.

I remembering saying to a librarian once I couldn't find any more good books.  She promptly introduced me to Tamara, a girl who lived near me, but whom I'd never met.  Tamara in turn introduced me to Louisa May Alcott. Without this introduction, I might never have discovered one of my all-time favorite authors, or found a new friend.

Clearly, the librarians simply loved reading, just as we did, and shared that love of reading with us.  We weren't just "patrons" to them (or worse, kids to be ignored). The librarians viewed us as what we were: individuals, thinkers, and above all else, readers.

The Wynnefield Library may not have had much, but in its beautiful humble way, it sustained and nourished a community.

What do you think? What's the most beautiful library?


28 Comments

A cuckold, a magistrate, and a Puritan walk into a tavern...

4/5/2012

16 Comments

 
Picture
So if you're at that seventeenth-century dinner party that I mentioned in my last post, you'll want a few "merry jests, smart repartees, witty sayings, and a few notable bulls" to amuse and delight your friends (that is, if you want to transcend urine tricks and flatulence).

(Not jokes though--apparently the word joque, from the Latin iocus "jest, sport, pastime'--had only just emerged in England in the 1660s, and was only just entering the seventeenth-century vernacular.)

This particular jest-book, Humphrey Crouch's England's Jests Refin'd and Improved (1693), one of England's first such collections, offers equal opportunity digs at all manner of people: gentry, magistrates, royals, Quakers, Catholics, priests, Jews,  foreigners, scholars, students, old people, young people, pregnant women, scolds, rakes, brothel-keepers, cuckolded husbands, criminals awaiting execution--you name it. 

Many jests were political or religious in nature but, as you might imagine, such humor doesn't always translate easily across three centuries (and English doesn't always translate to American. HA!)

However, this one just amuses me.

"A witty young fellow was try'd for his life, since his Majesties Restoration. And being caught, they told him he must be hang'd: But he pleaded in his own defence a long time; at last desir'd the Judge, That if he must be hang'd, he might be hanged after the new way that Oliver was, three or four years after he was dead."

(The corpse of the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell had been dug up and hanged posthumously two years after Charles II was restored to the English throne. Yup, as gross as it sounds.)

And, I could skip the obligatory lawyer jest but I won't.

"A certain person speaking unseemly words before a Gentlewoman, she ask'd him what profession he was of. Madam, says he, I am a civil lawyer. Alas, Sir, she replied, If Civil lawyers are such rude people, I wonder what other Lawyers are."

Mwah ha ha! Civil lawyers. (Okay, fine. Maybe not that funny)

Of course, I imagine bawdy humor will still translate best....

"Two friends meeting, one being overjoyed to see the other.
Hark you Sir, said he, Between you and I, my wife's with child. Faith, cry'd the other, you're a liar, for I have not seen her this twelve months."   (Awk-ward!)

"A young woman, having married a great student, who was so intent on his studies, that she thought herself too little regarded by him, and one day when they were at Dinner with some Friends, she wished herself a book, that she may have more of her Husband's company. If it must be so, says her husband, I wish thou wert an Almanack, that I might change thee for a new one once a year."   (Ouch!)

Picture
the witless cuckolded husband (with horns!)
"One that had only been married but a week called her husband a 'cuckold,' which her mother hearing, reproved her: You slut, says she, do you call your husband cuckold already?And I have been married this twenty years to your father, and never darest tell him of it yet!"

(Ah, the old cuckolded husband jest).

So you tell me...how would this jest end?  A cuckold, a magistrate, and a Puritan walk into a tavern...

16 Comments

    Susanna Calkins

    Historian. Mystery writer. Researcher. Teacher.  Occasional blogger.

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    1660s
    16th Century
    17th Century
    18th Century
    1910s
    1920s
    19th C.
    20th Century
    21st Century
    A Death Along The River Fleet
    Advertisements
    Alcohol
    Alpha Reader
    Amazon Pre Order
    Amazon Pre-order
    A Murder At Rosamund's Gate
    Anagrams
    Anne Perry
    Anthology
    Art
    Authorship
    Award
    Awards
    Blogger's Block
    Blogging
    Blog Hop
    Blog Tour
    Bloody Good Read
    Bombings
    Book Events
    Book Giveaway
    Booksellers
    Book Trade
    Bouchercon
    Calendars
    Card Playing
    Caricature
    Cats
    Chambermaid
    Characters
    Charles I
    Charles Ii
    Charles Todd
    Chicago
    Chocolate
    Christmas
    Cia
    Cockney Slang
    Cocktails
    Coffee
    Coincidence
    Contemporary
    Cover Design
    Covers
    Creativity
    Crime
    Criminals
    Critical Thinking
    Cromwell
    Crossroads
    Csikszentmihalyi
    Cuckold
    Curiosities
    Defoe
    Detectives
    Detectives Oath
    Disease
    Dogs
    Early Modern
    Easter
    Editing
    Edwardian England
    Etymology
    Examples
    Excerpt Marg
    Excerpts
    Fairs
    Fate Of A Flapper
    Feedback
    Female Protagonists
    Female Sleuths
    Fire Of London
    Flow
    Food
    Forensics
    Forms Of Address
    French History
    From The Charred Remains
    Ftcr
    Future
    Games
    Gangs
    Giveaways
    Golden Hind
    Great Fire
    Great War
    Grit
    Guest Blogs
    Guest Interviews
    Guest Post
    Guest Posts
    Guilds
    Hanging
    Historical Fiction
    Historical Mysteries
    History
    Imagination
    Inspiration
    Interviews
    Ireland
    ITW Authors
    Jests
    Jewelry
    Language
    Last Dying Speeches
    Leisure
    Libraries
    London Bridge
    Lucy Campion
    Macavity
    Magistrate
    Malice Domestic
    Maps
    MARG
    Markets
    Masque Of A Murderer
    Matg
    Medicine
    Medieval
    Medieval Period
    Memory
    Merriments
    Merry-making
    Methodists
    Midwives
    Mindset
    Miscellany
    Monsters
    Moonstone
    Motivation
    Murder
    Murder At Rosamund's Gate
    Murder Ballad
    Murder Knocks Twice
    Mysteries
    Mystery
    Mystery Tv Shows
    Newgate
    Newspapers
    New Woman
    Nietzsche
    Nursery Rhymes
    Opera
    Orwell
    Persistence
    Pets
    Philadelphia
    Piracy
    Pirates
    Plagiarism
    Plague
    Poison
    Popular Film
    Popular Press
    Potions
    Printers Row Lit Fest
    Printing
    Private Investigators
    Proactive Interference
    Procrastination
    Prohibition
    Promoting Books
    Pseudonyms
    Psychology
    Publication
    Public Executions
    Publishing
    Punishments
    Puritans
    Puzzles
    Quakers
    Radio Shows
    Reader Questions
    Reading
    Receipts
    Reformation
    Rejection
    Religion
    Research
    Restoration
    Riddles
    River Fleet
    Samuel Pepys
    Scene Development
    Science Fiction
    Scold's Bridle
    Secret London
    Setting
    Seven Things
    Shakespeare
    Short Story
    Sign Of The Gallows
    Sleuths In Time
    Smithfield
    Speakeasy Mysteries
    Speech
    Spying
    Strange Things
    Teaching
    Thank You
    The 1640s
    The 1650s
    The 1660s
    Theater
    Thief-taker
    Timeline
    Titles
    Travel
    True Crime
    Tyburn Tree
    Valentine
    Wilkie Collins
    Winchester Palace
    Witches
    Women
    World-building
    Writier's Life
    Writing
    Writing Prompts
    Young Adult

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2020
    December 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    September 2018
    November 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011

    RSS Feed

  • Home
  • Lucy Campion Mysteries
    • A Murder at Rosamund's Gate
    • From the Charred Remains
    • The Masque of a Murderer
    • A Death Along the River Fleet
    • The Sign of the Gallows
    • The Cry of the Hangman
    • Death Among the Ruins
  • The Speakeasy Murders
    • Murder Knocks Twice
    • The Fate of a Flapper
  • Short Stories
  • Blog
  • News & Events
    • Event Photos
    • Archived Guest Posts & Interviews
  • The Roaring Twenties
  • 17th c. England
  • Writing Resources
  • Nonfiction
  • New Page