Historical Background

Back when my book The Garden Intrigue first came out last year, I tried to think of everything I, as a reader, would want to know about the historical background of the book.

What always niggles at me after reading historical fiction are questions about the real people and events. I always include a brief historical note at the end of each book, explaining what really happened, where I played fast and loose, and which characters were borrowed from real life, but it dawned on me that my website provided an opportunity to provide the sort of information that you can't squeeze into a three page historical note.

So I pulled together a compendium of all the real historical characters in the book, with mini-bios and contemporary portraits. These ranged from Napoleon himself to the inventor Robert Fulton. And then, since I could, I posted bios and portraits of characters who didn't appear, but were mentioned in the book.

I'd dealt with the people, but what about the background? This is where having a visual medium with (seemingly) infinite space really came in handy. The Garden Intrigue is set largely at Josephine Bonaparte's country house, Malmaison. I rounded up a bunch of contemporary paintings of Malmaison, interspersed with pictures from my own research trip. In this case, having the visuals really makes a difference-- when you see Malmaison, it becomes incredibly clear just how ill-suited the house was to being an imperial residence, how far and fast Napoleon climbed. In fact, they had to put guests in the servant rooms and put up tents on the grounds for the servants.

Then, of course, there were clothes and jewelry. Finally, I could show on screen what I had translated into words in the book, the diaphanous gowns and gaudy jewels that were de rigeur among fashionable Consular-- and then Imperial-- circles in 1804. My one big disappointment was that I couldn't find a good picture of the diamond and cameo toe rings women were reputed to have worn with their Grecian style sandals.

What sort of background information would you have liked to see? What are the background elements that you most want to follow up when reading historical fiction?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Brandywine Springs Tour -- September 21

Image
Alright, I hope this isn't too last-minute of a notice, but I think we've come to a consensus. Although I did say I'd do a tour with just a few people, it seems that there are several people who can't make it this week, but can make it next week. Since this isn't anything where there's a reservation or set plans involved, I've decided to wait the extra week in order to allow more people to attend. I hope this isn't a problem for those who said they could come this week. And for what it's worth, the Weather Channel's long-term forecast has it in the 70's with a 0% chance of rain on the 21st. All in all, this seems like the best thing to do. We can nail down a time that's best for everyone, but since a few seemed to indicate that early afternoon was good, I'm suggesting 1:00 for now. The tour should take somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half, depending on how much I ramble on. As I mentioned before, we'll walk through the...
Read more

Brandywine Springs Tour and/or Next Gathering

OK, time for me to 'fess up (and for those of you of a certain age, no, this has nothing to do with Davey Crockett). Back when we all met up in February (where has the year gone?), we seemed to decide that we'd like to do some sort of gathering again sometime. A meeting at Brandywine Springs park in the spring was suggested, an idea I liked. Unfortunately, by the time I got around to seeing if I could reserve a pavilion they were all booked for the entire summer. With the demographic range we'd be likely to have present, I felt a reserved pavilion was necessary to ensure that everyone had a comfortable, shaded place to sit. Once the spring sprinted by me, I figured that trying to get a reasonable quorum together during the summer would be tricky. And considering the weather, probably also sticky. Now that the summer of '13 has been laid to rest (again, wasn't it February like a few weeks ago?), I thought it was a good time to start thinking about group activities ag...
Read more

The 1844 MCH Election Flag

Image
This is another item from the cache given to me by Fran Casarino, descendant of the Banks and Chambers families. (The Jabez Banks items from a previous post came from her, as well.) I don't really have a whole lot to say about it, but I thought it was certainly interesting enough to share with everyone. It's a newspaper article from 1959 that mentions an item I had seen referenced once before. One that would have been quite familiar to Mill Creek Hundred residents a century and a half ago. As seen in the photo on the right, the item in question is a flag, purchased by a group of MCH residents in 1844. The accompanying article, shown below, gives the rest of the story. (Reminder: click on the image to view a larger, easier to read version.) Way back (in this blog's very first post , as a matter of fact), it had been noted that the Mermaid Tavern on Limestone Road (just north of the Pike Creek Shopping Center) was for many years the polling place for the hundred. One of the r...
Read more