October 2024
In this issue: An overview of my books, independent Victorian women, the right to vote, Kate Morton, and the North Park Book Fair.
Book overview
I’d like to welcome those new to the newsletter, many of whom will have read my short story, “The Dancing Colonel”. You may not know my books, so here’s an overview. I’ve published:
The Tommy Jones Mysteries – a trilogy of three novels, all set in Victorian England and with characters that cross over among the books. The first, Murder at Old St. Thomas’s, is a medical mystery. The second, Murder at an Exhibition, is an art mystery (some characters are in “The Dancing Colonel”), and the third, Murder on the Pneumatic Railway, is a technology mystery. They are chronologically in that order, but can be read in any order since none are dependent on the others.
(And I apologize, readers, that the prequel to these, Murder at the Gasworks, has been delayed by life circumstances, and may take another year to finish.)
My contemporary humorous beach mystery, Bummer at Luna Beach, was released last year. It features a 72-year-old amateur sleuth and her journalist sidekick, and is sent in a fictional California beach town.
I also have a romantic mystery: A Heart Purloined. It’s a rivals-to-lovers tale, Victorian-set and quite clean. No gratuitous anything, just likeable characters and quite a bit of humor.
My literary novel, Before the Time Machine, is a dual-timeline story of H.G. Wells as a young man and a modern historian.
Last is my professional work as a historian, a collection of H.G. Wells’s writings on science teaching. They’re actually quite readable, and I did the editing and annotations for all of the pieces.
A new history book
Writing novels or not, I am still a historian. A new book will be published in November that looks really good.
Deserted Wives and Economic Divorce in 19th-Century England and Wales: For Wives Alone, is written by historians Jennifer Aston and Olive Anderson.
Sort of. Olive Anderson died in 2016, leaving behind piles of research on a little-studied provision of the Marriage Act of 1857.
Section 21 provided that if a woman’s husband deserted her and didn’t provide support, a court could pronounce that woman a “femme sole”. This meant she was completely in charge of all the property that had been left behind, including bank accounts, the house, and all his belongings. Her own property would also belong to her, instead of the legal assumption that it was her husband’s.
Aston got permission from Anderson’s daughter to use her research and create the book.
This kind of work is crucial to anyone studying the Victorian Era. For years Section 21, and the court cases filed under it, have been pretty much ignored. It’s tempting to see deserted women as merely victims. And yet quite a few were allowed to economically operate independently. I’ll know how many when I read the book.
As readers of this newsletter will be aware, I am always suspicious of absolutes. It’s commonly believed that Victorian women had no control over their property, and indeed little agency at all. My own research for the Tommy Jones mysteries shows that on the contrary, women of all classes were active participants, agents of change, and ignorers of stupid rules.
Since it’s an academic book, it will cost a lot. But what’s really cool is they’ve made the introduction available to read for free.
The right to vote
While we’re on the subject of legal rights, it’s voting time!
I know quite a few people who don’t intend to vote, which chokes me. We think of voting as a right, but in many ways it’s a privilege to live in a country where we can. Not all adult citizens have been able to vote for much of our history. And whenever people bring up the issue of women getting the vote in the U.S, there are always some myths to dispel.
First is that women’s suffrage emerged shortly before World War I with suffrage marches. Not so. In an informal sense, one could consider the smuggling of goods in the 17th century, and the boycotts on English tea in the 18th, a sort of voting. But in a literal sense, the formal women’s suffrage movement in America dates from 1848, the Seneca Falls convention.
The second myth is that the right to vote was granted to women in 1919. Quite a few states, primarily in the western U.S., already had women voters. What changed in 1919 was the right for women to vote for President. While that’s very important, of course, many women had been voting for local and state offices, and had held such offices themselves, for some time.
Third is that American men always had the right to vote. Enslaved men didn’t, obviously. But even free men were often not eligible if they didn’t own property. It took the Revolutionary War for states to discuss universal male suffrage.
And, the male franchise didn’t expand just to increase democracy. Read about the why here.
Anyway, be sure to vote. Lots of people fought so you could.
What I’m reading
Last month I told you I’m reading a book by Kate Atkinson, and this month it’s Kate Morton, so one would think I have a preference for authors named Kate!
Kate Morton is known for novels with multiple timelines and familial threads, and her writing style is almost unnoticeable since you get sucked into the story so fast. Secrets are her stock in trade, and in The Forgotten Garden there are mysteries.
Why was a four-year old girl found abandoned after getting off a ship from England to Australia? What secrets are held by a woman who lived in Australia her whole life even though she didn’t want to? And what will her granddaughter find when digging up the past?
It’s easy to feel like all of Morton’s books are one giant story even though they’re not. But I literally have to read something else in between reading her books. By that time, I’ve forgotten the previous book and can dive in anew. My favorite so far is The Lake House.
One upcoming event is . . . happening!
Despite getting turned down when I first applied, I have now been invited to the North Park Book Fair. I couldn’t be happier!
So if you’re near San Diego, be sure to come. It’s all about books, not like an ordinary street fair, and North Park is a wonderful community in which to dine and shop. And yes, I’ll be in costume! And yes, you can bring your dog! (I have noticed that dogs enjoy a good book.)
And more!
Want to read previous newsletters? They’re located here at my website, where you can also find information and buy links to all my books.