Historical? ‘Write me a Georgian romp,’ an agent requested. Pseudo historical, I realised, desperately hiding my curling lip. I said I would try. ‘Georgian romps are very popular,’ she added.
Rule One. Don’t compete in a crowded market
Everybody from Jane Austen onwards looked on ‘Georgian’ as early 19th century, or the late 18th. That is certainly the historical span the agent intended, perhaps because of the pretty dresses. The agent wanted gentrified heroes and heroines with lots of leisure and little or no contact with the lower classes. This ignored the fact that those made up the vast majority of Georgian society. I could include the odd highwayman or inn-keeper, or domestic servants who knew their place. Even the Georgians realised that their period was one when snobbery became not only acceptable but expected. The Regency was even worse.
This historical period was not for me. Besides, too many others wrote in the field, good writers already established in this or other genres. I preferred a grittier era. (Still with pretty dresses?) What about the early 18th century when there was a vibrant mixing of classes, say before the boring Georges arrived in 1714? The Queen Anne and Duke of Marlborough period had a buzz of diversity welling out of the Wars of the Spanish Succession.
‘Don’t put too much history in,’ another agent warned me. ‘Historical books don’t sell.’ It was a while ago! If historical books don’t sell now, I thought, they soon will, surely? Many writers were drawn towards historical writing. General queries told me many people also wanted to read them. Sooner rather than later publishers would tumble to the need. And they did, with a vengeance.
Rule Two. Look for the new niche
Queen Anne’s time fitted. It bubbled with new ideas and meaty political problems, ideal for historical research. And pretty dresses. I found a wealth of untapped material available for research. Banks being founded; speculation in foreign investments world-wide; Jacobite unrest and a new Union of Parliaments. Some of the struggles in and outside Westminster were very dirty indeed. Scientific experimentation flourished, teeing into the beginnings of both the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. The Enlightenment had already begun. The best discovery of all, in a dusty library, was a detailed set of plans for a new farm drawn up in 1708 by the Howard estate. This I transferred to the Yorkshire Dales, calling my farm BECKSTONE.
The historical growth of literacy
I also wanted to debunk perceptions that ‘ordinary folk’ were illiterate until ‘modern times’. Few may have read wordy novels like ROBINSON CRUSOE, sometimes called the first English novel, which came out in 1719, a little too late for my story. But its author, Daniel Defoe, was spewing out pamphlets and reports, serious or scurrilous yet always entertaining. Since these were sold in the streets for a penny a sheet there must have been a market to justify his efforts.
People certainly had sufficient literacy to use the ‘Penny Post’. Established in 1680 this was so successful that the government took it over in 1682, creating the Post Office. With so many men involved in the Continental wars, this service was a lifeline for both them and family members waiting at home for news. At this time the recipient paid the penny, not the sender, but even receiving a letter which you couldn’t pay for was a message, a reassurance, even if rejected. After all, a penny represented a day’s labouring but a ‘blind’ or unpaid letter from a soldier still told his wife, ‘I am still alive. Wait for me.’
And so BECKSTONE became my historical, my ‘Georgian romp’ – but set on a Yorkshire farm in Queen Anne’s reign. It has plenty of authentic historical detail, very little froth, with a backdrop of deep politics. It involves a wide and interactive social spectrum – and only a couple of pretty dresses in the end. As the story gallops along through a number of adventures, serious and otherwise, until it reaches the required resolution, it is almost formulaic, except that it breaks nearly all the rules of the genre. But it was fun to research and write.