As I started to look for background detail for the Edwardian set stories I've planned, I quickly realised I knew next to nothing about huge chunks of the period (as opposed to the forties setting I've used before when I could rely on books, films and personal reminiscences of family who lived through it).
So off I headed for 'amazon used & new' and abused my debit card somewhat. Books have been arriving daily - political history (today's politicians have nothing in conniving or treachery compared to Balfour and Asquith), social history (that's often just plain heartbreaking) and some others on costume etc.
The first thing that struck me was how difficult it would have been to crossdress. A quarter of Britons were living in abject poverty, where they were lucky to have one set of ragged clothing, let alone acquire another set of female clothes. The middle classes were by and large so hidebound by Victorian morality that even if they had the impulse, and opportunity, they would have probably denied themselves. Which leaves the aristocracy, who were certainly loucher, and no doubt had the means but even then, the bounds of acceptable male behaviour were incredibly rigid.
And there were so many causes, which supporters threw themselves into with a vigour that I can't think of a modern equivalent. Even our most committed protesters seem rather flakey in comparison to the suffragettes or labour organisers. Definitely characters writ large, from gritty shop stewards to flamboyant newspaper moguls. I've not written much this last week, but I'm getting plenty of ideas :)
Comments
Do it for love
I'm really looking forward to the fruits of your readings & research, Ceri. I can't wait!
But from the reader's response to one of my favorite ongoing stories here, don't expect the public reaction to be immediate and overwhelming. I'm talking about Daphne's turn-of-the-20th epic BALTHEZAR'S EXTRACT. When I read Part One I just assumed everyone would be as blown away by Evalyn's adventures as I was, and was baffled by the lack of raves for it. Well it seems not everybody is enthralled by that era as some of us are, and (to my great surprise) my yelling at them: "WHAT THE HELL'S THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE?!!" didn't seem to help much at all! But ever so slowly, fans of spats and flivvers and patent medicines, Marconi and the Lumiere brothers, the IWW and the Women's Christian Temperance League, ragtime and vaudeville found their way to her series ........... resulting over time in a decent-sized (by my standards) readership. Perhaps this is fitting for tales that take place in a time before the web and communication satellites........
So as you write this, do it for love of the subject matter, and know your as-yet-unwritten story has at least one fan already. An extension of faith maybe, but I really like your writing and am eager to see what you do with that time of great tumult, of revolutions in art and science, society and politics. Hot Damn!
~~~hugs, Laika
What borders on pure insanity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
You have wetted my appetite for ...
.... BALTHEZAR'S EXTRACT.
As regards the gist of your comments you are of course quite right.
If you are going to do something, do it well. Research is essential. The more the better. Only you will know how authentic it is of course. Well perhaps a few others who might otherwise, if of an uncharitable nature, point out to you any perceived errors.
I have been here so many times before. Just remember that your readers' plaudits are as nothing compared with your own self knowledge, your own judgement, as to how good your story is. Only you know whether the final result is as you envisaged it to be when you started.
Never rely on the ignorance or otherwise of your readers. They have their own agenda, their own axes to grind, which rarely correspond to yours. Indeed which they rarely communicate.
Do it for love, as you say. For the love of the whole crazy process of telling a tale.
Hugs,
Fleurie
Doing It for Love (but Appreciation's Nice, too)
Laika, dear, thank you so much for plugging Balthasar's Extract. I'm having such enormous fun writing the growing-up diary of Evelyn Westcott that attracting a lot of appreciative readers is only an additional pleasure. I like a story that makes me work a bit, i.e., things aren't necessarily explained, the plot is ornamented by a lot of baroque excursions, the characters are at least two and one-half dimensional, some characters were real people in made-up situations -- you understand already, I'm sure. Anyway, that's the approach I've taken with my Edwardian novel. I just wish I had as much imagination as you or Ceri. The turn of the 20th Century was a fascinating era, the beginning of modern consciousness in many good ways, and hardly anyone suspected that in just a few more years a hideous, sort-of accidental war was going to blow up so many illusions about 'progress.' Balthasar's Extract (IV) will be posted when Edeyn (who's helping me set up the teaser) is well again -- surely that will be very soon! Hugs, Daphne
Daphne
I admire your industry
Actually to spend lots of time (and money) researching a TG story with a very limited readership does you great credit. I might do some desultory internet reading but not otherwise unless it was a subject in which I was already interested - and that would be engineering, sailing or cycling based. Not always fertile ground for fiction (I did qualify that :) )
I seem to have read that there were groups of cross-dressers in the 19th century so I would imagine they were around in the early 20th. My grandfather was born around 1860 and my father in 1909 (he was the youngest) so I have second hand memories of the early 20th century. I suspect you're right that any bizarre practices would be more common amongst the leisured (and boarding school educated) classes. The middle classes would be too stiff, but the working classes were probably more earthy and open.
If you're including a political dimension then I assume you'll include that well-known Welsh PM David Lloyd-George.
Geoff
Since the dawn of mankind
Gwen Brown
Wasn't discussed
I have a feeling that the historical record is relatively empty because those things weren't discussed. History books, except for those specific to the life and attitudes of people during a specific time and place, I've found are too general to be particularly useful except for major background events. Another way to do research is to read fiction from the era and sometimes, if one is careful -- making sure that the author was taking pains to be accurate -- is to use a recent fictional novel where the setting is in that era.
There's a temptation to use a lot of historical details. I'd try to resist it. Make everything casual, as if the reader was already familiar with it: briefly mention a character waiting beside a fellow on a stepladder cleaning a street light instead of making a big deal of how lights of the time were rather smoky (and dim at night). One wouldn't bump into the PM, but one might meet the secretary of a local MP. One might pass by the toffee shop that gave Everton FC their nickname, but not mention it as such, or mention hiring a yobo to carry luggage. The story is the most important thing, not the details, which can actually distract and detract if used too much.
Aardvark
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
The Brandon Papers
by Quentin Bell, may prove useful.
Remember that music hall was at it's zenith so one presumes most cross dressers would be involved in theatre. Charlie's Aunt originates from that period. There was money about, but the distribution was limited and life was cheap. Average life expectancy was fortyish, so if TB, diptheria or poverty didn't get ya, the workhouse would. People relied on the parish for help!
It was such a short period 1901-10 and all to change with the tumult of WWI.
Good luck Ceri, I look forward to reading the results.
Angharad
Angharad
almost there
The elaborately feathered hat’s owner fidgeted in her seat. Unlike everyone else in the Old Bailey that morning, her eyes were not fixed on Lord Alverstone, not even as he reached for the black cap. Instead she rummaged in the bag on her lap, as young women are prone to, no doubt searching for some feminine frippery. In the general uproar that always followed a capital sentence, no one heard the shutter snap as Hawley Harvey Crippen’s face registered a brief moment of dismay for the first, and only, time during his trial.
Both the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror carried the photograph on their front pages the following morning. A remarkable picture, it was only the latest scoop for Britain’s most renowned, and elusive, press photographer – Nathan ‘Natty’ Sharpe.
This will be the teaser on the first story... I plan a series of short stand alone stories featuring Natty (and his alter ego Trixie Smart), the first will naturally be how Trixie comes into being. Natty's become a lot more complex in the last few weeks, he's a Scot, a strict Methodist, a teetotaller and a socialist, miner's son - getting him into a dress isn't going to be easy :)
He has two supporting characters: his employer Victor Portacre - black sheep of a respectable nouveau riche family, a portrait photographer (and occasional purveyor of 'French photography') who employs Natty as an assistant... he's filling out as a character, a bit louche, cynical, even a bit dark; and Victor's sister Ophelia, very much a 'new woman' - a suffragette, just on the edge of the WSPU's core membership when the first story opens in 1908...
This first story will feature cameos from Kier Hardie, Lord Northcliffe and a few others.