Guest Post: Antonia Hodgson
On discovering this, most people ask me why. (It is a reasonable question.) The early eighteenth century is comparatively neglected by historical novelists, which is one answer to the question. I am drawn to neglected things.
I fell in love with the period in part because of the people I met there. They were familiar to me. Take John Grano, for instance. A talented musician who played trumpet in Handel’s orchestra, Grano was also terrible with money. A “live for today, pay for it tomorrow” sort of fellow. Inevitably, he ended up in debt. In 1728 he was thrown into the Marshalsea debtors’ prison and languished there for over a year.
Grano would have fallen out of history unremembered—but he happened to write a diary of his time in the Marshalsea, and it survived.
A page of John Grano’s diary, edited by John Ginger.
Grano is not a great stylist or thinker. His spelling is interesting. (Eighteenth-century spelling is rather fluid.) He’s not a very good judge of character either—he makes friends with all the wrong people, has endless squabbles with his cell mates, and fails to realize that the jail’s keeper, William Acton, could be dangerous and cruel. (Acton was later tried for murder.)
But Grano is endearing precisely because he is flawed. He drinks too much and suffers terrible hangovers. He worries about his friends and gets sulky when they neglect him. He sends somewhat passive-aggressive begging notes to his hardworking sister. He becomes gloomy, then rallies himself. He finds solace in music and the company of ladies.
He is human, in other words, and beyond the obvious differences of time and place, very familiar.
There are some wonderful Georgian historians—scholars such as Lucy Worsley and Amanda Vickery. There are the contemporary novelists—Swift, Defoe, Fielding. There are the wise, clear-eyed, and witty paintings by Hogarth.
But nothing quite beats a primary source—and this period is rich with them. This was the age of pamphlets, broadsheets, ballads, and sermons. The birth of newspapers. Criminals waiting to be hanged wrote their memoirs. Courtiers wrote mischievous accounts of palace life. Travellers sent outraged letters about the debauched, drunken, foul-mouthed citizens of London.
And an impoverished musician wrote a diary to keep himself occupied in one of the worst places on earth.
In every one of these personal stories there is something strange and something familiar. There is an old saying: times change, and we change with them. But in our hearts, in the things that really matter—like love and betrayal, family and friendship—I don’t think we have changed at all.
And that, perhaps more than anything, is why I love discovering people like John Grano. And why I love writing historical fiction.
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About the Author
Antonia Hodgson is the editor in chief of Little, Brown UK. She lives in London and can see the last fragments of the old city wall from her living room. The Devil in the Marshalsea is her first novel.
For more information please visit Antonia Hodgson’s website. You can also find her on Goodreads and Twitter.
The Devil in the Marshalsea Blog Tour Schedule
Monday, June 10
Review at Flashlight Commentary
Tuesday, June 11
Interview at Flashlight Commentary
Wednesday, June 12
Spotlight & Giveaway at Passages to the Past
Monday, June 16
Guest Post & Giveaway at Let Them Read Books
Friday, June 20
Interview at Reading the Past
Monday, June 23
Guest Post at Kinx’s Book Nook
Wednesday, June 25
Review & Giveaway at Book Nerd
Monday, June 30
Interview at Caroline Wilson Writes
Tuesday, July 1
Review at Mina’s Bookshelf
Thursday, July 3
Review at A Bibliotaph’s Reviews
Monday, July 7
Review & Giveaway at 100 Pages a Day
Tuesday, July 8
Review & Giveaway at The True Book Addict
Wednesday, July 9
Spotlight at Layered Pages
Friday, July 11
Review at Princess of Eboli
Spotlight & Giveaway at Historical Fiction Connection
The post Guest Post: Antonia Hodgson appeared first on Kinx's Book Nook.
