In which we talk sources
Ah, my friends, who would have thought, but today we reach the END of reader questions! Several of you queried about books or websites related to research, so I'm answering in one post.
First, a caveat. When I researched SITG, I read LOADS of books. I was writing just before the internet became a viable research tool, so most of my sources were books. I am still exceedingly careful about internet research. I am occasionally asked if I consider myself a historian based on my degree in history and English. Absolutely not, because I never deal with primary sources. I rely on sources that are secondary at best, however, one thing I did learn was always to consider the source before I gave it too much importance. For example, Wikipedia is where I often begin my research because it can give a quick, concise overview of a topic with relevant links. But I am always keenly aware of the fact that ANYBODY can publish on Wiki. (The Wiki entry about me was written by someone I don't even know, although last time I checked it was accurate.)
Having said that, I am going to disappoint you now by saying I don't use any Victorian sites at all. When SITG was going to be a Regency, I found A Regency Repository and the JASNA sites to be enormously wonderful, but once I changed the setting to late Victorian, they became diversions rather than necessities. All of my online research is specific to a topic I need for an individual book. When I was researching SOTM, I found Egyptian love poetry, a timeline of Egyptological discoveries, information about sheep dip, mycology sites, and sites devoted to East Riddlesden Hall and Yorkshire flora and fauna. For SITS, I used sites related to Cistercian architecture, Sussex, Italian greyhounds, poison, topography of the Italian lakes, and medieval sanctuary laws. Each book will have its own folder of bookmarks for research specific to that book in case I need to check a fact, and I often supply those links to the art department to make certain they know the architecture in the novels.
As far as research books, I am continuing to amass a private library on Victoriana and topic-specific research. (I can never have too many books about poisons.) I have costume books for clothing reference, the best being Victorian and Edwardian Fashion: A Photographic Survey by Alison Gernsheim. For general research about poisons and nasty things I might use in future books, I just purchased the excellent Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart. For the book I'm currently writing, I have acquired books on tea planting, India and Indian cooking, memoirs of people who grew up under the Raj, Margaret MacMillan's superb book Women of the Raj, and a number of books about Julia Margaret Cameron--an early pioneer of female photographers.
When I'm beginning a subject with which I'm unfamiliar, I often start with a DK Eyewitness book for a comprehensive overview. I might use children's non-fiction books from the library for a brief look at a topic. From there I can narrow my focus an figure out where I want to concentrate the rest of my research. I read lots of biographies, memoirs, and journals or letters from the period, as well as novels written in the Victorian period. People often have a painfully narrow view of Victorians and persist in thinking of them as perfectly upright people who always conducted themselves beyond reproach. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the merest scratch of the surface shows. Ruth Brandon's excellent Governesses is a perfect place to start if you think the Victorians were one-dimensional. I often hear people say that we know Victorians were a particular way because of the etiquette guides and periodicals of the times. This is of course absurd. It would be like someone in 2105 looking at us and deciding that everyone wrote thank-you notes on embossed stationery and fashioned a perfect croquembouche at Christmas because that's what Miss Manners and Martha Stewart said we should do. The reality is that those things are where we strive to be, but the reality is that folks have always been busy just getting along with life and doing the best that they can. Reading journals and letters reveals just how different Victorian were from our popular mythology of them.
In particular, dip into Isabella Bird's travels and be prepared to be amazed. Penguin Great Journeys editions have a fabulous, very tiny version of Adventures in the Rocky Mountains which is astonishing. Bird, a vicar's daughter, traveled around the world at precisely the same time Julia and Nicholas are sleuthing around. And she didn't do so with a maid and a Baedeker's guidebook. She rode through lands that had seldom seen a white woman, sometimes with nothing but her horse for companionship. She was intrepid and courageous, and yet still maintained her ladylike demeanour enough to be the recipient of marriage proposals from a respectable Edinburgh doctor. Stepping off my Victorian soapbox now...
First, a caveat. When I researched SITG, I read LOADS of books. I was writing just before the internet became a viable research tool, so most of my sources were books. I am still exceedingly careful about internet research. I am occasionally asked if I consider myself a historian based on my degree in history and English. Absolutely not, because I never deal with primary sources. I rely on sources that are secondary at best, however, one thing I did learn was always to consider the source before I gave it too much importance. For example, Wikipedia is where I often begin my research because it can give a quick, concise overview of a topic with relevant links. But I am always keenly aware of the fact that ANYBODY can publish on Wiki. (The Wiki entry about me was written by someone I don't even know, although last time I checked it was accurate.)
Having said that, I am going to disappoint you now by saying I don't use any Victorian sites at all. When SITG was going to be a Regency, I found A Regency Repository and the JASNA sites to be enormously wonderful, but once I changed the setting to late Victorian, they became diversions rather than necessities. All of my online research is specific to a topic I need for an individual book. When I was researching SOTM, I found Egyptian love poetry, a timeline of Egyptological discoveries, information about sheep dip, mycology sites, and sites devoted to East Riddlesden Hall and Yorkshire flora and fauna. For SITS, I used sites related to Cistercian architecture, Sussex, Italian greyhounds, poison, topography of the Italian lakes, and medieval sanctuary laws. Each book will have its own folder of bookmarks for research specific to that book in case I need to check a fact, and I often supply those links to the art department to make certain they know the architecture in the novels.
As far as research books, I am continuing to amass a private library on Victoriana and topic-specific research. (I can never have too many books about poisons.) I have costume books for clothing reference, the best being Victorian and Edwardian Fashion: A Photographic Survey by Alison Gernsheim. For general research about poisons and nasty things I might use in future books, I just purchased the excellent Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart. For the book I'm currently writing, I have acquired books on tea planting, India and Indian cooking, memoirs of people who grew up under the Raj, Margaret MacMillan's superb book Women of the Raj, and a number of books about Julia Margaret Cameron--an early pioneer of female photographers.
When I'm beginning a subject with which I'm unfamiliar, I often start with a DK Eyewitness book for a comprehensive overview. I might use children's non-fiction books from the library for a brief look at a topic. From there I can narrow my focus an figure out where I want to concentrate the rest of my research. I read lots of biographies, memoirs, and journals or letters from the period, as well as novels written in the Victorian period. People often have a painfully narrow view of Victorians and persist in thinking of them as perfectly upright people who always conducted themselves beyond reproach. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the merest scratch of the surface shows. Ruth Brandon's excellent Governesses is a perfect place to start if you think the Victorians were one-dimensional. I often hear people say that we know Victorians were a particular way because of the etiquette guides and periodicals of the times. This is of course absurd. It would be like someone in 2105 looking at us and deciding that everyone wrote thank-you notes on embossed stationery and fashioned a perfect croquembouche at Christmas because that's what Miss Manners and Martha Stewart said we should do. The reality is that those things are where we strive to be, but the reality is that folks have always been busy just getting along with life and doing the best that they can. Reading journals and letters reveals just how different Victorian were from our popular mythology of them.
In particular, dip into Isabella Bird's travels and be prepared to be amazed. Penguin Great Journeys editions have a fabulous, very tiny version of Adventures in the Rocky Mountains which is astonishing. Bird, a vicar's daughter, traveled around the world at precisely the same time Julia and Nicholas are sleuthing around. And she didn't do so with a maid and a Baedeker's guidebook. She rode through lands that had seldom seen a white woman, sometimes with nothing but her horse for companionship. She was intrepid and courageous, and yet still maintained her ladylike demeanour enough to be the recipient of marriage proposals from a respectable Edinburgh doctor. Stepping off my Victorian soapbox now...
Labels: research
posted by deanna at
6:50 AM
3 Comments:
I think this is why I enjoy your characters so much. They are real and believable. Not what we think people in that time should be but what they actually were. Real people with flaws that make them easy to relate to even in that time period.
You are making me long for your next book - Women of the Raj, herbs... wonderful to contemplate!
The Eyewitness books are great starting points, I think. I read any number of them when my kids were young, because they were voracious readers and interested in a wide variety of topics. I learned a lot from them, and I know my kids found them fascinating.
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