Category: Historical Fiction

The Red Sphinx by Alexandre Dumas

16 Comments

the-red-sphinx Well, it may be only January but I think I already know one book which will be appearing on my books of the year list this December! Having read and enjoyed all of Alexandre Dumas’ d’Artagnan novels over the last few years (beginning with a re-read of The Three Musketeers and ending with The Man in the Iron Mask), imagine my delight when I discovered that Dumas had written yet another Musketeers sequel – The Red Sphinx, which is being made available in a new English translation this month. Bearing in mind that this is a later Dumas novel, written towards the end of his career on the urging of his publishers, I was pleased to find, almost as soon as I started reading, that it was living up to my expectations!

I don’t think it’s at all necessary to have read The Three Musketeers first; The Red Sphinx is set in the same world – that is, in the 17th century at the court of Louis XIII of France – but it also stands alone and if you’re hoping to be reacquainted with d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis, you’ll be disappointed as the four friends don’t appear at all in this book. However, it does contain many of the same elements that made the original novel so much fun to read. There are dashing young heroes and beautiful heroines; duels, battles and sieges; spies and smugglers; secret messages, clever disguises, letters written in code – and political and romantic intrigue in abundance.

Beginning only a few weeks after the events of The Three Musketeers ended, the novel opens in Paris at the Inn of the Painted Beard where a hunchbacked marquis is trying to persuade swordsman Etienne Latil to assassinate a rival. When Latil hears that the man he is required to kill is the Comte de Moret, illegitimate son of the late King Henri IV, he refuses to accept the mission and a fight breaks out during which both Latil and the marquis are injured. As fate would have it, upstairs in the inn at that very moment are the Comte de Moret himself and one of the Queen’s ladies, who have met in disguise to arrange for Moret to attend a meeting with the Queen.

cardinal-richelieu

Cardinal Richelieu

At the meeting, Moret, who has only recently returned to France from Italy, delivers some letters to the Queen, Anne of Austria, the King’s mother Marie de’ Medici, and the King’s brother, Gaston d’Orleans, and learns that they are plotting the downfall of Cardinal Richelieu, the Red Sphinx of the title. Now, in The Three Musketeers, the Cardinal is portrayed as a villain; in The Red Sphinx, he is very much a hero. With an intelligence network stretching across half of Europe, he is shown to be a formidably clever man but also a loyal one who always acts with France’s best interests at heart – and although he’s accused of having too much influence over the king, it’s evident that he is trying to use his influence for the good of the country.

I can’t possibly describe the plot of this novel in any more detail; it’s so complex that I wouldn’t know where to start. I think it’s enough to say that most of it is devoted to the power struggle between Cardinal Richelieu and his allies on one side and the two queens and Gaston d’Orleans on the other, with the ineffectual young king caught in the middle. Dumas spends a lot of time introducing us to each character who plays a part in the story, even the minor ones, and although this makes the book longer than it probably needed to be, I didn’t mind because the amusing anecdotes he provides about them are so entertaining. He also includes whole chapters dedicated to explaining the political situation in France and across Europe or to describing the progress of key battles – and I’ll confess to not finding these very interesting. In general, though, I thought the balance was right and despite the length of the book it held my attention from beginning to end.

One important thing to know about The Red Sphinx is that it was never actually finished! In his introduction to the new edition, Lawrence Ellsworth (who is also responsible for the wonderful translation) suggests that maybe Dumas struggled to write an ending because he had already done this in an earlier work. This means that the novel comes to a rather abrupt end with several plot points left unresolved. Annoying – but not as annoying as it could have been, because Ellsworth comes to the rescue by pairing The Red Sphinx with another little-known Dumas work, The Dove. This is a short story (actually more of a novella) which continues the adventures of two of our main characters, the Comte de Moret and Isabelle de Lautrec, and brings at least some of the threads of the story to a satisfying conclusion.

The Dove was written earlier in Dumas’ career than The Red Sphinx and has a very different feel, being told in the form of letters carried by a dove. It’s an unashamedly sentimental story, but I loved it. I found it beautifully romantic and perfectly paced, with the suspense building and building from one letter to the next.

I will, of course, be reading more by Dumas – I have an upcoming re-read of one of my favourite books, The Count of Monte Cristo, planned – but I was also so impressed by Lawrence Ellsworth’s translation that I’ve had a look to see what else he has done. It seems that he has also edited The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure, which sounds very appealing. One to add to the wishlist, I think!

Thanks to Pegasus Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Two books by Marjorie Bowen…or should that be Joseph Shearing?

15 Comments

marjorie_bowenMargaret Gabrielle Vere Campbell Long (1885-1952) was a British author who wrote many different types of book – ranging from crime and horror to historical fiction and biography – under several different pseudonyms, the most popular being Marjorie Bowen. In December, in an attempt to get up to date with my NetGalley review copies, I read two of her recently reissued books which were originally published under the name Joseph Shearing. Apparently the true identity of Joseph Shearing was unknown for a long time and there was speculation that it might have been another female author, F Tennyson Jesse. The Shearing novels, which it seems were usually inspired by true crimes, do have a different feel from Bowen’s straightforward historical novels (I’ve read a few of those over the last year or so) and I can see why readers at the time might not have made the connection.

nights-dark-secretsNight’s Dark Secrets (first published in 1936 as The Golden Violet, The Story of a Lady Novelist) was the first of the two books that I read. The novel opens with the marriage of Angel Cowley, an author of romance novels, to Thomas Thicknesse, the owner of a sugar plantation in Jamaica. Angel has been busy preparing her latest novel, The Golden Violet, for serialisation in a magazine, but this has to be postponed when Thomas insists that the newly married couple leave England and return to his plantation, Venables Penn.

As soon as they arrive in Jamaica, Angel discovers her husband’s true nature and begins to wonder whether she has made a terrible mistake. Struggling to adapt to life in an unfamiliar country, with a husband she can’t trust and barely sees, and with trouble brewing in the island’s slave community, Angel turns to her neighbour, John Gordon, for the love and friendship she longs for. But is John really all he appears to be or is he also hiding secrets?

Night’s Dark Secrets could have been a great book. The descriptions of the island are wonderful and the historical setting – around the time slavery was abolished in Jamaica in the early 19th century – is an interesting one. However, the level of racism, even for a book from the 1930s, made me feel quite uncomfortable. I’m aware, of course, that it wasn’t necessarily Marjorie Bowen who was racist, but rather the characters, and that the way Angel and other Europeans reacted to the sight of the black slaves on the island would have been consistent with the reactions of many white women who had never seen or spoken to someone with a different skin colour before. Still, Angel’s sheer nastiness, in addition to her general silliness, made it impossible for me to have any sympathy with her situation.

forget-me-notHaving said all of that, I did still find the story itself compelling and kept reading to the end. And I was happy to go on to try a second Shearing novel, Forget-Me-Not. This novel, published in 1932, also appeared under the title The Strange Case of Lucile Clery, and Bowen claimed it was based on true events which led to the downfall of Louis Philippe I, King of the French, in the revolution of 1848.

The novel is set in France and follows the story of Lucille Debelleyme, a young woman who takes a position as governess in an aristocratic Parisian household. Lucille has never lasted long in any job, but she’s determined that this time things will be different. Unfortunately, although she quickly wins over her new employer, the Duc du Boccage, she is less successful with his wife, Fanny. As the governess and the Duc find themselves falling in love, Fanny’s jealousy intensifies and she makes plans to have Lucille removed from her position. Lucille, though, will not go without a fight. As a Bonapartist who was opposed to the return of the monarchy, she longs to see Louis Philippe toppled from his throne – and the events which occur during Lucille’s stay in the du Boccage household play a part in the eventual revolution.

Forget-Me-Not is an unusual story – part romance, part suspense, part historical fiction and part crime. Again, the main character is not very likeable, but she’s obviously not supposed to be. I found her intriguing as I was never really sure exactly what she wanted or what she was trying to do. I’m not very familiar with the period of French history covered in the novel so I didn’t fully understand how Lucille’s actions affected the monarchy, but that didn’t matter too much as the real focus of the story is on her relationship with Fanny and her husband.

Of these two books, I definitely preferred Forget-Me-Not. I’m not sure whether I would want to read any more of Joseph Shearing’s work, though – if I do read more novels by this author, I think I’ll stick to the ones that were published under the name of Marjorie Bowen or George R Preedy (I loved one of her Preedy books, The Poisoners).

Have you ever found that where an author has used pseudonyms, you’ve liked the books written under one name more than another?

Alathea by Pamela Belle

10 Comments

alathea A few years ago, I read the first two books in Pamela Belle’s Heron series, The Moon in the Water and The Chains of Fate. I loved them but because I didn’t have a copy of the third novel ready to start immediately, I never moved on with the series. The books have recently been reissued by Endeavour Press and I’m pleased to have finally had an opportunity to read the next Heron novel, Alathea (originally published in 1985).

Alathea is the eldest daughter of Francis and Thomazine Heron, whose stories are told in the previous two novels. Although Francis and Thomazine do appear in this book, the focus is firmly on Alathea, which means it wouldn’t be absolutely necessary to have read the first two books before this one. I would still recommend starting at the beginning, though; I think you will get more out of the story if you understand Alathea’s family background and the relationships between the characters.

The novel opens in 1660. Charles II has just been restored to the throne and thousands of Royalists exiled after the recent Civil War are on their way back to England – amongst them Simon Heron, whose return means that Alathea and her family must move out of the Herons’ Suffolk estate of Goldhayes and go back to Ashcott in Oxfordshire. It is there that Alathea meets a boy called John Wilmot for the first time – but it will be several years before their paths cross again.

At the age of eleven, Alathea’s talent for drawing is becoming apparent, and she already has dreams of building a successful career for herself as an artist. Her dreams move a step closer to reality when her parents send Alathea to live with her Aunt Lucy in London in the hope of separating her from her jealous half-brother, Kit. Here Alathea has the opportunity to study with the famous female artist, Mary Beale, and as the years go by she begins to establish herself as a portrait painter.

It is through her painting that Alathea is brought back into contact with John Wilmot, better known as the notorious Earl of Rochester. An attraction quickly forms between the two of them, but Rochester is not the only man interested in our heroine; Jasper, the son of Thomazine’s dearest friend, has decided Alathea is the woman he wants to marry, while Kit is also growing increasingly obsessed with his beautiful half-sister. Will any of them succeed? With Alathea reluctant to sacrifice her independence, she will need to find a way to reconcile her personal life with the career for which she has worked so hard.

I’m actually glad that I waited a while before reading Alathea; I think if I’d read it straight after The Chains of Fate, I would have been disappointed that there wasn’t more of Thomazine and Francis, but allowing some time to pass meant that I was able to enjoy Alathea’s story in its own right. And it is an enjoyable story. Although there are some sad moments and some dramatic ones, there’s also plenty of humour (in particular, I’m thinking of a certain scene involving a dinner party and Rochester’s pet monkey). I’m sure Rochester must have been a fascinating character to write about; I’ve read about him once or twice before, but never in as much detail and never in a way that made him feel so human.

There are some beautiful descriptions of the countryside surrounding Ashcott and Goldhayes, as well as of life in Restoration London – the section set during the Great Fire stood out for me as being particularly vivid. I also loved the way some of Rochester’s poetry is incorporated into the story, and the painting of his famous portrait, complete with monkey. What I found most interesting, though, was the portrayal of a young woman trying to make her own way in a male-dominated world, at a time when it was not at all common or very socially acceptable for a woman to earn a living as an artist.

I didn’t like this book quite as much as The Moon in the Water and The Chains of Fate which I think was simply because I loved following the ups and downs of the romance between Thomazine and Francis, so was more emotionally invested in their story than I was in Alathea’s. I still thought Alathea was a great book and I’m hoping to read Pamela Belle’s other series, Wintercombe, this year too.

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas

19 Comments

the-man-in-the-iron-mask I had considered starting 2017 by posting some reading plans and resolutions but, to be honest, after failing to keep most of last year’s, I don’t want to make any for this year. I do have one goal for 2017, though: I would like every book I read to be a potential book of the year. That’s unrealistic, I know, but it’s something to keep in mind when I’m choosing which books to read and when I’m deciding whether or not it’s worth continuing with a book I’m not enjoying. And I’m already off to a great start with my first January read – The Red Sphinx by Alexandre Dumas! I’m looking forward to telling you about that one after I’ve finished reading it, but in the meantime here are my thoughts on another Dumas novel I read just before Christmas.

The Man in the Iron Mask is the last book in the d’Artagnan series which began with The Three Musketeers and continued with Twenty Years After, The Vicomte de Bragelonne and Louise de la Vallière. The final three in the series were originally published as one novel, which must have been enormous; it’s easy to see why most publishers now split it into separate volumes! I think most people probably just go straight from The Three Musketeers to The Man in the Iron Mask – after all, they are the two best known and the most often filmed of the d’Artagnan stories – but I don’t regret having taken the time to read the ones in between. I did enjoy them all, particularly Twenty Years After, and it meant that I went into this, the final book, with the background knowledge I needed to be able to get straight into the story.

Unlike The Vicomte and Louise, which deal mainly with the political and romantic intrigues of various members of the 17th century French court, in The Man in the Iron Mask, the focus returns to d’Artagnan and his three friends, Athos, Porthos and Aramis. The first half of the novel revolves around Aramis and a plot involving a man imprisoned in the Bastille who bears a striking resemblance to the King of France. I won’t say too much about this as I wouldn’t want to spoil the story for future readers, but suffice it to say that things don’t go exactly as according to plan and both Aramis and Porthos (who, as usual, has become implicated in the schemes of others while blissfully unaware of what is really going on) find themselves in trouble.

We then catch up with Raoul, the young Vicomte de Bragelonne, who is trying to come to terms with the discovery that his beloved Louise de la Vallière is now the mistress of Louis XIV. Devastated by the loss of Louise, Raoul agrees to accompany the Duc de Beaufort on an expedition to Africa. How will his father, Athos, cope in his absence? D’Artagnan, meanwhile, has remained loyal to the king and for much of this novel he is caught up in the final power struggle between the two rival finance ministers, Fouquet and Colbert. When his duties bring him into conflict with Aramis and Porthos, however, d’Artagnan must find a way to serve his king without betraying his friends.

This is a much more exciting, action-packed book than the two preceding ones. The actual ‘man in the iron mask’ has a relatively small role to play but the plot has serious consequences which are explored throughout the remainder of the novel as we follow our old friends, the musketeers, to the end of their careers. I was pleased to see so much more of d’Artagnan and his friends than we did in the last two books, but I was disappointed by the lack of scenes with all four together (it was the relationship between the four of them, in my opinion, that made the first Musketeers novel such a joy to read) and that Athos’ storyline seemed to barely intersect with the others. Athos was my favourite character in the original Musketeers book and I really dislike the direction Dumas took him in throughout the later books in the series, particularly after Raoul became more prominent in the story. It’s funny that Aramis, my least favourite, ended up being the character I found the most interesting!

Towards the end, The Man in the Iron Mask also becomes a very sad book; after spending so much time with these characters – literally thousands of pages over the last few years – I didn’t want to have to say goodbye to any of them. Dumas ties things up very neatly in the final chapters…a bit too neatly for me; I would have preferred a happier ending with more left to the imagination! Still, I did enjoy this book and was delighted to discover that Dumas had written yet another, often forgotten, sequel to The Three Musketeers. It’s called The Red Sphinx and is being made available in a new English translation this month. I’m reading it now and am pleased to say that so far it’s definitely living up to my expectations!

The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer

17 Comments

the-black-moth The Black Moth, published in 1921, was Georgette Heyer’s first novel, written while she was still a teenager. I came to it having already read lots of Heyer’s other novels because I was advised that this was probably not a good place to start and that I would appreciate it more if I was already familiar with her later work. Now that I’ve read it, I think I would agree with that; I did enjoy it (although it hasn’t become a favourite) but I thought it had a slightly different feel from her later books and didn’t seem as polished.

The story is set not in the Regency period with which Heyer is normally associated, but the earlier Georgian period. Jack Carstares, eldest son and heir of the Earl of Wyncham, is a highwayman – though not entirely out of choice. He was accused of cheating at cards six years earlier and forced to leave the country in disgrace, but now he is back in England and trying to make a living in any way he can.

At the beginning of the novel, Jack discovers that his father is dead and that he is now the rightful Earl. He is reluctant to accept his inheritance, however, preferring to leave the estate to his younger brother, Richard. Jack, you see, was never actually guilty at all; he was covering up for Richard, who was the real cheat and who said nothing, allowing his brother to take the blame. Richard is not completely without a conscience, though, and after learning of Jack’s return, he feels increasingly guilty about what he has done – to the disgust of his wife, the beautiful but selfish and petulant Lavinia.

Lavinia is the sister of the Duke of Andover, who is known as ‘Devil’ by friends and foes alike, and who reminds Richard of a black moth. When Andover and Jack Carstares both find themselves drawn to the same woman, the fates of all of these characters become closely entwined once more and a chain of events is set into motion which could change each of their lives forever.

I’ve said that The Black Moth isn’t a favourite, but I did find it fun to read. Unlike some of the later Heyers I’ve been reading recently, such as Black Sheep and Charity Girl, which are more character and dialogue driven, this one is more action-packed and swashbuckling with a plot involving highway robbery, disguises, kidnappings and duels. It’s not as romantic a story as some since the focus is on the relationship between the two brothers, Jack and Richard, although that could be because Heyer was apparently writing this novel to entertain her own younger brother. Jack’s love interest, Diana, is maybe not one of Heyer’s stronger female characters, but I did like her – and was relieved that it wasn’t Lavinia who turned out to be the heroine!

Now that I’ve read The Black Moth, I’m looking forward to reading These Old Shades, which was published several years later and uses updated versions of some of the same characters. It’s one of many Heyer novels I’m hoping to read in 2017!

~

I’m taking a break for a few days, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of my blog readers a Merry Christmas! I’ll be back next week with my books of the year and December summary.

The Girl in the Glass Tower by Elizabeth Fremantle

14 Comments

the-girl-in-the-glass-tower One of the things I like about Elizabeth Fremantle’s historical novels is that they deal with women whose stories aren’t told very often: Penelope Devereux in Watch the Lady, Katherine and Mary Grey in Sisters of Treason and Katherine Parr in Queen’s Gambit. In this, her fourth novel, she writes about two more – Arbella Stuart and Aemilia Lanyer.

The Girl in the Glass Tower is set towards the end of the Elizabethan period, with England waiting anxiously for Elizabeth I, growing old with no children of her own, to name her heir. Born in 1575, Lady Arbella Stuart is the granddaughter of Margaret Douglas, Henry VIII’s niece, and therefore a possible claimant to the throne. Her other grandmother, the formidable and ambitious Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury, is determined to make this possibility a reality – and so Arbella grows up in isolation at Hardwick Hall, sheltered and protected from those who might try to plot against her.

Being close to the throne, however, doesn’t bring Arbella happiness and when her cousin, James VI of Scotland, is finally named as Elizabeth’s successor, she feels that her whole life has been wasted waiting for something that now looks unlikely to happen. Sadly, though, there is still more trouble ahead and when she makes the decision to marry William Seymour, who himself has Tudor blood, Arbella finds herself imprisoned again, this time in the Tower of London.

Arbella’s story alternates with the story of the poet Aemilia Lanyer, author of the poetry collection Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. Aemilia (whom I have read about previously in Dark Aemilia by Sally O’Reilly) is sometimes considered to have been the ‘Dark Lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but this theory is not the focus of this novel, which concentrates on other aspects of Aemilia’s life instead: how she coped financially after the end of her affair with her rich lover, Lord Hunsdon, and the death of her husband, Alfonso; her work as a poet and as a teacher; and her relationship with her son, Henry.

For both women’s stories, Elizabeth Fremantle sticks to the known historical facts as far as possible, but where details are not known – particularly where Aemilia is concerned – she takes the opportunity to use her imagination. There is no evidence that the two women were friends, for example (although they would probably have been at court at the same time and Aemilia did dedicate one of her poems to Arbella), but Fremantle imagines that they were and that their lives became closely linked.

I loved following Arbella’s story – I’d only read about her once before, in Maureen Peters’ The Queenmaker, which is written from Bess of Hardwick’s perspective, so it was interesting to see things from another point of view, with Bess almost as a villain, controlling and manipulating her granddaughter’s life. I found Aemilia’s sections of the book slightly less absorbing, maybe because I didn’t like the device Fremantle uses of having Aemilia looking back on her relationship with Arbella from a point several years into the future. Still, I thought her story worked well alongside Arbella’s and provided an interesting contrast; unlike Arbella, whose destiny is always in the hands of other people, Aemilia has a much greater degree of freedom, her own struggle being mainly for financial independence and the respect of her son.

I also appreciated the way Fremantle pulls aspects of her previous novels together in this one – Penelope Devereux, the Earl of Essex’s sister from Watch the Lady, has a role to play, and the memory of Katherine Grey from Sisters of Treason is a strong presence in Arbella’s life. The Girl in the Glass Tower is a sad novel, but one that I enjoyed reading – and now I’m wondering who Elizabeth Fremantle will choose to write about next.

Merivel: A Man of His Time by Rose Tremain

5 Comments

merivel I wasn’t planning to read Merivel so soon after finishing Rose Tremain’s Restoration, but when I saw a copy on the library shelf a few days later, I couldn’t resist bringing it home so I could catch up with Robert Merivel again and see how he was getting on. I didn’t expect this book to be as good as Restoration, as sequels written many years later often aren’t, so I was surprised to find that I actually preferred this one. Looking at other reviews, I can see that I’m in the minority with that opinion, but I think the reason I liked this book better was because I liked Merivel himself better.

At the beginning of Merivel, our narrator, Robert Merivel, is back at his Norfolk estate of Bidnold, where he returned at the end of Restoration. It’s 1683 and sixteen years have gone by since we last saw him; he’s now a middle-aged man, very aware that time is slipping away and bringing changes to himself and the people around him. His faithful servant, Will, is getting old and is struggling to carry out his duties, while his little girl, Margaret, is now a young lady and planning to spend Christmas in Cornwall with friends. Facing the prospect of being left at home alone, Merivel decides to make the most of the time remaining to him and sets off to Versailles – with a letter of introduction from his friend, King Charles II – in the hope of finding some excitement and intellectual stimulation.

Unfortunately, Versailles fails to live up to Merivel’s expectations; he finds little to admire at the French court and it’s not long before he’s on his way home to England. Apart from a brief romance with an attractive botanist, Louise, and an invitation to visit her at her father’s estate in Switzerland, the only thing Merivel has to show for his time in France is a large bear called Clarendon whom he has rescued from captivity and brought back to Norfolk. On arriving at Bidnold, however, Merivel discovers that he has more to worry about than Louise and his bear: his daughter, Margaret, is seriously ill and requires all of his skills as a physician if she is to survive.

Although there are some humorous scenes in this book, I found this quite a sad and sombre novel, especially in comparison to the liveliness of Restoration. The passing of time is a major theme (it’s no coincidence that Merivel shares lodgings in France with a clockmaker) and there’s always a sense that things are coming to an end, that Will, Merivel – and even the King – won’t live forever. Merivel is not so much searching for his place in the world as he was in the previous book, but trying to understand himself and come to terms with his own nature. He still gets things wrong sometimes, he still makes some poor decisions, and has a tendency to neglect the things that are most important, but he also has a good heart and I found him completely endearing! I remember thinking he was a very frustrating character in Restoration, but in this book I had more patience with him because I could see that he was doing his best.

Merivel is a book with many layers, giving the reader a lot to think about. Even the headings of the four sections – The Great Enormity, The Great Captivity, The Great Consolation and The Great Transition – have a significance which is worth considering. But this is also a very entertaining novel. The pace is quite leisurely, but there’s always something happening: a duel, an encounter with highwaymen, an illness, or a visit from the King. The mood of the late 17th century is captured beautifully; Tremain even gives some of the nouns capital letters to enhance the feeling of authenticity, something which I thought might be irritating at first but which, after a few pages, I decided I liked.

The ending, when it came, was not entirely unexpected, but I was still a bit surprised because I think a lot of authors would have chosen to end Merivel’s story in a different, happier way. Considering the themes of this novel, though, I thought it was the perfect conclusion. I loved revisiting Merivel’s world and I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has read and enjoyed Restoration. It could probably be read as a standalone but I think you’ll get more out of it if you’ve been following Merivel’s story from the beginning.

This book also counts towards my Reading the Walter Scott Prize project. It was shortlisted in 2013.