Elizabeth Hawksley – Page 4 – Elizabeth Hawksley

Georgette Heyer: Why Does Freddy Standen Talk Flash?

I’ve been re-reading Georgette Heyer’s Cotillion and thinking about Freddy. Many readers, I’m sure, agree with Georgette Heyer’s own comment that ‘My dear Freddy is a poppet’ . But, of course, he needs to become a hero, too. We follow his journey from an inarticulate young man of fashion to a man who is capable of sorting out a number of sticky social problems and who will show himself to be the perfect husband for Kitty.

Original cover for ‘Cotillion’

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Souvenir Mugs and Jugs from the Napoleonic Wars

To set the scene: 206 years ago today, on 28^th February, 1815, the ex-emperor of the French, Napoleon Bonaparte, having escaped from exile on the Island of Elba, landed in France and immediately set about reclaiming his throne. His luck was to hold for 100 days. By the beginning of June he had raised 200,000 men, more than enough to match the combined armies of the Britain and her Allies. On 18^th June, 1815 he would face his enemies at Waterloo.

‘British Voluntary Infantry raised 1797’, earthenware plaque, Bristol Water Lane Pottery c. 1801.

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A Visit to the Battersea Dogs’ Home, 1891

The Strand Magazine of June 1891 took its readers to The Home for Lost Dogs which had been started some 30 years before in Miss Mary Tealby’s scullery in Holloway. Miss Tealby’s charity soon outgrew its humble beginnings and, by 1891, the Battersea Dogs’ Home was established and popular enough for Mr George Newnes, The Strand’s editor, to send one of his reporters to write about it, and the artist Mabel D. Hardy accompanied him as illustrator.

‘To the Home for Lost Dogs’ by Mabel Hardy (1868-1937)

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The Magical Mount Stewart Gardens

Today is Valentine’s Day and I want to celebrate it by taking you to what has been voted one of the world’s top ten gardens: Mount Stewart Gardens in Co. Down, Northern Ireland. It was created by Edith, Marchioness of Londonderry from 1921 on as a place to ‘be lived in and enjoyed’.

A garden needs a lot of upkeep as represented here by the full wheelbarrow. Lady Londonderry loved splashes of colour – the more brilliant the better.

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A Red Letter Day

About a month ago, a letter fell onto my doormat which completely knocked me for six. It was from my agent at Johnson & Alcock and I hadn’t heard from them for over 10 years. They hadn’t published a book of mine since Highland Summer came out with Robert Hale in 2003 so why had they written to me now? It didn’t even look like the previous letters I’d had from Johnson & Alcock – the heading was far classier, for a start. For a mad moment, I wondered if it might be a scam.

Elizabeth giving a talk at Caerleon

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My e-book launch of ‘The Girl who Liked Giraffes ‘

Today, I’m celebrating the e-book launch on 1st February of The Girl Who Liked Giraffes which was originally published under the title A Desperate Remedy. I thought of naming this blog A Tale of Two Titles. I had wanted to call it The Girl Who Liked Giraffes; I ran it past my Creative Writing students at the College of Further Education where I taught; they loved the title. I then ran it past my G.C.S.E English Language and my ‘A’ level English students – and they, too, liked it. But my publisher, Robert Hale, didn’t. Mr Hale want Heiress at Risk. I found myself thinking crossly that Heiress at Risk was a one size fits all sort of title – it could apply to a number of my books – Frost Fair, say. Eventually, I pinched Thomas Hardy’s title Desperate Remedies, and offered Mr Hale A Desperate Remedy (fortunately there’s no copyright on titles) and he accepted it.

Cover for my e-book The Girl Who Liked Giraffes. The four giraffes arrived in London in 1836

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Five Writing Tips for Getting Unstuck

Stuck with your novel? All of us get stuck from time to time; so this is for those occasions when you re-read a piece of writing and you know there is something wrong with it but you are not sure what it is.

Victorian inkwell

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The Queen’s Gallery: Judith and Holofernes

The story of Judith and Holofernes from the Old Testament inspired a number of Renaissance artists, Cristofano Allori and Artemisia Gentileschi among them, to paint the beautiful Jewish heroine, Judith, chopping off the head of Holofernes, the Assyrian General who had been sent by King Nebuchadnezzar to conquer Palestine. Sex and violence, as ever, proved to be a popular mix – and very sellable.

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Learning the Language – a short story by Elizabeth Hawksley

I’ve always thought of my parents as lost souls. My mother, age about two, was brought to a British refugee camp in Burma at the end of the war. My father was a year or so older when he was found by American soldiers wandering alone in the ruins of a burnt-out village in Eastern Europe in 1945. Neither of them had names or nationalities; they were just part of the human debris of the war. All that was known was that he was probably Polish and that she might be half-Burmese.

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Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 novel The Secret Garden was described by the writer Marghanita Laski as ‘the most satisfying children’s book I know.’ I first read it when I was about 8 and I continued to read it throughout my childhood – and I still read it from time to time – always with pleasure. Interestingly, back in 1911, the book did not make much impression on the public (it wasn’t even mentioned in the author’s obituary in The Times in 1924) but gradually, over the years, it has acquired a host of devoted readers – including myself. It is now viewed as her masterpiece.

Frontispiece: Mary discovers the doorknob to the Secret Garden

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