Following my characters through London

This blog has been on a brief hiatus while my husband and I visited the cities of London and Bristol for our fifteenth wedding anniversary. Of course, this was also a significant Research Opportunity, and I felt it necessary to follow as best I could in the footsteps of Jas. Hook as he shows Vivian Drew the sights of London. From the approach through Tower Bridge (though we saw it from a river tour boat, rather than arriving from the other direction aboard a tall ship) we went,

to the Savoy Hotel on the Strand in Central London, overlooking the Embankment and the Thames River, tracing the path of the characters in The Stowaway.

The Savoy is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year, and was refurbished earlier this century to include both art deco and Edwardian style. The main dining room, where Vivian and James dine, is now Kaspar's, which serves fantastic seafood. The restaurant also continues to serve its traditional pêche Melba, peaches with vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce. Rather than being served with a sculpted-ice swan, as it was when it was created in 1892, today's version includes a "white chocolate sphere," which melts when topped with the warm sauce.

The redecorated room includes a new "winter garden gazebo," but is still recognizable as the venue for this 1907 New Year's Eve celebration.

James's family keeps a townhouse in Mayfair (much to Vivian's disappointment, as she expected a grand house on a large property). Mayfair is now under a great deal of construction, and many of its homes are now owned by absentee billionaires from other countries.

The National Gallery, however, is much the same, down to the paintings by J.M.W. Turner,

and so is the quick walk along wide, pale paving stones to the nearby Haymarket Theatre Royal. Noted actress Lillie Langtry was appearing in a scandalous comedy called A Fearful Joy in 1908, whereas we saw a production of Great Britain, a satire of tabloid culture and the Rupert Murdoch newspaper phone-tapping scandal. 

One of the advantages of writing about a city so rich in history is the knowledge that so many of the places my characters visit are the same, or nearly the same, now. I could easily summon Vivian's delight in the landmarks she had never expected to visit Of course there was no Millenium Wheel in 1908, or--I suspect--a blue rooster on a plinth in Trafalgar Square.

The ruination of my reading

I have always been an inveterate reader. Nothing altered that, not the passage of years or changes in my life, however substantial--until I became serious about writing. I truly believe reading is essential for good writing, but now I must devote my time to the creation of stories, and hope I did enough reading in past years to make up for the lack now.

Which is not to say I no longer read, but that I no longer grab up any book that looks like it might be interesting, or follow lists of what's new and notable. My reading now tends more and more to fall into various categories of research. (And this aside from pure research books, like guides to ship rigging or celestial navigation). Mind you, the categories are flexible, and I'm certain I'm still learning from the experts as well as enjoying filling in the information I require, but the categories of interest have certainly narrowed. Some apply more specifically than others, but all give me at least a sense of background or a flavor of a time and/or place that's relevant to The Stowaway.

On my current To Be Read list, in either paper or Kindle format (occasionally both), by the aforementioned category:

Edwardian:

• Coral Island, J. Michael Ballantyne (an influence on J.M. Barrie)
• The Journal of a Disappointed Man, Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion (you may be relieved to know that is the nom de plume of a man actually named Bruce Frederick Cummings)
• The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins (because I need to know if it really is likely to be Vivian's favorite book)
• Girl of the Limberlost, Gene Stratton-Porter 

Sadly, neither my paper nor electronic copy looks
like this. Would that one of them did.

Nautical:

• Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
• Ahab's Wife, Sena Jeter Naslund
• Evolution's Captain, Peter Nichols (the clash of science and religion in the era preceding and influencing the Edwardians, ships)
• The Navigator of New York, Wayne Johnston (polar exploration and ships)
• Master and Commander and Post Captain, by Patrick O'Brian (along with Sea of Words--at a whopping 400-plus pages--a companion glossary compiled by Dean King with John B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes). I have the DVD of the first novel too, and I'm planning to immerse myself in a Master and Commander weekend before too much longer.

Erich Lessing in John Huston's 1954 film of Moby-Dick. This
 would make me want to read the book if I hadn't already decided to.

England:

• Thames: The Biography, Peter Ackroyd
• Imagined London, Anna Quindlen

The Amazon/City of Manaus:

• The River That God Forgot, Richard Collier
• The Sea and the Jungle, Henry Major Tomlinson
• The Naturalist on the River Amazon, Henry Walter Bates
• State of Wonder, Ann Patchett

Miscellaneous

• The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us, James W. Pennebaker (because I want to make sure I don't get James's speech wrong)

So how am I doing with all this? Well, um, I'm a third of the way through Moby-Dick and halfway through The River That God Forgot, and I've started Imagined London and Thames: A Biography. And I've read a few books that don't appear on the list. Possibly I am going to start to need to block out more designated reading time, which will include pushing those ever-present temptations of Twitter and Tumblr off to the side of the map.

Edward Gorey had the truth of it.

But lest you think I've forgone all recreational reading, I've read almost the entire Inspector Lynley series by Elizabeth George this year, thirteen volumes so far. (And some of them are long!) Of course they are set in locations around England, thereby possibly qualifying them as, er, research...

Research win (or is that grin?)

This has been sitting on the "to do" pile for a while, and I am deeply relieved the conundrum has been resolved as well as it seems to have been.

I needed a church and a swanky address a long walk's distance apart. And here we have St. Mary Abbots,

which looks exactly inside as I'd wanted it to

and is a 40-minute walk from Mayfair,

where Vivian realizes she may not prefer posh city living, adjoining "secret gardens" notwithstanding, to the crumbling family estate. In fact, that walk could easily take an hour if one were to dawdle on the Serpentine Bridge between Kensington and Hyde Parks, allowing other mourners to reach the funeral reception well before the protagonists do.

I like the idea of including the bridge, as the Serpentine Swimming Club awards the Peter Pan Cup to the winner of a 100-yard race every Christmas morning. The race has been held since 1864, and the original prize was a gold medal, but in 1904--the year "Peter Pan" made its theatrical appearance--our friend Mr. Barrie inaugurated the award that is still presented today. Admittedly, anything that takes place in Kensington Park is likely to be related to Peter Pan, but it's still fun.