Sphinx Rising

article and fine historical fiction

2006-05-24T16:07:00.000+01:00

I just started Jane Harris' debut novel, THE OBSERVATIONS, and have fallen in love. This book truly lives up to its accolades.

Also, I have an article on long range writing goals up on Media Bistro:

http://www.mediabistro.com/mbtoolbox/

Review!

2006-05-19T23:18:00.000+01:00

This review from MINNESOTA MAGAZINE was so wonderful!

Mystery and Intrigue in the New World

In 1689, May Powers set sail for the New World, leaving behind her life in England, as well as her reputation as a brazen and wanton young woman. In America, she was to settle down and become respectable. She was to marry a man she'd never met--Gabriel, a plantation owner and the young son of a distant cousin.

Three years later, her little sister, Hannah, set off to join her. All brain where May was all heart, Hannah was her father's daughter. She had learned the craft of medicine by going with him on his rounds and was secretly practiced as a healer and a surgeon. She took with her to America her late father's surgical kit, a supply of healing herbs, and a strong hope that the new land would allow her and her sister to live the lives they were meant to live.

But the new world was no more enlightened than the old world. May's first encounter upon disembarking was with a group of people jeering a woman who was being dragged behind a boat. The torture--the woman nearly drowned--was punishment for adultery. Hannah's first encounter was with a family whose father was suffering terribly from kidney stones. Her shy offer of medical help was met with horror at her impropriety.

Mary Sharratt's new novel, The Vanishing Point, is a page-turner, a mystery, a quietly feminist tale, and a richly researched historical novel with ever-unfolding plot twists. An author's note indicates that Sharratt, who also wrote Summit Avenue and The Real Minerva, spent 10 years researching the medicine and mores of the 17th century, and her expertise is evident. Her hand is sure as she guides us through the story, sprinking confident and casual references to birth control (did you know that honey kills sperm?), and healing herbs, and the Diggers and Levelers, English rebel groups who sought an end to feudal ways.

The Vanishing Point is also an examination of love, loyalty, and betrayal.

Hannah and her trunk eventually make it up the river to May's new home, but once there she finds that nothing was as she had expected. There was no plantation, just a rough cabin in the forest. The seven hired men the cousin had spoken of weren't there--no one was there except for Gabriel. May herself had vanished, and Gabriel told Hannah that she and their baby had died in childbirth.

There is no way for Hannah to leave, and during the weeks that follow--as Gabriel builds a dugout canoe to take her back down the river--the two fall in love. Gabriel is a mountain man with long hair and buckskin clothing. He clearly guards his thoughts and feelings, and it appears he has something to hide. But something in his gentle and vulnerable nature appeals to Hannah, and once the canoe is ready, she decides, instead, to stay.

Over time, the stories around May's death change, and change again, and Hannah fights growing doubt and guilt. Is it right to have found happiness with her dead sister's husband? What if he had been the cause of May's death? She finally realizes she must choose between her love for Gabriel, and her loyalty to her sister's memory. Which will win? And is May really dead? And if she is, how did she die?

The plot questions will keep you reading. But Sharratt's underlying message will keep you thinking long after the questions are answered.

Laurie Hertzel

Latest on the Living History Tour

2006-04-29T00:25:00.000+01:00

I have some new dates and venues to add to my upcoming Living History Tour for The Vanishing Point in June.

Since it's a Living History Tour, I will be wearing authentic 17th century costume. As a special treat, at each of my bookstore readings, I will be raffling free copies of The Vanishing Point to people who also turn up in 17th century costume. This should be fun to see how many re-enactment fans and history people come out of the woodwork!

(Obviously I can only do this at regular bookstores, not at the living history sites and museums where everybody is walking around in costume! One free book will be raffled at each bookstore event.)

5:00 Friday, June 9: Bay Books, California, MD

1:00 Saturday, June 10: Mystery Loves Company Bookstore,Baltimore, MD

11:00 Sunday, June 11: Annapolis Visitors Center, Annapolis, MD

2:00 Sunday, June 11: The Compleat Bookseller, Chestertown, MD

1:00 Monday, June 12: Bowes Books, Lexington Park, MD

7:00 Tuesday, June 13: Chapters: A Literary Bookstore, Washington, DC

7:00 Wednesday, June 14: Robins Books, Philadelphia, PA

4:30 Thursday, June 15: Hard Beans & Books, Annapolis, MD

5:00 Friday, June 16: Book Crossing, Brunswick, MD

11:00 Saturday, June 17: Historic St. Mary's City, St. Mary's City, MD

4:00 Saturday, June 17: Colonial Williamsburg Museum Bookstore, Williamsburg, VA

12:00 Sunday, June 18: Jamestown Settlement Museum Bookstore, Jamestown, VA

4:00 Sunday, June 18: William & Mary College Bookstore, Williamsburg VA

7:00 Tuesday, June 20: Merriam Park Library, St. Paul, MN

7:00 Wednesday, June 21: Micawber's Bookstore, St. Paul, MN

7:00 Thursday, June 22: Amazon Coop Bookstore, Minneapolis, MN

7:30 Friday, June 23: Majors & Quinn, Minneapolis, MN

7:00 Saturday, June 24: Northern Lights, Duluth, MN

tba Sunday, June 25: Drury Lane Books, Grand Marais, MN

7:30 Wednesday, June 28: Barnes & Noble, Edina Galleria, Edina, MN

Guest Blog: Debra Hamel

2006-04-18T00:40:00.000+01:00

Part III: WOMEN IN ANCIENT ATHENS

Whatever Apollodorus had to say about Neaira, however many half truths he conjured in court in his bid to convict her, Neaira herself could say nothing. As a woman, she was not allowed to speak in court. Instead, as I've already mentioned, she was represented by Stephanos, the Athenian citizen with whom she'd been living for some thirty years.

One interesting thing about Apollodorus's speech against Neaira is that he's forever referring to her by name. This is interesting because it wasn't the done thing: women, in ancient Greece, were supposed to be, to a great extent, invisible. In his famous Funeral Oration, which was preserved in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenian statesman Pericles says that women achieve glory by being the least talked about among men. We have numerous examples in the Athenian court speeches of litigants referring to women but going to great lengths to avoid using their actual names. A woman might be referred to as the daughter of
Theodotos, wife of Eukrates, for example, but she probably won't be mentioned by name--unless she isn't, or the speaker wants to suggest that she isn't, a respectable woman. Neaira had sold herself on the streets, as it were, for decades. She'd been the "entertainment" at male drinking parties. Apollodorus doesn't seem to have had any qualms at all about naming Neaira: he does so more than fifty times in his speech.

That women couldn't speak in court in Athens is hardly surprising. While it's not correct to say that women weren't citizens--they were--it's certainly the case that women's rights were restricted. They did not vote or otherwise take part in Athens' political life. (But of course this was true of modern democracies until very recently, so we should not fault Athens for failing to be millennia ahead of its time.) Rather, women--traditionally employed women, that is, as opposed to prostitutes--were active in the domestic sphere. They remained in their homes, spinning wool, overseeing the slaves, and attending to the very many chores that needed doing in the pre-industrial home. It was not a small responsibility.

Readers will perhaps have heard that ancient Greek women were confined to their homes, in essence segregated from men. To an extent, this is true. There were separate women's and men's quarters in Greek homes, and women were for the most part expected to stay apart from men who were not their relatives. On the other hand, their social lives are likely to have been more full than references to "segregation" suggest. Women gossipped with their neighbors and attended religious festivals. They grieved for their dead at funerals. And poorer women whose husbands could not afford to keep their wives cooped up away from prying male eyes will of
necessity have attended to errands outside the home. Some of them even managed to have affairs...

My job in writing Trying Neaira was to tell Neaira's story as well as I could, using as my primary piece of evidence a speech that was biased against her and that was composed and delivered by an oily lawyer-type who was not above misleading his audience. Complicating the task was the fact that Neaira herself can have left no testimony, and that women in general in ancient Greece were more or less mute as far as contributing to the historical record goes. One cannot expect from a history of this period the sort of detailed account that histories of later, better documented eras can offer. Not if you're reading nonfiction, at any rate: it remains for someone more talented than I to take up Neaira's fascinating life story and flesh it out more fully than our sources allowed me.

Mary Bryant: The Girl from Botany Bay

2006-04-18T00:28:00.000+01:00

ITV aired a very moving historical drama based on the life of Mary Bryant, 18th century convict, transported to a penal colony in Australia for the crime of stealing a lady's cloak in order to feed her family. Later Mary organised an escape: she, her convict husband, two young children, and several male convicts stole a boat and escaped all the way to East Timor, thousands of miles away.

More about Mary's story

More about the ITV drama

Yet another Sarah!

2006-04-09T10:36:00.000+01:00

Sarah Dunant's new novel, In the Company of the Courtesan, is taking the U.S. bestseller lists by storm. Thanks to Sandra Gulland for the link.

Sarah Dunant: Renaissance Woman

The Holy Sarah Trinity

2006-04-08T23:29:00.000+01:00

Three of the most active and enthusiastic champions of Historical Fiction happen to be named Sarah and they all have wonderful sites that are must-visits.

Sarah L. Johnson is now Editor-in-Chief of the Historical Novels Review. A professional librarian and highly insightful reviewer, she has also written a nonfiction book on the genre. Her excellent blog can be found here: Reading the Past

Sarah Park Rankin's delightful Historical Fiction site features reviews, interviews, and original short stories. Not to be missed: Pipes and Timbrels

I first met Sarah Cuthbertson when taking over as Reviews Editor for her at the Historical Novels Review. Little did I suspect what a tough act she would be to follow. Sarah now publishes a regular email newsletter on all breaking news and reviews in the Historical Fiction world and her blog should be bookmarked by everyone. Sarah is a Goddess and I am in awe: Sarah's Bookarama

Guest Blog by Debra Hamel

2006-04-08T23:06:00.000+01:00

Part II: ANCIENT HISTORY AND SOURCE MATERIAL

I wrote Trying Neaira because I wanted to introduce readers who are not familiar with the ancient world to some of the more interesting aspects of classical Greek, and especially Athenian, society. I use the case of Neaira as a prism through which to view her world. Neaira's story is particularly suited to this task. In part, frankly, that's just because a relatively large amount of information about her survives, but it's also because her life story, as interesting as it is, touches on so many topics--the role of women in Greece at the time, the sex trade, religious practices, inheritance and citizenship issues, and the peculiarities of Greek law. Lest you think that the last is a dry subject, know that the "peculiarities" to which I refer include the right of an aggrieved husband to introduce a large radish into the anus of his wife's paramour should he come upon the two in flagrante delicto. Seriously.

Thus, unpacking Neaira's life proves very illuminating.

Relatively illuminating, at least. Because in telling Neaira's story I was of course limited by the source material I had to work with.

Before I got the idea for a book about Neaira I'd had it in mind that I'd like to write a popular history on some Greek subject. But I had pretty much despaired of ever doing so. I've read some wonderful popular history set in more recent periods--Eric Jager's The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France springs to mind as an excellent example of the genre. But historians and authors writing these slices of relatively modern social history have much more evidence to go on, usually, than ancient historians have. Medievalists, for heaven's sake, sometimes have lengthy private letters to work with! So, lacking that kind of source material, I figured I would never be able to write such a book myself. One day, though, with thoughts of popular histories still haunting the back of my mind, I had one of the few lightbulb moments of my life. I was reading a blurb on the back of a book--someone commenting on how interesting social history was being written about trials--and it hit me at once that the case against Neaira might just be able to sustain a book-length narrative, given that one would have to explain a good deal of background information in order to tell Neaira's story to a non-specialist audience. I started working on the book the next day.

While we know far more about Neaira than about most ancient Greek women, the infomation we have is stll quite limited. As the above summary of my book (see Part I: WHO AM I AND WHY AM I HERE?)suggests, the speech that the prosecutor in Neaira's case,Apollodoros, delivered against her in court survives. Unfortunately we do not have the defense speech, which Stephanos (Neaira's Significant Other) will have delivered on Neaira's behalf. Naturally I used other sources in writing my book to round out my account, to provide the social, legal, and historical context of Neaira's story. But apart from scattered references in other sources, nothing terribly detailed, our main source of information about Neaira's life is the text of Apollodorus' speech, an undeniably biased document.

The hardest part about writing Trying Neaira was trying to wrestle the truth from Apollodorus' speech. This is made difficult not only because we don't have access to Stephanos' counter-arguments, but also because the logistics of Athenian trials gave Apollodorus a lot of wiggle room when it came to telling the truth. Neaira's case will have been heard in a single day by a jury of some 501 Athenian male citizens. There was no professional judge overseeing the case, no debate among the jurors prior to giving their verdict, no review of the evidence presented. Jurors processed information about the accused at the speed of speech. Thus litigants who could make an argument sound good for the duration of a day's trial--whether or not that argument could stand up to scrutiny upon reconsideration--were at an advantage. Apollodorus was a litigious man with a lot of experience in courtroom speaking. Many of his arguments in fact don't stand up to scrutiny. Some of them don't make sense. Some of them are irrelevant. But bellowed out by a convincing speaker in an Athenian lawcourt, in front of hundreds of hungry jurors who were eager to collect their pay and get home, his arguments may indeed have seemed reasonable enough. Unfortunately we don't know how his speech was received, whether Neaira was found guilty of the charges against her and sold back into slavery (the likely result had she lost the case), or if she was able to live out the rest of her life peacefully with Stephanos. That the outcome of the case is unknown is disappointing, but it is hardly surprising given the nature of our sources from the period.

Guest Blog by Debra Hamel

2006-03-29T12:10:00.000+01:00

Part I: WHO AM I AND WHY AM I HERE?

You may well be asking yourself just that because the blog you're standing in, Mary Sharratt's Sphinx Rising, is devoted to historical fiction and the strong female protagonists therein. I haven't written any historical fiction, or published any other kind of fiction, for that matter. But Mary thought it mightn't be a terrible thing to include the occasional mention of nonfiction on her blog. So I'm in.

In my book Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003; ISBN 0300107633) I tell the story of a woman, Neaira (pronounced "neh-EYE-ruh"), who was put on trial in Athens in the 340's B.C. when she was in her fifties. She had been a high-class prostitute (a "hetaira") earlier in her life, but prostitution was not illegal in Athens and it was not the reason she was tried. Indeed, the offense for which she was hauled into court was not on the face of it a particularly interesting one: the claim was that Neaira was a non-citizen (which was certainly true, and no one was contesting the fact) and that she had broken the law by living with an Athenian citizen as his wife rather than, say, as merely a concubine: marriages between citizens and non-citizens were illegal at the time, while less formal relationships were unproblematic.

But in trying to prove Neaira guilty of the charges against her...or perhaps I should say, in trying to prejudice the jurors against Neaira so that they'd vote against her for some reason, the prosecutor in the case--a certain Apollodoros--wound up dragging into his speech all manner of dirt. Thus we learn about Neaira's early life in a brothel, and about her stint as the sex slave of two joint owners, and it is alleged that Stephanos, the man with whom she supposedly lived as a wife, pimped her out to other men even after she had bought her freedom and settled down with him. We're also told a great deal about Phano, who was either the daughter of Neaira or of Stephanos (or both), and who reportedly followed Neaira's example when it came to behaving licentiously. Apollodoros used all of this back-story to make his case that Neaira was not an Athenian citizen, a charge, as I said above, that no one was denying. When it came to proving his second point, that Neaira had acted as if married to Stephanos, the prosecutor was on far shakier ground.

Apollodoros himself may not have believed that Neaira was guilty of the charge leveled against her. He and Stephanos had been enemies for some time, and part of their feud, at least, had been playing itself out on Athens' legal stage. Stephanos had attacked Apollodoros in court at least twice before, on one occasion actually prosecuting him for murder. In bringing a case against Neaira, an innocent bystander in his feud with Stephanos, Apollodoros was merely seeking vengeance. If she was found guilty by the jurors, so much the better, but harassing Stephanos by making him prepare a defense and by disrupting his home life may have been its own reward.

Gearing up for The Living History Tour

2006-03-23T19:56:00.000Z

In June, to celebrate the publication The Vanishing Point, a literary novel of dark suspense set in 17th century Maryland, I will be going on an extensive tour of Living History Museums and quality bookstores in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and my native Minnesota.

If all goes well with the costume designer, I'll be appearing in authentic 17th century garb. (The image on the cover isn't quite true to the period--more pre-Raphaelite, actually!)

I spent 10 years researching this book, visiting the very sites I'll be returning to on my tour, so I'm very excited.

The dates thus far:

1:00 Saturday, June 10: Mystery Loves Company Bookstore,
Baltimore, MD

11:00 Sunday, June 11: Annapolis Visitors Center, Annapolis, MD

2:00 Sunday, June 11: The Compleat Bookseller, Chestertown, MD

1:00 Monday, June 12: Bowes Books, Lexington Park, MD

7:00 Tuesday, June 13: Chapters: A Literary Bookstore, Washington, DC

7:00 Wednesday, June 14: Robins Books, Philadelphia, PA

4:30 Thursday, June 15: Hard Beans & Books, Annapolis, MD

5:00 Friday, June 16: Book Crossing, Brunswick, MD

11:00 Saturday, June 17: Historic St. Mary's City, St. Mary's City, MD

4:00 Saturday, June 17: Colonial Williamsburg Museum Bookstore, Williamsburg, VA

12:00 Sunday, June 18: Jamestown Settlement Museum Bookstore, Jamestown, VA

4:00 Sunday, June 18: William & Mary College Bookstore, Williamsburg VA

7:00 Tuesday, June 20: Merriam Park Library, St. Paul, MN

7:00 Wednesday, June 21: Micawber's Bookstore, St. Paul, MN

7:00 Thursday, June 22: Amazon Coop Bookstore, Minneapolis, MN

Guest Blog by Susanne Dunlap

2006-03-20T16:43:00.000Z

I have a confession to make. I have to be writing something, all the time. While I've been waiting for my editor's feedback on my upcoming book (Liszt's Kiss, due out from Simon & Schuster March, 2007), I've been working feverishly on another book, which is a little bit of a departure for me.

Its working title is The Heretic's Song, and it's been quite a project.My struggles have to do with several different things: the fact that the average reader knows very little about the period or the place-- 13th century southern France (more on that later); the dearth of documentary evidence of how people lived on a daily basis; using language that is vibrant and fresh, but does not introduce words that didn't come into being until well after the 13th century (thank the Lord for the OED online).

But most of all, there's the music. My angle on historical fiction is musical. In other words, my characters are musicians and composers, and the musical culture of the time is important to the plot. It was actually an idea about music that led me to this book. The unique culture of the Midi at this time (a loose collection of counties and baronies and fiefs, some tied to the kingdom of France, others to Aragon) included the courtly love lyric of the troubadours. These sung poems could be simple declarations of love, or they could be lengthy written conversations between two lovers, or adversaries. Much of the literature was written by women-- the Trobairitz-- and much of it was also highly topical. The church, politics, the nobility were all occasionally skewered, especially in the sirventes, a very complex poetical form.

The challenge with The Heretic's Song has been that the music associated with these lyrics is almost unknown to modern ears, little of it is written down, and no one really knows how it was performed (a capella? melody doubled by a vielle? rhythm beat on a drum?). In the other two books, I had music to listen to and scores to read. Although there are plenty of recordings that give their best guess, it is just a guess.

I've been fortunate in having some generous souls help fill in some of the gaps in my own knowledge, but most of all I've read copiously, more than for either of the other two books, or the one that so far has not been published (Love in Excess, about the novelist Eliza Haywood and a foiled plot in the Jacobite rebellion of 1745). At this moment my bibliography is at 35 actual books and growing, not counting the articles read and online sources consulted.

I don't think I'll be able to find answers that scholars have been searching for decades to clarify, but I think I'll be able to live with myself if at least I've left no stone unturned. It has truly been an incredible journey doing the research for this book. Aside from the musical and poetic background, the politics, the religion, the astounding cultural richness of the time and place have all inspired me.

What's the moral of this little piece? Be careful of biting off more than you can chew, I suppose. But if you do, be prepared to throw your heart and soul into it. I think it will be both difficult and a great relief to get back to the 19th century when I start the editing process on Liszt's Kiss. To close, I'll confess something else though: I've fallen in love with the period and place, and am finding it much easier than I thought it would be to populate it with characters who engage me.

Wish me luck!

The Challenge of Research

2006-03-06T18:27:00.000Z

Sandra Gulland's fictional trilogy about the life of Josephine Bonaparte is an international bestseller. Her website is a fabulous resource for writers researching the 18th century and the Napoleonic era. In this lovely essay, she describes the challenge of writing about such a monumental figure.

Animating History: The Challenge of Writing an Historical Novel About Josephine

March is National Women's History Month

2006-03-06T18:12:00.000Z

Here is a great link:

The History of Women's History

Historical Fiction's Finest: THE CONJUROR'S BIRD

2006-02-25T14:05:00.000Z

THE CONJUROR’S BIRD
Martin Davies, Hodder & Stoughton, 2005, £12.99, hb, 309pp, 0340896167/ £10.99, pb, 0340896175
Pub. in the US as The Conjurer’s Bird, Shaye Areheart, 2006, $24.00, hb, 1400097339

Like A.S. Byatt’s novel Possession, Martin Davies’ The Conjuror’s Bird is a literary thriller. The book weaves together past and present in a spellbinding double narrative of contemporary conservationists and thwarted 18th century lovers. Fitz, once on the verge of breakthrough in the scientific world, is summoned by his ex-wife to track down the long lost Bird of Ulieta, which was sighted on Cook’s 1774 expedition to the South Seas. A single specimen of the bird was brought back to England. Then both the bird species and the specimen vanished.

Fitz immerses himself in the life of Sir Joseph Banks, famous 18th century naturalist and one-time owner of the bird specimen. Soon Fitz finds himself enchanted by the figure of Banks’ elusive mistress, who disappeared out of history without so much as leaving her name behind. It becomes clear that this woman is the key to finding out what happened to the specimen. Meanwhile the stakes are raised when Fitz’s ex-wife reveals the true and murky purpose behind the search. Fitz encounters fierce competition and fights foul play. In the end, he must become a conjuror and trickster to ward off unscrupulous competitors hot on the trail of the bird.

Davies’ writing is elegant and lyrical. He paints an arresting portrait of Banks’ shadowy mistress, a woman whose ambitions and yearnings place her centuries ahead of her time. A haunting story, highly recommended. --Mary Sharratt

This review appeared in the February 2006 issue of The Historical Novels Review.

Guest Blog: Endless Research by Susanne Dunlap

2006-02-20T23:59:00.000Z

If there's one thing I dread, it's that question people like to ask about writing historical novels, "Do readers contact you telling you that some fact is wrong in your books?"

When asked, I tend to dismiss it by saying, "Readers understand that we're writing fiction. But obvious anachronisms are irritating, and a scrupulous writer of historical fiction does her utmost to avoid them."

All well and good. But when you're writing about the way life was for women-- especially when they're not famous women about whom lots has been written-- being even in the ballpark of truthful and factual can be especially challenging. As Mary said in her introduction to this forum, women are not well documented in history. Sure, there are guidelines about costume, and the wonderful series A History of Private Life which sheds much-needed light on the domestic world, the primary province of women. There is also the wonderful series A History of Women, edited by Duby and Perrot.

Yet historians have really only scratched the surface of women's history. The farther back you go in time, the harder it is. In recent years, feminist history has taken a new look at much of this area of the past that has been deemed by the historical canon to be of little account. The "Great Men" approach to history didn't leave room for much besides the odd anecdote about family life.

That historical everyday, that milieu that I wonder about, trying to put myself back in time to feel what it must have been like to be a woman then, is utterly beguiling to me. The great men-- even the great women-- don't interest me nearly as much. So I'm always on the lookout for new sources on the periods in which I work that might flesh out that hazy view.

Unfortunately, I live in fear that only after a book is published I'll discover some perfect source that would have given me valuable material for my setting, and that exposes what I've done as largely patched together from hints and inferences. Something like that happened to me with my first book. A huge, encyclopedic tome about the world of Marc-Antoine Charpentier was self-published by a scholar whose Web site I knew of and had visited. It would have been useful to have that source when I could still do some rewriting.

But, but. I read on, and hope that even if I don't get it completely right, I'll create a convincing enough picture of female life to elucidate it for my readers. And there's always the next book. . .

Susanne Dunlap
www.emiliesvoice.com

The Sphinx

2006-02-15T14:15:00.000Z

The Sphinx is a mythic and fabulous creature with the head of a woman, the body of a lion, and the wings of a bird. She is a figure of wisdom and mystery and sets riddles for the querent to answer. She knows all the secrets lost in the dust of history. The time has come to reawaken the Sphinx, listen to her riddles, and use her gifts to untangle the web of mystery and misconceptions about women in history.

To a large extent, women have been written out of history. Their lives and deeds have become lost to us, as irrevocably as the ancient library of Alexandria, lost in flames and gone forever. To uncover buried lore, we must act as detectives. Study the sparse clues handed down to us. Learn to read between the lines, fill in the gaps.

My fascination with women's history and with trying to recapture the lives that went undocumented led me to become a historical novelist. I wanted to tell the tales and celebrate the women that history books forgot. My heroines are often working class women. Hired girls and immigrant millworkers. Or frontier women and indentured servants. I have been inspired by authors such as Clare Dudman, whose beautiful novel, 98 Reasons for Being, illuminates the experience of a young Jewish girl in a 19th century Frankfurt mental hospital. A dry case study becomes alive, the subject given a voice.

Other historical novelists give us a fresh and empowered view of well known historical figures. Sandra Gulland's meticulously researched Josephine Bonaparte Trilogy captures the soul of her subject in the way few history books ever could. Philippa Gregory resurrects Anne and Mary Boleyn to stunning effect in The Other Boleyn Girl. Paul Anderson paints an unforgettable portrait of Juana Ines de la Cruz, 17th century Mexican poet, in his epic novel Hunger's Brides.

The Sphinx is rising. She will speak if we listen. Let us begin.