Megan Eccles mentioned on Twitter that she had named her son after Vincent. I was at a point where I needed Vincent’s full name so I asked what her son’s middle name is. One of those … one of those names is his.
Michael Livingston (for the longtime readers, yes, that’s the man I named Captain Livingston after) is a medieval literature professor who I turn to when I need help with archaic language. In this case, it was attempting to come up with a term for ultraviolet light. In real history, UV was recognized in 1801 by German physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter as “oxidizing rays.” So, theoretically, I had a perfectly good period word to use. But … but, my theory was that in a world where glamour works, people would have known about ultraviolet much earlier. After tossing around a couple of different ideas, Michael offered “porphyry” as a possibility. This was perfect, because it corrupted so easily into “poorfire,” which was a great word for a light that makes things glow.
My husband, Rob, who is my muse, has been wonderfully supportive and lets me talk through plot problems when I am stuck. He doesn’t offer answers, but he knows all the right questions to ask.
My agent, Jennifer Jackson, and first reader, Michael Curry, deserve especial thanks this time. During the research process, I realized that the ending I had planned was not going to work. Not in a billion, billion years. We sat over dinner and hashed out possible alternates. Jenn pointed out that the thing I keep returning to in these novels are the personal stakes and relationships. Rather than making the conflict larger, I made it smaller and more personal. Otherwise, you would be reading about a rebellion.
Likewise, my editor, Liz Gorinsky, always makes my books better, but with this one, when I was at the mid-point, I realized that my new ending would also not work. She helped talk me through the reasons that it was a problem and figure out what I needed to do to fulfill the promises I’d set up at the beginning.
Many thanks to my assistant, Beth Bernier Pratt, who keeps me from double-booking myself and generally makes the world a much better place.
Thanks also to my beta readers: Alycia, Amanda Jensen, Amber Hancock, Andy Rogers, Annalee Flower Horne, Anne, Beth Matthews, Bonnie Fox, Caroline, Carrie Sessarego, Charlotte Cunningham, Chloe, Chris M., Chris Russo, ChristonJP, Darci Cole, David Wohlreich, Denelian, Elizabeth Lefebvre, Faith, Furecha, Gloria Magid, Halley Ruiz, Hilde Austlid, Hope Romero, Jessica James, Jill, Joan, John Casey, John Devenny, Jon Marcus, Julia Rios, Justin Clement, Karen, Kassie Jennings, Katherine Boothby, Kathleen Ladislaus, Katie, Laura Christensen, Lilia Visser, Mark Lindberg, Mary Alice Kropp, Matt, Melissa Tomlin, Mrs. Arkban, Nina Niskanen, Nonny Blackthorne, Norma, Pat, Patrick, Rae Nudson, Ryan LeDuc, Sally, Sara Couture, Sara Glassman, Serge Broom, Siddhartha, Stephanie McDaniel, Tanya Kucak, Terry, Tracy Erickson, Trish E. M., and Tyler Kraha.
I wrote great chunks of this book at Letizia’s Natural Bakery in Chicago, where they would let me camp for hours. Always friendly, and they have excellent pastries.
My parents and my husband’s parents are wonderful people and both sets recently celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversaries. So, unlike poor Vincent but like Jane, I have had excellent examples of loving families. I am grateful for them.
Also, my brother, Steve—excuse me, I mean Dr. Stephen K. Harrison—who, by virtue of getting his PhD in history, gave me something to try to one-up. Affectionate sibling rivalry is a great motivator. Five novels, Steve. Ha! Top that. You know … by being hired to teach history internationally. And … um … having grandchildren for our folks.
Darn it.
Thanks to Ebele Mogo, president of the Engage Africa Foundation, who answered my call for help with the Igbo. Much like my work with Joanne, I sent her my clumsy attempts, along with my thoughts and intentions, and she translated the concepts for language and cultural appropriateness. I am deeply grateful to her for sharing her creativity with me.
Thanks to Irene Gallo, Tor’s art director, and Larry Rostant, my cover artist, for letting me have a little bit of a hand in the cover. I have been making Regency dresses for “research” since I started the series and asked if I could make this one. They were game and said yes.
So, that dress on the cover?
I made that.
And I also need to thank the unknown embroiderer who did the beadwork on the sari I built the dress from. Everything that is special about the dress is the work of someone who I have no way of identifying. While I know that it’s period correct to make a dress from a sari and not know the craftsperson, this is one place where I truly wish I could be anachronistic. It’s beautiful and I wish I could thank them by name.
Of course, thanks to Jane Austen. I borrowed a number of lines of text from her to describe the women of color on Antigua. As an example, Louisa shares a description with Emma Watson of The Watson: “Her skin was very brown but clear, smooth, and glowing with beauty, which, with a lively eye, a sweet smile, and an open countenance, gave beauty to attract, and expression to make that beauty improve on acquaintance.” I’ll let you find the others, but just remark that one of them is a description of Jane Austen herself.
And, finally, thank you. Thank you for following Jane and Vincent through the early years of their marriage. May your own Muses treat you with kindness.
A Note on History
I’ll be honest: when I sent Lord Verbury to Antigua at the end of Without a Summer, I did it before much research about Antigua. I’d picked it because in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, Sir Thomas goes to Antigua to check on his estates. I had the idea of showing part of the offstage action that happens in that novel.
The first place this came back to bite me was that it completely destroyed the plot that I had pitched to Tor. The original synopsis ends with a slave revolt modeled on the 1791 Haitian Revolution. The problem is that when I started researching, there were forty British forts on Antigua. Forty. It was also Britain’s major naval base in the Caribbean. There was no way, even if I could make the revolt succeed, that the people of color would be able to hold the island. It had too much military significance for Britain to allow it, which meant that the novel, and the series, would have ended with blood and more blood. I did significant revisions to wind up with the plot you see here.
The other thing that I did not understand prior to researching the novel was the enormous differences between the slave system in the United States and in the Caribbean. Both were horrific, but in different ways. In the United States, there was the prospect of escape to the North. In the Caribbean, the enslaved Africans were on islands. There was no escape. Because of that, they had comparatively more freedom of movement than those in the United States. But “comparatively” is the operative word. The enslaved Africans had to grow their own food, in addition to laboring in the cane fields. The surplus from these “sustenance plots” formed the basis of a second economy on the island, complete with market days. Since these market days formed the basis for much of the food served at the great house, the white slaveholders would turn a blind eye to movement around the island by the women who did most of the marketing.
This was countered by the fact that sugarcane was a year-round crop. In the American South, there was an off-season, but in Antigua, the enslaved people literally worked from sunup to sundown, every day.
In addition, the ratio between blacks and whites in the United States and Antigua were vastly different. In the United States, white people outnumbered the enslaved Africans. The population was denied access to education as a way to solidify the white slaveholders’ claim of superiority. In Antigua, there were approximately ten enslaved Africans to every white person. As a result, there weren’t enough white people for the skilled labor required on the island. Slaveholders regarded the ability to read and write as a valuable asset and would make certain that the people they had enslaved were educated. Lord Verbury’s decision to educate Frank would not have been the generous gesture that it might have appeared in the United States. He would have seen it as an effective use of resources.
This education also extended to the medical professions. Large estates had a white doctor and a black doctor, who treated the respective populations. The British author and slaveholder Monk Lewis made the economic arguments that I’ve given to Dr. Jones (whose first name may or may not be Martha…) about the importance of hospitals. Many of the black doctors were women in the tradition of midwives.
While Mrs. Whitten is a fictional character, she is based on a number of different free women of color in Antigua such as Anne Hart Gilbert and Elizabeth Hart Thwaites. There were not enough white women for every man who wanted to marry, which meant that women of mixed race were much more likely to be freed and married than in the United States. Even if not actually married, society silently accepted the necessity of mistresses in ways that would be unacceptable in England or the United States. Understand, however, that many of these women faced a choice between two horrible options: work in the fields or have relations with their captor. There were cases of love, but those should not be considered the rule or used to romanticize the realities of being an enslaved woman of color.
One of the other features of Antigua and many of the other islands in the Caribbean was the existence of Maroon populations. These were people who escaped slavery and established colonies on the islands. Periodically, these villages would be raided and the people gathered up and either resold or returned to the estates they had fled.
Picknee Town is based on the Maroons, combined with another historical fact. Antigua had an extremely low birthrate among the enslaved population. Papers from the time discuss the difficulties with “breeding stock” to try to figure out how to increase the number of live births. It does not seem to occur to most of the white slaveholders that malnutrition, overwork, and abuse might be contributing factors. Even so, in Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650–1838, Barbara Bush points out that the enslaved people on other islands faced similar hardships and did not have such a low birth rate. It’s possible that people were using abortifacients to keep from bringing children into these conditions, but it’s impossible to know for certain.
It would be nice to think that a Picknee Town existed, but I’m afraid that the reality was likely much, much grimmer.
Jane’s experience in childbirth was based on the A Treatise of Midwifery: Comprehending the Management of Female Complaints by Alexander Hamilton (1804) and An Essay on Natural Labours by Thomas Denman, M.D. (1786). It is harrowing reading and I do not recommend it. Suffice to say that in the real world, Jane would not have lived.
If you have an interest in learning more about Antigua and its neighboring islands, allow me to recommend the following books:
Anonymous. The Laws of the Island of Antigua: 1668–1804, Volume 2.
Beckles, Hilary McD. Natural Rebels: A Social History of Enslaved Women in Barbados.
Buckley, Roger Norman. Slaves in Red Coats: The British West India Regiments, 1795–1815.
Bush, Barbara. Slave Women in Caribbean Society, 1650–1838.
Craton, Michael. Empire, Enslavement and Freedom in the Caribbean.
Ferguson, Moira. Colonialism and Gender Relations from Mary Wollstonecraft to Jamaica Kincaid.
Handler, Jerome S. The Unappropriated People: Freedmen in the Slave Society of Barbados.
Kincaid, Jamaica. A Small Place.
Mintz, Sidney W. Caribbean Transformations.
Roberts, Justin. “Sunup to Sundown: Plantation Management Strategies and Slave Work Routines in Barbados, Jamaica and Virginia, 1776–1810.”
Schaw, Janet. Journal of a Lady of Quality.
Walvin, James. England, Slaves and Freedom, 1776–1838.
Glossary
GLAMOUR. This basically means magic. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the original meaning was “Magic, enchantment, spell” or “A magical or fictitious beauty attaching to any person or object; a delusive or alluring charm.” It was strongly associated with fairies in early England. In this alternate history of the Regency, glamour is a magic that can be worked by either men or women. It allows them to create illusions of light, scent, and sound. Glamour requires physical energy in much the same way running up a hill does.
GLAMURAL. A mural that is created using magic.
GLAMOURIST. A person who works with glamour.
BOUCLÉ TORSADÉE. This is a twisted loop of glamour that is designed to carry sound or vision depending on the frequency of the spirals. In principle it is loosely related to the Archimedes’ screw. In the 1740s it was employed to create speaking tubes in some wealthy homes and those tubes took on the name of the glamour used to create them.
CHASTAIN DAMASK. A technique that allows a glamourist to create two different images in one location. The effect would be similar to our holographic cards which show first one image, then another depending on the angle at which it is viewed. Invented by M. Chastain in 1814, he originally called this technique a jacquard after the new looms invented by M. Jacquard in 1801. The technique was renamed by Mrs. Vincent as a Chastain Damask in honour of its creator.
ETHER. Where the magic comes from. Early physicists believed that the world was broken into elements with ether being the highest element. Although this theory is discredited now, the original definition meant “A substance of great elasticity and subtlety, formerly believed to permeate the whole of planetary and stellar space, not only filling the interplanetary spaces, but also the interstices between the particles of air and other matter on the earth; the medium through which the waves of light are propagated. Formerly also thought to be the medium through which radio waves and electromagnetic radiations generally are propagated” (OED). Today you’ll more commonly see it as the root of “ethereal,” and its meaning is similar.
FOLDS. The bits of magic pulled out of the ether. Because this is a woman’s art, the metaphors to describe it reflect other womanly arts, such as the textiles.
LOINTAINE VISION. French for “distance seeing.” It is a tube of glamour that allows one to see things at a distance. The threads must be constantly managed or the image becomes static.
OMBRÉ. A fold of glamour that shades from one colour to another over its length. This technique was later emulated in textile by dip-dying.
NŒUD MARIN. A robust knot used for tying glamour threads. This was originally used by sailors for joining two lines, but adapted by glamourists for similar purposes. In English, this is known as a Carrick Bend.
PETITE RÉPÉTITION. French for “small repetition.” This is a way of having a fold of glamour repeat itself in what we would now call a fractal pattern. These occur in nature in the patterns of fern fronds and pinecones.
SPHÈRE OBSCURCIE. French for “invisible bubble.” It is literally a bubble of magic to make the person inside it invisible.
Reading Group Guide
1. Did you learn any new historical facts from Of Noble Family? If so, what?
2. How did you feel about Vincent’s attitude towards his nephew, Tom? Did his regard for the baby surprise you? Why or why not?
3. On several occasions in the book, Jane behaves unfairly towards people over whom she has social power—for instance, when she commandeers Amey’s house for her own medical exam and when she plans to use Nkiruka’s work in her book without asking. Has anyone ever treated you unfairly? How did it feel? Can you think of a time when you’ve behaved unfairly towards someone with less power?
4. Vincent and Herr Scholes tell funny stories about Vincent’s attempts to sneak out of the house as a young man. Did you ever use subterfuge to try to sneak out? Did you have better luck than Vincent?
5. Jane and Vincent have to engage socially with many people whose views on race and slavery they find abhorrent. Have you ever had to make nice with people whose political views repulsed you, or whose behavior you found unconscionable? How did you handle it?
6. In the book, Jane and Vincent are forced to stay with Vincent’s father, who is judgmental and cruel. How do they handle the stress of staying with him? Can yo
u think of anything else they should have done, or of things that work for you that would not have worked for them, given their characters and circumstances?
7. Have you ever had to collaborate with someone who wasn’t as good at something as you, but who didn’t seem to know it, as Jane and Vincent had to do with Mrs. Ransford? How did you handle it?
8. How did you feel when Jane’s life was in danger when she was giving birth?
9. In the story, Vincent uses glamour to help Dr. Jones find the hemorrhage. Doctors in the real world did not have the equivalent ability until well into the twentieth century. Do you think medical science would have advanced differently in a world with glamour? How?
10. In Of Noble Family, Jane and Vincent interact with people of color from many social stations, including a rich landowner, a free black doctor, and many enslaved people. Did you find yourself wanting to learn more about what life was like for people of color in the early nineteenth century?
11. How did you feel about Vincent and Jane naming their baby Charles, after Jane’s father? Is there anyone else in their lives you think they might name a child after?
12. Medicine in the early nineteenth century was not nearly as advanced as it is now. Many doctors did more harm than good. Given the potential hazards, would you have trusted a doctor with your health?
13. Kowal addresses both family and racial injustice in this book. What do you think the major theme of the story is?
About the Author
MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL was the 2008 recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, a multiple Hugo winner, and a frequent nominee for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. She spent more than twenty years as a professional puppeteer but is now more frequently found in a recording booth as an audiobook narrator. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Robert, and over a dozen manual typewriters.
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