This novel is for John, without whom I would still be writing fantastical accounts of beasts, magick, and women allowed to smoke in public.
This novel is for Friederich, who had access to a reputable publisher for male writers and, with the pomp of his cravat, saved my precious manuscript from becoming a worthless serial, installing it to proper jacketed status with a mostly self-explanatory title.
To dear Roderick: you knew that vampiric fiction would never sell.
To Gideon, who convinced me that the class system made for a better villain than a one-legged highway bandit in this novel about the human condition.
For Gilbert, who always knew that I was better than the tight plotting required of a successful Gothic novel, and could instead be persuaded to fictionalize my life into an easily digestible tome for women readers.
For Fred: I followed your advice to write what I know, and that turned out to be mostly just stuff about sitting in the parlour, waiting for something to happen.
To David, who assured me I could be a woman and a writer both at once with his demonstrable ability to help edit my unstructured narrative and bed me at the same time in his bohemian boarding house.
I dedicate this novel to Jeremy, who intimately understands my family as drawn in the pages of my novel, but chooses to keep us at a remove from those country souls in our Manhattan townhouse.
For St. John; you were right that no one would realize it was me if I just gave the character a different name, made her a brunette, and located her 80 miles farther north in the countryside.
To William, who knew the commerce of book publishing better than I, and assured me that the world was not ready for a female Dickens, the result of which is this pretty book of relatable prose.
To my happy mentor Robert, who is also my husband, for convincing me that the contents of my life could certainly fill one book, if not so certainly two.
To Thomas, who toned down the salacious romanticism in my story, “The Innkeeper’s Mattress Flipper,” elevating juvenalia to literature.
For Yorick, who suggested I use a male pen name and widen my repertoire of imagery about decolletage.
This book is dedicated to Henry, who let me build my confidence drafting all of his plays that I might one day pen a limerick in my own name, sifting the soft contents of my bosom as gently as scone batter as I wrote from the heart.
To Paul, benefactor and convenient neighbor, who helped put the pages of my manuscript back in order after they blew into the duck pond during one of my bouts of hysteria over the hairstyles of the day.
Without Humphrey, I should not have known the first thing about India or the spice trades. These things are referred to obliquely in my novel about domesticity and the fine arts, which undoubtedly adds some verisimilitude.
My precious Percival, who thought one onery matriarch was enough for one novel, and suggested appending “From Bath to Scone a Lady Born” with “A Novel.”
For Chauncey, whose patrician sideburns appear on pages 34, 38, 127, 143, 144, and 201 of this story.
To Gerald, who wisely counseled to resolve all narrative dilemmas with a fevered dream sequence.
Dear Tottingham, for figuring out how to get the special book number for the index page so that this would be a real book.
Tags: books, humor, janet manley, misandry, writing
I fail to understand why anyone would write or read literature that is not entirely a fevered dream sequence.
I have a confession. I skim over dream sequences. ALWAYS. Every genre. If the character’s dreamin, I ain’t readin… I even space out during movies. I blame Dumbo’s horrific ‘Elephants on Parade’ probably.
Ah but what about those dream sequences that you don’t know they’re dream sequences until the end? Like, those random in media res sequences where EVERYTHING SEEMS NORMAL, SO VERY NORMAL and you are wondering how the character got there, you’re thinking maybe you skipped over a page or something, and suddenly the character’s dead relatives are there being all nonchalant yet portentious, and you’re like “hey wait a second this is a dream sequence isn’t it?” And then the character wakes up, and you throw the book across the room. And what about stories that turn out to be ENTIRELY dream sequences? What about that one movie where the character thought they were awake but (SPOILER!) they were not really awake at all? How do you know you aren’t dreaming this, right now?
Technically the “Pink Elephants on Parade” scene wasn’t a dream sequence; it was a booze hallucination, followed by a blackout episode. Remember when drug and alcohol use was commonplace in family entertainment? Or are those merely false memories implanted by a cruelly omnipotent demiurge?
If you consult your dead relatives about the reliability of your memories, even though you are pretty sure they shouldn’t be standing there looking all enigmatic and significant, turn to page 46.
If you try to wake up, turn to Page 3.
*scribbles “sustainable energy harvested from the j/o motions of male novelists” in revolution notebook*
I shall be spending the rest of my vacation week matching up authors, works, and (pompous male) muses. Thanks, Toast.
Wait they are all real? I… only know Little Women (but at least give me credit for knowing it without the hint of the accompanying image)
As Wendy the Good Little Witch was wont to exclaim: “Ulp!”
I… I am insufficiently scholarly to appreciate this list at the appropriate level. Im’a just wait for the Cliff’s Notes to come out.
Why would anyone even listen to somebody named “Roderick?”
Every single paragraph of this fills me with unmitigated glee.
Having once worked in hotel housekeeping I am eager to read “The Innkeeper’s Mattress Flipper” so I can pretend it’s a salacious tale about me and my affair with the girl from banquets.
Emily Byrd Starr could write THREE:
To Father Cassidy, who advised me to stay away from the great archetypes of literature—you know, the ones on which stories are founded— and write something completely original.
To Mr. Campbell, who told me to stop writing poetry and focus more on short essays that made fun of people in our town.
To Dean. Fuck you, Dean.
Yes. Fuck Dean indeed.
Father Cassidy is a gem of a character.
FUCKING DEAN OH MY GOD.
I did love how it never quite occurs to her to blame Mr. Campbell for the whole “watch out, she’ll put you in a book” social debacle, but by that point I think she’s enjoying the novelty of not being absolutely required to care.
Every single time I reread these I am tempted to entirely skip the part of her life that involves Dean, but there’s too much!
Okay but you could argue that this lady has a type
I loved it all and also I feel a bit dumb about how little I know but, really, all I need to know is that men suuuuuuuck.
To Peter, who made Wilfrid what he is.
I love you guys so, so much sometimes.
This will literally never be me. Fuck you, men! I will make sure my future novel about fucking dragons is such a bestseller that your wife/partner MAKES YOU read the book AND see the movie!
This will literally never be me. Fuck you, men! I will make sure my future novel about fucking dragons is such a bestseller that your wife/partner MAKES YOU read the book AND see the movie!
Oh my goodness this has always bothered me SO MUCH. Especially from Gilbert Blythe who I thought was fun. I’ve been making excuses for him for ages but really? That whole “Don’t write big, write little and domestic” thing that lady writers get in books pisses me off.
Paul is giving Lucy Snow a hand (Villette)
I thought Yorick was Tristram Shandy, the dirty old priest.
I wish people would stop conflating the 1994 movie version of Little Women with the novel. In the novel Bhaer does not get her work published. He comes to see Jo because he found one of her poems she left behind in New York and it reminded him the beautiful talented woman she was. Though he does her give her a serious lecture about serial and pulp writing while in New York.
Sorry I spent half my undergrad thesis on Jo and Bhaer’s relationship and 8 years later I still like to talk about it.
What was the general theme of thesis, if I may ask? sounds interesting!
Well, I was gonna say: yeah, he comes *after* giving her a big douchey lecture on how awful pulp writing is and how she should be a street-cleaner instead because THIIINK OF THE CHIIIIILDREN!
And therefore can die in a fire. Slowly.
At least the movie version of the dude does something for her career, instead of crapping all over how she makes money and then being all “but I found this poem and it’s properly sentimental and mentions God and stuff so hey I love you!”
Skimming, I thought this said “I spent half my undergrad thesis on Jo and Blair’s relationship and 8 years later I still like to talk about it” — also understandable!
What was the general theme of thesis, if I may ask? sounds interesting!
I’m of two minds on this. On one hand, I’m pro-“let the lady write what she wants” (and for the record, I’m a multi-pubbed author who enjoys mucking about with genre fiction).
On the other hand, though, we need the canon of women’s letters that depict women’s lives when they were written. Louisa May Alcott’s and L.M. Montgomery’s works have a strong feminist bent, and gave their characters far more agency than the female characters within genre fiction at the time.
That said, Prof. Baer is the worst, and I think Jo should have used the money from her book to travel abroad and meet a dashing Italian gentleman in possession of a haunted villa, where she continues to write both genre and autobiographical fiction, because why can’t a lady do both?