Finding Inspiration in Victorian London’s Underworld
When I was eighteen years old I stumbled upon an amazing book called London’s Underworld, a comprehensive report on the ‘detritus’ of society compiled by nineteenth century journalist Henry Mayhew.
The world of pain, vice and so-called ‘moral depravity’ Mayhew describes was no doubt intended to inspire disgust but I found his real-life interviews sad and fascinating. In fact one of his real-life anecdotes is the inspiration for my new erotic Regency, Cressida’s Dilemma, in which a married couple who have not the vocabulary to voice their dissatisfaction with their own marriage, meet in disguise at a ‘house of ill repute’.
Cressida’s Dilemma is the first of my Salon of Sin series in which cuckolded duchesses and kitchen maids don disguise and pass through Mrs. Plumb’s red baize door on their quest for love.
But first a little more about what Mayhew has to say about prostitution in Victorian London which he describes in a range of categories, the causes of which he generally trivialises.
Prostitution in London Seclusive, or Those Who Live in Private Houses and Apartments
“We now come to the second class, or those we have denominated prima donnas. These are not kept like the first… They are to be seen in parks, in boxes at the theatres, at concerts and in almost every accessible place where fashionable people congregate; in fact in all places where admission is not secured by vouchers, and in some cases those apparently insuperable barriers fall before their tact and address. At night their favourite rendezvous is in the neighbourhood of the Haymarket, where the hospitality of Mrs. Kate Hamilton is extended to them after the fatigues of dancing at the Portland Rooms, or the excesses of a private party. Kate’s may be visited not only to dissipate ennnuie, but with a view to replenishing an exhausted exchequer…. They are to be seen between three and five o’clock in Burlington Arcade, which is a well-known resort of Cyprian of the better sort. They are well acquainted with his Paphanian intricacies, and will, if their signals are responded to, glide into a friendly bonnet shop, the stairs leading to the coenacula or upper chambers which are not innocent of their well-formed “bien chaussée” feet. The park is also, as we have said, a favourite promenade, where assignations may be made or acquaintances formed….
…Loose women generally throw a veil over their early life, and you seldom, if ever, meet with a woman who is not either a seduced governess or a clergyman’s daughter; not that there is a word of truth in such an allegation – but it is their peculiar whim to say so.”
In fact, some of the “fallen women” who appear in book 2 and 3 of my Salon of Sin series are seduced clergyman’s daughters; there’s also a baronet’s wife framed for her husband’s murder and on the run from both the villain and the law.
Cressida’s Dilemma is a spicy, sweet story of innocence within marriage before the petals are removed and the real substance revealed. It’s a hot historical spiced with mystery and intrigue. And the bonus is that three couples find their HEA J
Historical Romance Author Beverley Oakley’s love of the gypsy lifestyle and appreciation of the world’s varied heroes was honed during years of working in the male-dominated safari and airborne survey industries. Redemption is her favourite theme and flawed heroines her specialty.
Now living with her family in Melbourne, Australia, twenty years after hitching her star to the Cessna Caravan (now a Boeing 777) of the handsome Norwegian bush pilot she met around a campfire twenty years ago in Botswana’s beautiful Okavango Delta where she ran a safari lodge at the time, Beverley teaches creative writing, makes historical costumes and works as a Disaster Events Researcher.
She also writes “slow boil historical romances with a thriller ending” as Beverley Eikli.
Cressida’s Dilemma is available here:
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