‘Aunt Doxie’s Brothel’
When I was doing publicity for my previous book, The Devil in the Marshalsea, the (wonderful) author Robyn Young asked if I’d uncovered anything particularly unusual or surprising during my research. ‘I did find evidence of a fetish brothel,’ I replied. We agreed this was surprising.
Then again: sex. Nothing surprising under the sun. It was more where I found it, and how casually it was dropped into the narrative. I’d spotted a reference in the British Library records of a short memoir by Thomas Neaves, hanged for theft in 1728, and called it up to read. It arrived in the rare books room, the fragile original pamphlet, looking as though it hadn’t been read in years.
Convicted criminals would often write ‘confessions’ to sell at their hanging. The money would go to their family or to pay for a decent burial, away from the anatomists. As mentioned in the novel, they would sometimes hire a ghostwriter such as Defoe to write their story. (Which is no doubt how Defoe got his idea to write Moll Flanders, one of the first novels ever written. So you could argue that the British novel owes its very existence to criminal biographies, if you were feeling mischievous and ready for a scrap.)
Just like the more lurid true crime books and TV shows today, there was a certain voyeuristic element to these biographies. But Thomas Neaves clearly wanted to increase sales by adding in a rather surprising digression. He describes a brothel dedicated to what we would now call fetish – and in animated detail. There is a room where a dominatrix sits eating her supper, feeding little scraps to her customer, who barks at her feet like a dog. The next room… well, it’s called coprophilia these days. I’ll leave it there.
It was very strange to discover this hidden world described so openly in a prisoner’s confession. It confirmed certain suspicions I had about the early Georgians – that they were fascinated by such things (hence the digression in the pamphlet) and that these brothels went relatively unchecked (hence the Society for the Reformation of Manners).
Cockpits and female gladiators
The description of Neala Maguire’s fight is based closely on a description by a Swiss traveller to London called César de Saussure. The clothes, the coloured ribbons and the weapons all come from his memoir of London life in the mid 1720s. For the cockfight, I used Hogarth’s ‘The Cockpit’ as a starting point. But then Hogarth is a good starting point for just about everything, and not just novels.
Notes
* basically, sluts
* a small point by way of example: Henrietta’s nickname really was ‘The Swiss’, because of her neutrality on court matters.
Select Bibliography
This is a list of titles that were either particularly helpful to me, or might interest a reader keen to learn more about specific elements of the story. Or both.
Contemporary sources
Defoe, Daniel, Street Robberies Consider’d: the Reason for their Being so Frequent
Gay, John, The Beggar’s Opera
Hayward, Arthur L., Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals (original publication 1735)
Mudge, Bradford K. (ed.), When Flesh Becomes Word: An Anthology of Early Eighteenth-Century Libertine Literature
Ilchester, Earl of (ed.), Lord Hervey and his friends 1726-38 (letters)
Neaves, Thomas, The Life of Thomas Neaves, the Noted Street Robber
de Saussure, César, A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I and George II
Sedgwick, Romney (ed.), Lord Hervey’s Memoirs
Secondary sources
(These also included valuable references to primary material, of course)
Borman, Tracy, Henrietta Howard: King’s Mistress, Queen’s Servant
Cockayne, Emily, Hubbub: Filth, Noise and Stench in England
Cruickshank, Dan, The Secret History of Georgian London
Faller, B. Lincoln, Turned to Account: the Forms and Functions of Criminal Biography
George, M. Dorothy, London Life in the Eighteenth Century
Hay, Linebaugh, Rule, Thompson & Winslow, Albion’s Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England
Hibbert, Christopher, The Road to Tyburn
Linebaugh, Peter, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century
Marschner, Joanna, Queen Caroline: Cultural Politics at the Early Eighteenth-Century Court
– , ‘Queen Caroline of Ansbach: Attitudes to Clothes and Cleanliness 1727-37’ in Journal of the Costume Society No.31
– , Queen Caroline of Ansbach: The Queen, Collecting and Connoisseurship at the early Georgian court (thesis)
Moore, Lucy, Con Men and Cutpurses: Scenes from the Hogarthian Underworld
Willett Cunnington, C. & Cunnington, Phillis, Handbook of English Costume in the 18th Century
Worsley, Lucy, Courtiers: The Secret History of Kensington Palace
Acknowledgements
I spent two years researching and writing this novel. During that time my first book, The Devil in the Marshalsea, was published. It’s an exciting and terrifying thing, releasing your first book into the world. I had the most fantastic support from friends, workmates and fellow authors – far too many people to list in full here. But to everyone who offered encouragement – especially readers – thank you.
At Hodder: huge thanks to Nick Sayers for being such a great champion of my work and for his extremely helpful editorial notes. Also for being the nicest man in publishing. (I have worked in publishing for many years and this is verifiably true.) Very special thanks, embossed and covered in glitter, to the brilliant Laura Macdougall. And to Kerry Hood – who hates a fuss – thank you.
At Conville & Walsh: love and thanks to my agent Clare Conville for her dedication, generosity and sage advice. I couldn’t ask for more. Thanks, indeed, to the whole team, especially Alexander Cochran, Matt Marland, Alexandra McNicoll and Jake Smith-Bosanquet.
Thanks to my lovely L,B colleagues and friends, especially: Richard Beswick, Hannah Boursnell, Cath Burke, Sean Garrehy, Ursula Mackenzie, Clare Smith and Adam Strange. And most of all Rhiannon Smith.
Thanks to Eve Gutierrez and Paula Cuddy at Eleventh Hour productions for their enthusiastic support and for a fascinating trip to a modern prison. A warm hug of gratitude to Jo Unwin for giving me the confidence to keep writing in the first place. And to Mark Billingham for being such a kind and encouraging chap.
Big thanks to all my patient friends who have nodded politely while I regaled them with obscure eighteenth-century facts: Jo Krupa, Justine Willett and Victoria Burns; Ant, Vic and the Kirstys; Lance Fitzgerald and PJ Mark; Harrie Evans; Caroline Hogg; Val Hudson, and Andrew Wille. Love and thanks to my parents and to my sisters, Kay, Michelle and Debbie. Special thanks to Rowena Webb and Ian Lindsay-Hickman and also to Gordon Wise and Michael McCoy for much-needed and much-treasured weekends away. And to Ursula Doyle – again – for being such a loyal and supportive pal.