Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Tricia McGill--Childhood Memories



What is it about getting older? I can remember my first day at school clearly yet can’t recall what I did two days ago unless I look at my diary to check. As we get older we seem to dwell a lot in the past. I’ve never been one to live with regrets. We can’t do anything to change what has gone before.


My childhood was exceptionally happy, and I always say I am blessed for I have been surrounded by loving people as far back as I can remember. I was the youngest of ten and most of my five brothers and four sisters were adults or coming up to adulthood by the time I reached an age when I took notice of what was going on around me. My sisters taught me the alphabet and how to read before I attended school.


My two eldest sisters treated me like a doll and as they and our mother were all handy with a needle and sewing machine I was donned regularly in pretty dresses and with a white bow in my hair was carted off to have my photograph taken (which was done in a photo studio in those days). 
 


My book Remnants of Dreams is based on our mother’s life in that it follows the timeline of her life. She was born in 1895 and married our dad in 1914. Our dad went away to the war and our eldest brother was born not long after. Dad didn’t return until four years later, consequentially it was a while until the next child came along. But then there was mostly a one year gap in between. These children were reared during the hard times between wars. So therefore I was the luckiest as by the time I came along things were a lot brighter all round. I grew up on stories of the difficult years told to me by my eldest sister who has just passed her 91st birthday and is still of sound mind and reads more books in a week than I ever could. 
 
I get angry with young people who complain about their lack of the finer things in life. We never had a telephone until our eldest brother had one installed. We lived in a six storey house in North London. Our mother’s sister, husband and two girls, had two rooms and a kitchen in the middle, our brother, his wife, son and daughter lived in the top two rooms with two attic bedrooms, and we had the bottom two floors. So, when we received a telephone call (we gave out the number to our friends) someone would yell from the top of the house for us and we would then climb five flights of stairs to answer the call in their living room. No one thought this odd in the slightest. Our lives were closely entwined. Our very extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins was spread far and wide, yet we kept in constant touch even before the telephone came along. There was such a thing as writing letters and waiting on the postman to call in those days.

For all our lack of amenities my childhood was full of happiness. It’s so true that what you never have you never miss. But I believe we were luckier by far. From an early age I was allowed to wander far and wide with my friends. We would be away from home for hours, only coming home when our stomachs told us it was time to eat. We played out all day every day, rain, sunshine or snow. We walked to and from school—a thirty minute walk each way. Our world was small. We had no idea what was going on in other countries or even in other parts of England, and ignorance is bliss. We never saw television until I was in my teens; and that was also my eldest brothers’. At times there would be about 15 of us crowded around his lounge room to watch this tiny black and white 9 inch screen.


But there was the radio, and the cinema. And always that close-knit family nearby.

Remnants of Dreams can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IA1XZ94
Remnants of Dreams moves from the horrors of the 1914-1918 war to the 1990s, and paints an unforgettable picture of a changing world and of working class people in North London whose only riches are love and the knowledge that they did their best.
Alicia’s indomitable spirit sustains her and her large family through two wars, illness, death and loss. From her mother’s example Sara finds the courage to escape an intolerable situation and forge a new life in a new country.


Tricia McGill’s Books We Love page: http://bookswelove.net/mcgill.php

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Diane Scott Lewis - The Tribulations of Publication in the Eighteenth Century-or "Nothing much has changed"



Firstly, the Georgian author would struggle to find a publisher. Aspiring authors sought these prestigious men—for you’d be hard-pressed to find a lowly woman with their feeble brains in this profession—at the many booksellers’ shops that huddled in the shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. They would cart their precious manuscript to the Chapter Coffee House in Paternoster Row, where several stationers, booksellers and printers conducted their business.

If you lived in the provinces, too far from London, you had to use the postal service. The author would choose a bookseller, often after local advice, whose imprint he’d seen in newspaper advertisements or on a book’s title page. 
In 1759, Laurence Sterne, an obscure cleric in York, sent his unsolicited manuscript of Tristram Shandy to Robert Dodsley on the recommendation of John Hinxman, a York bookseller.

Sterne’s accompanying letter assured the publisher that his book had both literary and commercial value. Dodsley wasn’t impressed. He refused to pay the £50 Sterne requested for the copyright. The novel was rejected by a few publishers, but eventually achieved critical acclaim.

Whether the author approached a bookseller or used the post, his reception was usually chilly.

The arrogance if the bookseller was a common grievance among novelists, as depicted in Thomas Rowlandson’s drawing of 1780-84.


Though booksellers like Edmund Curll abused their position and their writers, many in this profession were honest and prudent men. They bore the burden of publication and profit and were inundated with manuscripts, most of which had no commercial merit. The sheer volume of submissions made it hard for them to discriminate. Most stayed with established figures rather than risk their money on an unknown author.

The hapless writer often resorted to appealing to the publisher’s personal interests, such as politics, religion, children’s literature or poetry. The astute author needed to research whom he’d submit to.

From the booksellers’ perspective, the letters Robert Dodsley received over thirty years showed authors as exacting and demanding in their requests, extolling their works as the perfect creations whose publication was eagerly awaited by the entire world, and they would "allow them to pass through his firm."

Aware of the fragile ego and financial status of writers, a few booksellers formed literary circles where authors could slake their thirst with food, alcohol and conversation. Brothers Charles and Edward Dilly, who published Boswell’s Life of Johnson, were famous for their literary dinners.

When an author approached a bookseller, he could also verify the merit of his work if he found a famous author who would publicly endorse it.
Dodsley
Dodsley’s literary career was promoted by Daniel Defoe. Despite bickering and competition, brother writers stood together to brace one another up in this risky endeavor.

Literary patronage—via a rich gentleman or the Court—was another way for an author to find publication, though this was fading by this century. Still, some thought of patronage as prostitution. Poet Charles Churchill proclaimed: "Gentlemen kept a bard, just as they keep a whore."

Subscription was another way to secure publication: collect pre-payments for a book not yet published. Dr. Johnson organized many subscriptions for unknown writers that he admired. He wasn’t always successful.

Constant rejection drove several authors to self-publish their works, which mirrors the Indie authors we have today. The uncertain road to publication over two hundred years ago seems much the same as the present.

Information garnered from: The Pleasures of the Imagination, English Culture in the Eighteenth Century, by John Brewer, 1997.

To see my extensive research into the eighteenth century, read my historical adventure set in England during the French Revolution: Betrayed Countess, available from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Betrayed-Countess-Historical-Romance-ebook/dp/B00AS4CET8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357304063&sr=1-1&keywords=diane+scott+lewis


Visit my website for more info on my historical novels.

http://www.dianescottlewis.org




 

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