A tale of sorcery and
passion in seventeenth-century London
where witches haunt William Shakespeare
and his dark lady,
the playwright's muse and one true love
One of the
great delights of historical fiction is that you can transport yourself into
the past. Both as a reader and a writer,
I love the feeling of being immersed in another reality, which is vivid and
believable. But there is a downside to
this: it can be tempting to overload your narrative with period detail. My inspirations are Sarah Waters, who pays
just as much attention to the intricacy of plot as she does to historical
accuracy, and Hilary Mantel, who uses a hybrid of fact and imagination to convey
the experience of Thomas Cromwell.
‘Dark Aemilia’
was written as part of my PhD thesis. It’s the story of the doomed relationship
between William Shakespeare and Aemilia Lanyer, one of the first female poets
published in England and (possibly) the mysterious Dark Lady who inspired the
later sonnets. I spent many months
researching the historic setting, but also studied genre and narrative form,
and looked at the way that character can drive plot as well as the seminal work
of writers like Umberto Eco.
I wanted to
create a strong female protagonist in a world in which women officially had no
power. This was quite a conundrum, and I was influenced by the views of the
writer and historian Ian Mortimer who warns against imposing 21st
century psychology onto characters from the past. I struck a compromise with
this – I am sure that no Early Modern woman would really have thought like ‘my’
Aemilia, any more than they would have spoken as she does. But I did make her
deeply superstitious, and her world view is informed by this. I also used the
play ‘Macbeth’ as a template for the story, so that elements of its dark plot
are woven into Aemilia’s experience.
Sally O'Reilly
# # #
Dark Aemilia
London,
1593. The daughter of a Venetian musician but orphaned as a young girl, Aemilia
Bassano grows up in the court of Elizabeth I, becoming the Queen’s favourite.
She absorbs a love of poetry and learning, maturing into a striking young woman
with a sharp mind and a quick tongue. Now brilliant, beautiful and highly educated,
she becomes mistress of Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain and Queen’s cousin.
But her position is precarious; when she falls in love with court playwright
William Shakespeare, her fortunes change irrevocably.
A must-read for fans of Tracy Chevalier (Girl With a Pearl Earring)
and Sarah Dunant (The Birth of Venus), Sally O’Reilly’s richly
atmospheric novel compellingly re-imagines the struggles for power, recognition
and survival in the brutal world of Elizabethan London. Dark
Aemilia is published by Myriad Editions in March 2014, and by Picador US in
June.
About the Author
Sally O’Reilly has a PhD in English and Creative Writing
from Brunel University, and is a lecturer at the Open University. She is
the author of How to be a Writer and (as Sam O’Reilly) two novels
published by Penguin, The Best Possible Taste and You Spin Me Round.
She has also been shortlisted for the Ian St James short story award and the
Cosmopolitan short story prize, and is a former Cosmopolitan New Journalist of
the Year.
You
can follow Sally on Twitter at @sallyoreilly, read her blog on http://how2beawriter.blogspot.co.uk/ and find out more about Dark Aemilia on http://www.myriadeditions.com/Dark+Aemilia
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