Edward G Pettit

Cordelia Frances Biddle is the author of The Conjurer, a historical mystery set in 1842 Philadelphia, featuring Martha Beale.  My review of The Conjurer appeared in the Phila Inquirer.

EGP: Cordelia, you've had some success in the mystery genre writing the Nero Blanc Crossword mysteries. And you've co-authored a mystery with Patricia Hearst, featuring William Randolph Hearst (Murder at San Simeon), about ten years ago. What inspired you to write/return to the historical mystery subgenre? And why 1842 Philadelphia?

CFB: History has always haunted me. I grew up hearing family stories of the past, and the connections between those vanished relatives and me often seemed more vivid than those with my living ones. I realize that seems bizarre, but I was a pretty fanciful child who saw ghosts and dreamed full costumes dramas that then sent me running to the Encyclopaedia to discover whether what I’d envisioned was true or not.

Or perhaps, it was simply that my curiosity was aroused when dealing with people I’d never met. What would cause someone to act as he or she did? What were the emotions involved? What did the rooms and houses (and a steam yacht in an earlier novel, Beneath the Wind) look like, or smell like? What was the sound of overheard conversation? Or, more importantly, what wasn’t said? And why?

I also believe that we writers can expose world issues – injustices, is a better word – that are close to our hearts. Setting a novel at a time of national foment allowed me to address societal problems that still exist, but without standing on a soapbox. Hopefully, readers will react with an astonished: “I didn’t realize things were so bad back then.” When, of course, people are still in need, still starving, still in emotional and physical pain.

Why leap from the froth of Nero Blanc into a city plunged into a financial depression – with everything that phrase infers? I have a dark soul. I can’t be cheery too long, and I like to muck around in the vile places within our brains. Besides, I’m more comfortable writing in a slightly archaic style. I’ve always preferred the language of an earlier era.

The 1840s were when Nicholas Biddle (of the Second Bank fame) and Francis Martin Drexel – two financier ancestors – elided. It was in researching their lives that the my own lack of knowledge of the period – and of those two men and their business affairs - was revealed. Naturally, I had to learn more. Thus began a broad period of research in which I didn’t fully understand what I was looking for. I learned about the new vogue of spiritualism; the daily life of the working poor, the riots, the racial tensions, what performers appeared at the Musical Fund Hall. I read recipes, studied “Fashion Plates” until I thought I was living in two distinct places.

I’d like to say 1842 was a nod to George Lippard, but I think the year came to me in a dream – just like the deaths of the girls in The Conjurer.

EGP: Could you go into some detail about how you researched this time period? What institutions did you use? Databases? Old newspapers? Etc.

CFB: The Library Company of Philadelphia has become my second home. I cannot praise the institution highly enough. The staff is helpful and accessible, and WOW, what a collection! I read actual newspapers of the period (not some “electronic” version), studied the famous Seybert Commission on Spiritualism, annual accounts from the Asylum referred to in the novel. And on and on and on. Each new find led me deeper, and allowed me to paint another layer on my portrait.

The Athenaeum of Philadelphia supplied what I consider “anecdotal” information: Godey’s Ladies Book, collections of poetry published in the period, and so forth. Visiting the Athenaeum always jars me into memories of my grandmother’s house in Bryn Mawr, and those memories usually enkindle more useful questions. No, my grandparents’ house wasn’t built in the 1840s, but it always seemed a place full of ancestral secrets – either of good or ill.

EGP: Were you surprised by any of the repositories of history? Like, "Wow, I didn't know this kind of thing was available."

CFB: The newspapers. There’s nothing like holding the actual journal or broadsheet and perusing every article and advertising card, the shipping lists, editorials, short works of fiction, and so forth. To me, historical research isn’t a matter of confirming facts and figures, it’s an opportunity to discover the unusual and telling details that bring an era to life: what plays and musical performances were drawing audiences, the wording of a list of missing persons, the rhetoric employed in political debates. Probably only twenty-five percent of my gleanings made it into the novel, but they allowed my brain to travel back in time so that the language and philosophy of the period became wholly familiar. When we read newspapers today, we understand the context in which articles have been written, or the intended audience for an advertisement; it’s the same context I look for when examining history.

EGP: Was there anything historical you found that was so interesting, but you couldn’t fit into your novel? Or just any fascinating finds of Philly history?

CFB: The Consolidation Act of 1854. I had no idea how much ink was devoted to the “scandal” of an inadequate police force during the decade prior to the new charter of 1854. The unincorporated (but increasingly populous) districts of Northern Liberties, Spring Garden, and the township of Moyamensing, etc. existed in a semi-lawless state; criminals needed only step over a township line in order to escape prosecution. An editorial excoriating this dangerous situation appeared almost monthly in the press. Plus ça change, I suppose. But for anyone who believes the “good old days” were plumier, reading about riots that couldn’t be quelled or contained because of inadequate police and fire protection is a sobering experience. The burgeoning racial tensions in the city in the mid-1840s was another issue I could only address briefly. In hindsight, the War Between the States looms large.

EGP: Are you still researching intensively or did the research for the first book take care of most of what you'll need?

CFB: For me, research leads to further research. I like to continually peel away the layers. And, too, each novel takes a differing stance so that the information I require to bring the era to life is singular to that book. For instance, for the third novel, I’m deeply involved in the textile trade. And I’ve made some stunning and disturbing discoveries.

EGP: How did you come up with Martha Beale's character and name? Thomas Kelman's character and name?

CFB: The Biblical story of the sisters Martha and Mary has always had resonance with me, so there is my “Martha”; my “Mary”, too. Beale was a name I found in St. Peter’s churchyard. As to Martha’s character, she simply grew, as all characters do. She began as a thought and became a true person. Kelman, also. I see him as having an often tortured inner life. I’m not certain if he always shares that opinion, although he still remains a bit of a mystery to me.

I’m often asked about writing a woman who appears to be so dominated by the men in her life, but the truth is that most women in that time period experienced similar constraints. If readers find Martha’s subservience uncomfortable, they should!

EGP: Without giving away too much detail, where does the series go from here?

CFB: Martha’s a fortunate woman. She’s an heiress, and although I have no intention of creating a modern person in old-fashioned attire, she certainly can become as iconoclastic as she wishes. She’s also an idealist, and I see her desires to better the world bringing her both difficulties and satisfaction. And a fair amount of disapproval, too.

As to Kelman, I want to uncover his secrets. I’m envisioning stepping further back in time in order to reveal the city and circumstances that formed him.

EGP: Will George Lippard make an appearance at some point in the series? How about Edgar Allan Poe?

CFB: I think the question might be: What would Lippard or Poe make of Martha Beale? Would they view her as courageous or spoiled, a tragic archetype or a nascent beacon of hope? That’s an intriguing notion. I have a good idea what the two men would make of Lemuel Beale, however. A manipulative financier like Beale would have been one of Lippard’s favorite targets.

EGP: Will any of your ancestors make appearances?

CFB: In name only, I imagine – if at all. I’m not comfortable blending fictional characters with real people. And then, too, the “facts” of someone’s life are open to interpretation. Nicholas Biddle and Francis Martin Drexel are painted as either saints or sinners. The truth must lie somewhere between the two extremes. If I find an ancestor whose tale is quixotic enough for the drama of a novel, I’ll probably change the name and throw her or him into the mix. Drexel most intrigues me because he was an itinerant portrait painter from Austria who decided to toss away the easel and open a banking institution, which seems akin to my declaring that I’ll choose nuclear physics rather than novel writing as my next career.

EGP: I've only come across one other historical mystery series set in pre-20th century Philadelphia, Mark Graham's McCleary novels set in Philly after the Civil War. Have you read Graham's books? Do you know of any others? I'm not even aware of any stand-alone mysteries in historical Philly.

CFB: I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t read Graham’s McCleary books. As to Philadelphia’s lack of historical suspense novels, the fact came as a surprise to me, as well. With such a plethora of material from which to work, and an era jammed full of cultural and societal highs and lows I can’t imagine more fertile soil for a writer’s febrile brain.

EGP: How do you write? Computer? Pen? Do you have any writing rituals or particular environments in order to write?

CFB: I make notes in a Mead Composition book (marbleized cover a la fifth grade) in which I also affix salient discoveries for luck and encouragement (stray pennies, a four-leafed clover). A Composition book is always with me. Writing is done on a computer, although we sometimes have a dicey relationship. I always read poetry before I begin my work, and I'm very disciplined. I'm at my desk early.

EGP: Why do you read poetry before you write? If you skipped the poetry, do you think your writing would be different?

CFB: I read poetry for the cadences, the non"prosaic" use of language as well as the imagery. It puts me into an altogether different realm that has nothing to do with a "journalistic" approach to writing. I've enjoyed poetry since I could first read; I can't imagine my life - let alone my work - without it.

EGP: Do you remember the first thing you wrote that made you believe you were an actual "writer"?

CFB: A long time ago a grade school teacher informed me that I could never be a writer because I had no imagination, so I think I'm always a bit surprised when I see my words in print. That said, my creative regimen is first to make sense of the tale, then to ensure each scene is working, that the characters are behaving in a natural (for them) manner. Paragraphs have to flow; information must be delivered; and finally the phrasing has to sing. If I can't hear music in my writing, I throw it out and start again.

EGP: By "music," do you mean a kind of poetical rhythm to the prose? Can you give me an example (from your own, or from someone else's work)?

CFB: It's actual music I hear, as if my prose were translated into arias and duets - and crowd scenes replete with tympani. If I could create a musical score I could probably notate my sentences, but alas I can't. I simply hear the lines "singing" or I don't.

EGP: What kinds of books/authors do you like to read?

CFB: Currently I'm addicted to Anita Shreve. Other favorites: John LeCarre for his politics, Mary Doria Russell, Donna Tartt. Books I reread because I learn something new with every encounter: Middlemarch, Anna Karenina, all of Steinbeck, Dickens' Hard Times, William Styron. For humor and his fizzy use of language and lingo: P.G. Wodehouse.

EGP: Favorite book?

CFB: I don't have a single favorite, but I greatly value my copy of Mark Twain's Following The Equator. Beneath the frontispiece author photo is the handwritten quote: "Be good and you will be lonesome".

EGP: Favorite Philly book or Philly author?

CFB: As I exist in a nineteenth century netherworld, the volumes of Godey's Lady's Book are my dream come true. I love the fact that women all over the nation were inspired by writers/publishers in Philadelphia.

EGP: Favorite Philly historical spot (or just any fave Philly spot)

CFB: For solace and a sense of numerous past spirits entwining: St. Peter's Church at Third and Pine; danger: Eastern State Penitentiary.

EGP: What books or authors have inspired you?

CFB: I'll return to poetry here. H.D., Dickinson, the Brownings, Shelley (I have a tattoo inspired by Shelley); the list varies according to my mood and the day. I'm using a lot of Tennyson in my second Martha Beale.

EGP: Tattoo? Care to describe it?

CFB: Two actually: a moth and a star. The lines that inspired them are: "The desire of the moth for the star,/ Of the night for the morrow,/ The devotion to something afar/ From the sphere of our sorrow." I'm sorry to say I didn't add "P.B.S."

EGP: What websites do you visit regularly (aside from the Bibliothecary, of course)?

CFB: I'm sorry to say I'm too old-fashioned to truly enjoy the web. I like card catalogues and musty places, and although I have my own author's site, I'm not altogether comfortable with the virtual rather than the actual. I like to indulge all my senses. if you could have the scent of pipe tobacco wafting from yours, well, that would be different.

EGP: I'll blow smoke towards Philly as I'm posting this.  Thanks for your time, Cordelia.

Edward Pettit (EGP) is a freelance book reviewer and wishes he had a tattoo inspired by a romantic poet. Instead, his tattoo of an eagle has "Free Bird" written under it. Shelley would be so much cooler than Lynyrd Skynyrd.