What makes writing about real people — Lady Hamilton, Queen Victoria, so seductive?
I suppose there is something intriguing about women who survive and prosper in a society that was, in various ways, loaded against them — unless they were prepared to accept the stereotypical roles of women in a male-dominated world. But there is sometimes more to it than that. For instance, Lady Hamilton rose from the absolute mud floor to become, first, a kind of higher prostitute, then a courtesan, and,n finally, the wife of an extremely prominent diplomat. She was the best friend of the Queen of Naples for years, until she finally figured in one of the greatest love stories of all time on the arm of Britain’s finest Naval hero. This story should be impossible even in fiction, and instead it’s fact. Queen Victoria’s story is less one of dramatic contrasts, but is still, in a different way, a tale of the triumph of the will. I think that’s what we like —people who withstand the influences that, logically, should have crushed them, women who beat the odds. Do you feel more at home wit
