The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar
I stumbled upon this title whilst searching on the internet for information about The Essex Serpent. I think probably it was mentioned in the context of being another novel about a mythical creature, set in a similar time-frame as the 'Serpent' and written with a real feel for the language and mores of the time. It is authentic to the ear. Once I had pulled up an image of the cover I was smitten ............ in shades of grey and yellow it features a scallop shell, one of the most beautiful forms in nature to my mind, and the shell which features most prominently in my shell collection. The shapes, colours are so various. There are some 300 species of scallop extant, and to read more about this fascinating shell and the way it features in our lives nutritionally and culturally (think architecture, furniture, décor, jewellery, utensils, religion) check out Wiki.
But to return to the book, here is what Amazon has to say:
‘A brilliantly plotted story of mermaids, madams and intrigue in 1780s London and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it become the Essex Serpent of 2018’ - The Pool'Imogen Hermes Gowar is a soon-to-be literary star’ - Sunday Times
THIS VOYAGE IS SPECIAL. IT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING.
One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock hears urgent knocking on his front door. One of his captains is waiting eagerly on the step. He has sold Jonah’s ship for what appears to be a mermaid.
As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlours and brothels, everyone wants to see Mr Hancock’s marvel. Its arrival spins him out of his ordinary existence and through the doors of high society. At an opulent party, he makes the acquaintance of Angelica Neal, the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on… and a courtesan of great accomplishment. This meeting will steer both their lives onto a dangerous new course, on which they will learn that priceless things come at the greatest cost.
Where will their ambitions lead? And will they be able to escape the destructive power mermaids are said to possess?
In this spell-binding story of curiosity and obsession, Imogen Hermes Gowar has created an unforgettable jewel of a novel, filled to the brim with intelligence, heart and wit.
And for an extract of the book you can find the opening chapter here:
https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/find-your-next-read/extracts/2016/jun/the-mermaid-and-mrs-hancock-by-imogen-hermes-gowar/
And this is what I thought:
By way of introduction, well over twenty years ago, a friend and fellow conchologist with a special interest in curiosities of natural history asked me if I would arrange to go to the Booth Museum in Brighton and take photographs of the 'mermaid' they were holding in their collections. He, David Heppell, was compiling a book of unnatural curiosities of natural history. Often these would be Chimerae, imaginary monsters compounded of incongruous parts. The Brighton mermaid was no exception being the melding of an ape head and torso complete with its forelimbs and the tail of a fish. Extremely ugly but some of these artefacts were so well made they were convincing. The first mermaid in Gowar's book is clearly of this type.
In many ways a companion volume to The Essex Serpent of Victorian East Anglia, this debut novel steps back further, to Georgian London, and features as one of its principal characters, a 'mermaid'. Gowar's human cast is cleverly set in its various hierarchical milieu, with appropriate vocabulary, turns of phrase, speech fashions and behaviour according to social class, and their respective susceptibilities and superstitions.
Gowar has written with wit and panache and in particular delivers a masterly interlude when the 'Madam',Bet Chappell, hires the wizened little mermaid to draw customers to her upscale brothel, the grotesque curio only emphasising the beauty of the women who frolic round it, draped in pearls, their privities dyed bright seaweed green, in a masque of the sea that turns into a carefully orchestrated orgy. Without doubt this is an erotic piece of writing but with so much taste....... Another vivid and moving passage occurs towards the end of the book when Bet Chappell faces retribution for connivance in pandering to the public appetite for sins of the flesh.
So I thoroughly enjoyed this book on many levels. I found the notion of mermaids and the public fascination with the possibility of their existence, which flows through the narrative, to be captivating and, in a sense takes me full circle since the day I first gazed upon that ugly monstrosity in a glass case in Brighton Museum.
LATER
…… Some time after reading this book my attention was drawn to another 'Mermaid' novel by Katharine. Only too eager to indulge my fascination with mermaids I settled to read:
Elijah's Mermaid by Essie Fox
Check out this blogspot for a beautiful site about this book with some captivating illustrations:
http://elijahsmermaidreviews.blogspot.com/
This short blurb appears on Amazon:
There is a longer synopsis/review on the web page of the author, Monique Mulligan
https://moniquemulligan.com/2013/03/02/review-elijahs-mermaid-by-essie-fox/
And this is what I thought:
By way of introduction, well over twenty years ago, a friend and fellow conchologist with a special interest in curiosities of natural history asked me if I would arrange to go to the Booth Museum in Brighton and take photographs of the 'mermaid' they were holding in their collections. He, David Heppell, was compiling a book of unnatural curiosities of natural history. Often these would be Chimerae, imaginary monsters compounded of incongruous parts. The Brighton mermaid was no exception being the melding of an ape head and torso complete with its forelimbs and the tail of a fish. Extremely ugly but some of these artefacts were so well made they were convincing. The first mermaid in Gowar's book is clearly of this type.
In many ways a companion volume to The Essex Serpent of Victorian East Anglia, this debut novel steps back further, to Georgian London, and features as one of its principal characters, a 'mermaid'. Gowar's human cast is cleverly set in its various hierarchical milieu, with appropriate vocabulary, turns of phrase, speech fashions and behaviour according to social class, and their respective susceptibilities and superstitions.
Gowar has written with wit and panache and in particular delivers a masterly interlude when the 'Madam',Bet Chappell, hires the wizened little mermaid to draw customers to her upscale brothel, the grotesque curio only emphasising the beauty of the women who frolic round it, draped in pearls, their privities dyed bright seaweed green, in a masque of the sea that turns into a carefully orchestrated orgy. Without doubt this is an erotic piece of writing but with so much taste....... Another vivid and moving passage occurs towards the end of the book when Bet Chappell faces retribution for connivance in pandering to the public appetite for sins of the flesh.
So I thoroughly enjoyed this book on many levels. I found the notion of mermaids and the public fascination with the possibility of their existence, which flows through the narrative, to be captivating and, in a sense takes me full circle since the day I first gazed upon that ugly monstrosity in a glass case in Brighton Museum.
LATER
…… Some time after reading this book my attention was drawn to another 'Mermaid' novel by Katharine. Only too eager to indulge my fascination with mermaids I settled to read:
Elijah's Mermaid by Essie Fox
Check out this blogspot for a beautiful site about this book with some captivating illustrations:
http://elijahsmermaidreviews.blogspot.com/
This short blurb appears on Amazon:
Saved from the Thames one foggy London night, Pearl grows up at the House of Mermaids - a brothel that becomes the closest thing to home. But despite being cosseted and spoiled by the Madame, come her 14th year, Pearl is to be sold to the highest bidder.
Orphaned twins Lily and Elijah are on a rare trip to London when they meet the ethereal Pearl. And the repercussions of this chance encounter will bind all their fates together, in a dark and dangerous way.
Bewitching, gothic and sensual, this is a tale of love and betrayal in a world where nothing is quite as it seems.
There is a longer synopsis/review on the web page of the author, Monique Mulligan
https://moniquemulligan.com/2013/03/02/review-elijahs-mermaid-by-essie-fox/
This review inevitably contains plot spoilers so should be read with that proviso.
And what did I think:
Well...……… if you like seriously gothic, Victorian London, under-belly aspects of a demi-monde life in a story of love and betrayal , obsession and guilt, you may well find this an engaging read. Women and children are exploited as victims of poverty, a male culture and the world of the Madame and her brothel. There are family bonds that tie and relationships to be revealed as the story unfolds.
What I do like is the several sections at the end of the book where Fox mentions real historical characters who have influenced those in her novel, real places which have influenced her settings, including the Grotto at Margate which I know well, and other themes relating to photography, health. She also provides a glossary of Victorian slang which occurs in her prose. I like it when authors bother to give that information to their readers. This contrasts with an absence of such ancillary information in Imogen Hermes Gowar's book. I thought she ought to have given a nod to the 'mermaid' which must have in part inspired The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock. She has worked as a curator in the museum world, surely she must have come across an example of the 'monkey-fish' monstrosities that were contrived and passed off as genuine mermaids. I am always impressed by authors who give the reader some background as to the origins of their works of fiction or non-fiction.
I found this novel sat quite nicely in the context of other recently-read titles such as the Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, also The Essex Serpent. It also picks up on themes in A Year of Marvellous Ways. Sometimes it is fun to read a gaggle of books whose plots and themes echo each other in some ways.
Then again I am always a sucker for the stuff of mermaids...…..
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