The Edinburgh Doctrines Series – Historical Notes

Here you can find a copy of the Historical Notes that accompany The Doctrines of Fire, A Treatise of Air, The Chronicles of Earth, and A Codex of Metal.

Caution: These historical notes are featured at the end of each book, so therefore may contain spoilers.

***

THE DOCTRINES OF FIRE

Some of this actually happened. No, seriously.

The personal and ideological conflict between John Brown and William Cullen was very real—though arguably it never got as bad as depicted in my story! The trajectory of their friendship and the events that catalysed its rupture happened much the way I portrayed them here, though the timeline of said events has been massaged slightly in the interest of plot. The eminently readable biography by Guenter B Risse, Explaining Brunonianism: A Biography of Edinburgh’s Master of Conviviality (2020) brings together the sometimes-contradictory accounts of John Brown’s life.

Robert Anderson is the foremost expert on Joseph Black, and his edited Correspondence of Joseph Black contains illuminating footnotes and contextualisation to his letters. The appendix contains Black’s household accounts, informing me which teas he kept in stock. Today Black is celebrated as a chemist, but in his own time he may have been seen more as a physician. He certainly kept a small but active practice throughout his life. Many of Black’s letters are kept at the University of Edinburgh Centre for Research Collections—they are written in this luscious dark ink. 

The Cullen Project is an effort led by the University of Glasgow to digitise Cullen’s voluminous medical correspondence. William Cullen and the eighteenth century world (1990) also shines a light on Cullen’s teaching and medical research.

Andrew Duncan Senior: Physician of the Enlightenment (2010) examines the principled career of Duncan, and casually pointed out that he was a long-time participant in the Beggar’s Benison. To the best of my knowledge, the Beggars didn’t conduct secret orgies on Tuesday nights…but with a few internet searches you can see for yourself what they got up to in their regular meetings! Just don’t use your work computer. The Beggar’s Benison (2001) by David Stevenson does a good job of separating fact from salacious fiction.

For a scholarly overview of the Georgian era, Penelope Corfield’s The Georgians (2022) proved helpful. Her 2017 paper From Hat Honor to the Handshake: Changing Styles of Communication in the Eighteenth Century delved into the thorny issue of handshakes versus bowing versus hat tipping.

Digging into the details of Georgian life involved A New and Easy Method of Cookery (1755) by Elizabeth Cleland, which was more vegetarian-friendly than I expected, and A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1788) for some insults that deserve to return to popular usage.

Social Change in the Age of Enlightenment: Edinburgh 1660–1760 (1994) by RA Houston summarises the political and social forces at work during the decades Edinburgh transformed from squalid medieval town…to squalid capital of the Enlightenment.

The history of the University of Edinburgh and the ‘Tounis College’ can be found in Building knowledge: An architectural history of the University of Edinburgh (2017).

Descriptions of Monro’s old and new anatomy theatre layouts were found in the article The Academy of St Luke, Edinburgh – at work c.1737 by Joe Rock. By 1779, Black was running out of space to hold his classes and forced to share space with other professors while his new laboratory was being built. However, Monro had almost certainly moved out of his old basement anatomy theatre by this point to the new extension. You have to admit, it makes a good setting, though.

A Guide for Gentlemen studying at the University of Edinburgh (1792) tells us what courses students took, and the recommended order of classes. The Diaries of Sylas Neville (1950) and letters of Samuel Bard (available online), give us insight into daily lives of medical students and their relationships with Cullen, Black, Monro, Brown and Duncan. Neville was rather shocked when Black sang at a medical society dinner.

Although much of Doctrines of Fire is based on historical research, my goal is to tell an entertaining story, with interesting characters. The Doctrines shouldn’t be taken as an accurate depiction of events and real historical figures, and I hope experts of the period will forgive any errors—stylistic or careless—contained herein.

***

A TREATISE OF AIR

Some of this actually happened. Sort of.

In 1794 a woman called Mrs Elizabeth Fulhame published An Essay On Combustion with a View to a New Art of Dying and Painting, wherein the Phlogistic and Antiphlogistic Hypotheses are Proved Erroneous. In it, she described over a decade’s painstaking chemical research developing metallic fabrics dyes. Thanks to her observations, she was able to describe the act of catalysis—water speeding up a chemical reaction without itself being consumed—forty years before it was “discovered” and named by Bergus. A few of her metallic salts proved to be light sensitive, and she was credited by William Herschel as laying the groundwork for photography.

Despite these achievements, for all we know of the real woman, Elizabeth Fulhame may have been a magic-wielding, horse-stealing crime fighter. We know more about her husband Thomas—a medical student at the University of Edinburgh—than the chemistry pioneer herself. We don’t know her maiden name, when she married Thomas Fulhame, or even if she was Irish. Her fiery, feminist Essay is all we have of her voice.

I created this fictionalised heroine from the bones of the historical record. We know Thomas Fulham(e) came from Navan in Meath county, where he had a complicated relationship with his brother Patrick. We know Thomas enjoyed unusual stature with Joseph Black: he took Black’s chemistry course several years in a row, and Black’s correspondence shows Thomas carrying out business on Black’s behalf in London, and Black recommending Thomas’ own chemical projects to his government contacts. Reaction to Elizabeth the chemist was mixed even in her own time: it is clear from the introduction to her Essay that she corresponded with and was encouraged by numerous philosophers, even though her husband considered her goals “improbable.” Some reviewers lauded her Essay, some found it more titillating than edifying, and others called it “frivolous and womanish.” It is guesswork on my part that Black supported her…though I’ll note he was one of the few men in Britain to acquire a lump of platina (platinum), and Elizabeth recorded trying platina as one of her metallic dyes. Given that she was the wife of a not-very-successful doctor, I’m not sure she could have afforded to buy the metal on her own.

Two real events depicted in this book have been brought closer together than they occurred in reality. The first British air balloon flight did take place in Edinburgh in August 1784. Its pilot James Tytler was every bit as complicated and extraordinary as I’ve depicted him here, and he also failed to achieve widespread recognition for his accomplishments.

Several years later, the Board of Trades asked Black to evaluate a lucrative turkey red dyeing procedure smuggled off the Continent by an opportunistic Frenchman. Moreau is a fictionalised version of the real individual. Black’s chemical consultancy work took up a lot of his time throughout his teaching career, and Adam Smith was one of his closest friends.

Ramsay Gardens remains a striking feature on the Edinburgh skyline, though its brightly-coloured houses are a remake and extension of the original buildings that sat on this site in the 18th century. The original Ramsay Lodge had one less floor, making Thomas’ escape slightly more plausible. I relied on watercolours and sketches from the Edinburgh Capital Collections to imagine how the building would look in the 1780s.

Lastly, the grocer-cum-locksmith “Georgie” made a second attempt to break into the Excise Office in 1788…only this time he and his crew weren’t so lucky. George Smith is less well-known today than the gang’s ringleader Deacon William Brodie, whose duplicitous life as a gambler, thief and reputable townsperson inspired RL Stevenson to write The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

Through such tales, legends are made.

***

THE CHRONICLES OF EARTH

Some of this actually happened. Unfortunately.

On the 7th March 1785, Joseph Black surprised the Edinburgh scientific community by presenting the first half of a geological paper to the Royal Society on behalf of James Hutton. We don’t know why Hutton did not present the paper himself: could it have been nerves? An unexpected illness? The historical record is silent. Fortunately, as you now know, by the time of the next meeting in April Hutton was able to present the concluding half of his paper. That was my jumping-off point into the life of James Hutton and the accompanying What Ifs?

The Man Who Found Time by Jack Repcheck is a phenomenal biography of Hutton and distillation of the Enlightenment forces that shaped him. A more concise, pop science, treatment of Hutton’s theories can be found in A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. The chapter on Hutton I consider one of the funniest pieces of science writing I’ve come across, and it probably sparked my interest in the eccentric geologist when I first read it in my teens. As a novelist, I think about this line from Bryson a lot: “Encouraged by his friends to expand his theory, in the touching hope that he might somehow stumble onto clarity in a more expansive format, Hutton spent the next ten years preparing his magnum opus.” Isn’t that what all authors hope for?

The other real historical figure who inserts himself into the story is Dr James Graham: arguably, the world’s first sex therapist. Doctor of Love: James Graham and His Celestial Bed by Lydia Syson recounts his trans-Atlantic medical career and subsequent evolution into celebrity and quack theories. Electrical demonstrations were a popular form of entertainment at the time. He’s a man very much of the Georgian era.

Panmure House and St Cecilia’s Hall are still in operation today, in much the same capacities they occupied in the eighteenth century. While Adam’s Smith home is not preserved as a historical site, I was fortunate to look inside during an annual Edinburgh Open Doors Day. Hutton is memorialised by ‘Hutton’s Section’ at the edge of Salisbury Crags where he studied rock formations, and a memorial garden in Pleasance where his house once stood.

If you head out of Edinburgh and past Haddington one weekend (like I did) you won’t find “Grangemore estate”…but you might come across Amsfield Walled Garden, once the largest walled garden in Georgian century Britain, now maintained by volunteers. The accompanying Amsfield House was demolished in 1928 and is now the site of a golf course. 

Eat the rich, indeed.

***

A CODEX OF METAL

Some of this actually happened.

As I’ve said before, Elizabeth Fulhame was a real person, who discovered the principles of catalysis and photography. An Essay On Combustion with a View to a New Art of Dying and Painting, wherein the Phlogistic and Antiphlogistic Hypotheses are Proved Erroneous was published in 1794. The early photographer William Herschel was familiar with her experiments, and credits her work with light-sensitive nitrate salts as underpinning his own. While a plethora of historical information exists concerning Joseph Black and his male contemporaries, we know next to nothing about Elizabeth’s life. We know that she received some acknowledgement for her discoveries during her lifetime—she was made an honorary member of the Philadelphia Chemical Society in 1810—but the scant records we have suggest a tragic, ignominious end for such a pioneer.

My hope in writing these stories is two-fold: that more people learn about Fulhame, and that through fiction I can give her a happier story. The timing of certain real events featured in this story have been massaged to fit the narrative.

That said, the incident with Patrick Fay is not made up. The Case of the Reverend Patrick Fay, now Under Sentence of Death in the New Prison, Written by Himself (1787) spells out Fay’s account of what transpired in Dublin. Fay’s other criminal activities can be found in the public record. 

We also know that the Fulhames spent some time in Dublin and London during the period of 1786-89, interspersed with stints in Edinburgh, thanks to references in Black’s correspondence, Fay’s account and Thomas’ name appearing on the Edinburgh tax rolls. We don’t know what prompted the Fulhames to relocate, or where exactly they lived when not in Edinburgh.

Robert Adam’s expansive South Bridge sketches still exist, and I’ll leave it to the reader to decide if it was a mistake for the Town Council to pass them up. 

The Doctrines of Fire Preview (Chapters 1 and 2)

Chapter 1

Edinburgh – 9 November 1779

Professor Joseph Black considered himself thirteen years too old for sneaking around cellars investigating rumours of slain medical students.

“Did you check under that chair, Joe?”

Yet here he was. Black sighed. “Not yet.”

His companion and fellow faculty member, William Cullen, paused his rummaging through a cobweb-choked dispensary cabinet. The meagre light from scrounged together candle stubs made it impossible to read his expression.

“Did you hear something?” Black asked. Cullen had the advantage of better hearing; Black had better eyesight. Not that either counted for much at their age.

Amused, Cullen shook his head. “I told you, no one’s summoning the Town Guard in response to our presence.” He patted his coat pocket, which gave a satisfying clink. “And if they do, it’s a quick misunderstanding to rectify.”

Black couldn’t argue with that. The Edinburgh Town Guard weren’t known for their zeal apprehending criminals, excluding those misfortunate enough to murder a man outside the Guardhouse the day they left their purse at home.

The two professors had simply stridden into the College of Surgeons and descended into the cellars, talking softly as if preoccupied with cerebral affairs. No one questioned their business, and it was unlikely anyone could overhear them through these thick walls.

“See if there’s any traces of blood on that dissecting table, Joe. Fresh blood, I mean.”

“I already inspected that table. It’s impossible to tell.” The air here was stale and thick with mildew. While there were signs this storage space was recently occupied—the presence of fresh candles and an order to the row of lidless leech jars—unless a large group of individuals came in regularly, it would be impossible for their activities to replace the scent of disuse. They would need to spill a lot of bodily fluids.

“Well, perhaps one of them dropped written notes?”

That seemed improbable.

“How much do you know about the victim this time, William?” Cullen had hurried him from the college grounds ten minutes ago, his whispers struggling to keep pace. Before that, Black was ignorant of anything amiss.

“Next to nothing, Joe. Ha! I learned the boy was dead only an hour before you did. Questioned a few students on my way to you, but no one knew who attended to him in the Infirmary yesterday, and I’m stuck visiting patients across town all afternoon. Since my next visit is just along Nicolson Street and she’s recuperating well, I thought we’d use what little time I had to search the suspects’ domain before your morning class began. Before they return and remove all evidence.” Cullen cocked his head, listening for unwelcome footsteps in the corridor.

If someone from the College of Surgeons did deign to enquire what the venerable professors were doing down here it would—as usual—fall to Black to come up with a convincing explanation. If the individuals responsible for the dead student returned and found the duo poking around in their secret quarters…

Well, he hadn’t thought that far ahead.

Black rubbed his lower back. “I doubt we’ll find proof they conducted any procedure here.” Was it a medical procedure? Or was “ritual” a more apt descriptor? He’d heard enough of Cullen’s theorising on the distinction these past months, but nothing in this cramped space brought clarity. If the student died because of what happened to him here yesterday—still conjecture on Cullen’s part—those responsible would have scrubbed the place clean before their victim reached the Infirmary.

Right now, they were clutching a handful of truths and rumours.

“Once my ten o’clock lecture is over, I’m engaged most of the afternoon too,” Black admitted. There was a row of brown glass bottles on the shelving in the corner. He shook them in turn. All empty. This was useless. “How sure are you of the culprit, William? There’s been a nasty fever spreading through town these past weeks.”

“Oh, it has to be him and his associates. The student in question was sympathetic to his views.”

Black preferred simple solutions to problems. There was an elegance in simplicity. One or two students always fell to fever in the winter months: the consequence of dwelling in a crowded city. Of course, Cullen tended towards the classical in his outlook. That’s why he favoured ornate solutions.

“I don’t dispute your rationale for searching the Surgeons’ buildings,” Black began, “since we know the suspects congregate on the premises, but uncovering a half-empty poison bottle won’t help us. The intent behind the deaths is no clearer than it was in August, and the other faculty aren’t going to believe us unless we can convince them these deaths were deliberate.”

“Any fool can see they’re deliberate,” Cullen said, almost knocking over a candle as he raised his hand. “The faculty are choosing wilful blindness.”

“Well, if we prove intent and a compelling motivation, they’ll find your suspicions harder to dispute.” Black realised he should have said “our suspicions”, but Cullen didn’t seem to notice so he ploughed on. “Right now we’re chasing day-old echoes. Our best hope is to get wind of the next casualty before it becomes a fatality. Catch the culprits before they destroy the ephemera.”

It wasn’t that Black disbelieved his colleague: it was more that he possessed an absence of fixed belief on the matter. But he didn’t like seeing Cullen this agitated.

Cullen took a step closer. “You really want to bring the students into this, Joe? That’s what you’re suggesting, isn’t it? No professor will cooperate with us; neither of us has the time to maintain the necessary levels of vigilance.”

“We might not need more than one student,” Black mused. His colleague’s posture indicated the inspection was abandoned. Just as well—he’d finish prepping that jug of aqua regia before class began. “One student we can put the time in to train might be more useful than a squabbling crowd of them anyway.”

“I barely have the time to hunt and train students either. But yes, securing a good one could be worth the effort…”

Chapter 2

“Stephens—for God’s sake, make the fire more lively.”

Hiding his displeasure at being ordered about by someone younger than him, George Stephens slipped off the sofa and crouched by the parlour fireplace, flicking his coat out from under his feet and moving a cracked oil lamp to one side. He jabbed the fire—more ashy smoulder than blaze—with a crooked poker. With the venerable professors almost at the door, preparing the parlour fell on the lodger easiest to order around.

Behind him, the remaining student lodgers filed into the room. It seemed he wouldn’t have a choice about being present at this social call. He’d first worried it’d be presumptuous to stay when the professors—who were, strictly speaking, calling upon fellow lodger Edward—arrived, since Edward was months away from completing his medical dissertation and had known the two men for years, and George didn’t know them at all. Then he worried that retiring to his room or contriving an errand would be a greater snub to such eminent guests.

“You said Doctors Cullen and Black were almost here?” he asked Edward, prodding the fire. The flames edged higher, and George was rewarded with their warm touch on his cheek and brow.

He wanted to tell Edward that if he was so concerned with the state of the hearth he should administer to it himself. He’d seen Edward take such remarks from his friends in stride, but would George come across as rude?

“They’re waylaid four doors down,” Edward said. “A group of bairns were playing with too much spirit on the street corner: Dr Cullen’s admonishing them for their carelessness.” He shrugged, smoothing his curly brown hair. “At least there’s now a warm room waiting for them.”

It would have been nice to know I had several minutes’ leeway before I rushed to fix the hearth, George thought. Shame Edward didn’t view such helpful information as necessary for him to complete the task.

There was a time, strictly speaking only a few months prior, but it belonged to an age of innocence, when George believed his military experience would garnish cachet with other Edinburgh medical students. Instead, he was greeted by awkward silences when the students he spoke to realised he never held officer status. After learning that, most deposited him in the same category as “manservant” or “costermonger”.

The lodgings owner shuffled into the parlour. She was a small, white-haired woman who subsisted, as most Edinburgh landladies did, on overcooked vegetables and other people’s private business. George was surprised at the liveliness in her posture, like a blackbird hopping along the ground.

“The tea is ready for the gentlemen when they arrive,” she told Edward eagerly. George hadn’t expected her to care about the visiting professors.

A knock at the front door, though genteel, carried over the now-crackling hearth.

The parlour door opened to reveal the two men, garbed in traditional physician black. A rush of wind from the street sent flames jumping into the chimney.

William Cullen, professor of the practice of physic, who strode in with a welcoming beam, was the older and stockier of the two, with a genial, expressive countenance. He wore an oversized horsehair wig in a style several decades out of fashion. Cullen’s greetings towards those he knew seemed derived from genuine delight and affection the recipient could not help but match.

Following just a step behind, like a cool draught on a humid summer afternoon, was Joseph Black, professor of chemistry. Where Cullen was stocky and lively, Black was tall, thin and graceful. Where Cullen’s complexion was hearty, Black’s was pale as milk. Although delicate, he looked younger than his fifty years, powdering his mostly brown hair in a more modern, understated style. Black’s eyes moved with simple economy of movement around the room as he greeted those he recognised with a short but respectful nod. Despite his unnatural stillness and quiet, George found himself glancing at Black time and time again. What was he thinking? Was he displeased or indifferent by the company?

Cups of piping-hot tea were passed around, and the lodgers settled into an awkward circle as the visiting professors—now seated—moved through the appropriate social motions.

This stilted scene reminded George of the feral puppies he encountered as a child at his aunt’s farmhouse. A stray bitch that roamed the nearby woodland gave birth to a litter one summer, hidden away from humans in a makeshift den. When the puppies were older, George and his cousins tracked them down, bringing scraps of cold meats to the den every evening. The puppies flinched and cowered with every movement the boys made, backing two steps into the undergrowth, then edging forward towards the scraps tossed their way, bobbing their heads as far away from their tensed bodies as possible. The puppies were simultaneously enthralled and terrified by George and his cousins, and the nervous energy of the medical students in the presence of their professors reminded him of them.

Not that I’m any braver than the other students, he thought ruefully. He’d been in Edinburgh scarcely a few weeks, and this was the first time encountering Cullen and Black outside the college grounds. He’d had about as much exposure to medical faculty before now as those feral puppies had to humans. He turned his head away to recompose his expression.

“Your background is very interesting, Mr Stephens.”

The voice made George start, for it sounded like someone had spoken into his ear. He turned. From his seated position several metres away, Black watched him with a look of mild amusement. The kindling let out a few satisfied crackles.

“It occurred to me that your background is very interesting, Mr Stephens,” Black repeated, leaning forward with what George believed a genuine smile. “Your military conduct in New York was superb, so my sources tell me. I hear you are already adept in many fields of learning, and a keen study.” Without strain, his low voice carried across the room. Black spoke in a melodious tone, with an accent that shifted as the listener concentrated: the product of a youth transposed between France, Ireland and Scotland.

“Thank you, sir,” George responded. This sudden attention was daunting, but he knew he should keep the conversation going, though he worried any remark he made would sound foolish. Wetting his lips, George ventured, “I understand Mr Pearson was a former student of yours?”

Black nodded.

“The very same. A delightful correspondent; he speaks highly of you.”

“Neil’s still an army surgeon?” Cullen asked. “When I spoke to him several years ago, he wanted to set up a school in London.”

George was sure Cullen had directed the question at Black, but Black held George in his gaze. A slight nod gave George permission to answer.

“I got the impression Mr Pearson likes army life more than he expected,” George hazarded. He could have added that Mr Pearson was often disparaging of the medical school community and what he called its insular, conservative nature—but that seemed improper to mention in polite conversation. It was why Pearson never studied beyond the minimum necessary to qualify as a surgeon.

Another nod from Black as George struggled to add something intelligent to his reply. “That is the sentiment I gathered from reading his letters.”

Cullen made complimentary remarks about Mr Pearson before moving the conversation back across the room. The lodgers were relaxing, curiosity triumphing over caution. George leant back in his chair and let others carry the discourse. A short but positive interaction with two giants of medical science wasn’t a bad start, and he dared not contribute more, for fear of ruining his success. Black didn’t say much else, though George noticed that when the other lodgers turned their heads away he would sometimes study them with a thoughtful expression.

A few tolerable hours passed, and the professors readied to leave. George rose to bid them farewell. As Black stood in the doorway George noticed he’d left his walking cane leaning against the chair, so he picked it up and handed it over. As he did so he was momentarily confused—Black’s slender cane was heavier than it looked.

“I’m glad to meet you, Mr Stephens,” Cullen said, grasping his hand. “I’m excited to see where your medical studies take you—your abilities are certainly promising.”

“Indeed, sir.” George cursed himself for agreeing so readily with this assessment. “I know Mr Pearson finds great fulfilment in his work. I owe much credit to him for setting me on this path, but I suspect my medical studies won’t take me back to the battlefields.”

“No,” said Black, with more of a smile than George had seen all afternoon. “I don’t imagine they will.”

* * *

The encounter weighed on George’s mind in the days that followed. As he went to lectures and ran errands around the town, he spotted Black and Cullen from afar on several occasions. Sometimes together, sometimes drawn in carriages alone. He never got close enough for a greeting or acknowledgement, though he suspected both men recognised him as surely as he did them.

Black’s remarks were the first time anyone in the medical school had said something complimentary about his background.

George remembered the reverence for former soldiers gathered in the dusty taverns around his hamlet, how willing the other tavern-dwellers were to listen to their exploits and saucy tales. He wasn’t proud to admit it, but sometimes as he lay awake in his tent he wished he’d depart New York with a gruesome injury, because those ex-soldiers commanded the most attention.

As it transpired, he came home intact, but his interest in martial glory was severed. The British Army was subject to the same incompetent leadership that dogged every honourable profession, and George resented the snakes among his ranks who ingratiated themselves to gain promotion.

Neil Pearson had sensed George’s disillusion with the army and urged him to consider a medical education whenever George took to loitering around the field hospital.

“You have the head of a physician,” he told George. “I can recommend you to the faculty at Edinburgh.”

George had no reason to doubt the advice of the army surgeon he so admired.

* * *

A rude banging at his door disrupted George’s belated attempt at composing a letter home.

“Yes?” George asked, feigning politeness.

His fellow lodger James shoved the door open. Noticing the boy’s sour expression, George prepared himself for an argument. James was several years younger than him, with hair that couldn’t be bothered deciding if it was blond or brown and a childlike dearth of lived experience. He was the type of wealthy boy who could afford to be coddled by his parents, and for whom life as a medical student in Edinburgh would be his first time navigating the world alone. When animated, he brought George to mind of a screaming American possum.

Mrs Collins’ lodgings was the third boarding-house James had occupied this term. According to him, the first place was “too dirty”; the second landlady made what he considered unreasonable demands regarding use of her kitchen; and here James had already quarrelled with George and other lodgers over the kind of minor, almost non-existent slights he was yet to realise were a fact of life.

“A messenger delivered these for you, from Dr Cullen.”

So the handful of books James clutched were for him. George moved to stand, but James dropped the books on his bed and slammed the door shut. A folded note slid off the stack. James hadn’t appeared too curious about the delivery, but George knew he’d probably inspected the contents as thoroughly as he could while ascending the stairs and deemed them of no interest.

George unfolded the note.

Drs Black and Cullen humbly request Mr George Stephens’ company for dinner tomorrow night at Dr Black’s, 5 o’clock. Have you the time, you may find the following reading useful. Respectfully, your humble and obedient servant, WC.

Turning his attention to the books, George saw they included translations of scientific treatises by Georg Ernst Stahl and Cullen’s own work, First Lines of the Practice of Physic.

An invitation to dinner wasn’t unusual in itself. The medical faculty hosted many students, even those not yet enrolled in their classes. George wasn’t even the first of his cohort to receive such an invitation. However, although these evenings often turned to discussions of medical and educational matters, George wasn’t aware of any friends receiving reading material in advance of a dinner.

Instead of soaring with triumph, George was crushed under anxiety. No one noticed if he was lost in class: at the professor’s dinner table no one could miss it. Reluctantly, he pushed his incomplete letter aside.

The hours ticked towards evening, but first came George’s college classes. Dr Alexander Monro’s anatomy theatre was located down a winding staircase in the college basement. Thin windows near the ceiling were so meagre with illumination that Monro usually boarded them up and resorted to candles.

As George entered, Monro was in the centre of the room, bent over the dissecting table. A body lay concealed under a black sheet, though in the dim lights its outline didn’t bear much resemblance to a human. Spreading out from the central table were circular platforms for students to stand on and peer over the dissecting table, and raised tiered seating at the back of the room for everyone else. Beeswax candles were set around the table and along the first row of seating.

George was often the first student to arrive to Monro’s one o’clock lectures, given most students came direct from clinical rounds at the Infirmary. Seating in the old anatomy theatre was a careful art: sit on a high row at the back and you may experience a blessed breeze through the boarded window, carrying away the stench of decomposing matter. Sit or stand nearer the front and you’d have enough light to see what was going on.

The dais creaked as he crossed it. Monro looked up. He was the kind of oversized, naturally humourless figure who always performed a poor impression of joviality, as if unsure what true happiness looked like. “Ah, it’s Mr Stevenson, isn’t it?”

“Stephens, but yes, sir.”

“Of course! Forgive me, Mr Stephens. I’m terrible with names.”

This was after multiple conversations at the start of term, and Dr Monro agreeing to waive George’s course fee on account of his reduced means.

From this angle, George saw Monro was preparing a pig’s body for dissection. He could hear a knife snipping through gristle.

“There’s talk of that murderer from Prestonpans hanging soon, but no definitive date as far as I can tell. Anyway, this early in the term we’d be wasting the body on students still in the habit of vomiting and swooning when they see a corpse. A pig or dog illustrates the anatomical principles well enough for now.” Monro eyed George, his fleshy face concealed in shadow. “I imagine with your military adventures we won’t have to worry about you taking ill?”

“It’s unlikely, sir,” George admitted. A skeleton hung from the ceiling beams, left twisting idly by footfalls in the old wing above. Behind Monro, he could make out a web of blood vessels displayed by the door, preserved in red wax. Next to it were several jars containing pale and delicate fronds of human tissue; George couldn’t decide what they were.

It was true he’d seen the dead and dying, but none of the deceased things in here bore much resemblance to humans.

“How are you finding the lecture material?” Monro asked. “I don’t hear much from you during class. Or after.” His reproach was undeniable.

George had assumed his professor would be annoyed by his questions, some of which he feared laughable, and would not want to deal with another lost soul after his lecturing duty ended. He bit his lip.

“You know, of course, that there is still space in the evening demonstration course,” Monro continued, turning his attention back to the carcass. “Run at the College of Surgeons by my colleague Mr Fyfe. He’s a tolerable lecturer, if I say so myself—huh-huh—and the students who attend find his smaller class size conducive to deepened understanding of anatomy.”

Which is another thing that costs money, George thought. Another guinea that I don’t possess. His family saved what they could, but hadn’t appreciated that every step of his medical education involved separating coin from purse: course fees, books, evening remedial lectures, private tutors. Seeing how they struggled after parting with the funds that covered his boarding, George couldn’t bring himself to ask for more.

Asking his fellow students for assistance yielded mixed results. All but one of them acted like George wasn’t there, and he didn’t like dwelling on the anomaly.

“I tell my students I don’t expect them to know everything on the first day of class,” Monro went on. “Or else they wouldn’t need to be here. Nor do I expect them to agree with me on every theoretical point. If you scrutinise Professor Cullen’s theories”—here George’s heart rate spiked—“you’ll see our thinking diverges considerably on matters relating to the nervous system. But this kind of healthy disagreement among academics is important to advance the field towards true understanding of the human condition.”

Monro spoke in such a flat tone, preoccupied with snipping through tendons, that George couldn’t tell if he was sincere. Nothing the anatomy professor had said in class so far implied friendship with Cullen. Had Monro become aware of his dinner invitation? Was he delivering some kind of warning?

A soft chirbling noise from across the room startled him.

A small child, no older than five, was perched on the front row of seats. George hadn’t noticed it was there. The child was waving its fingers in front of its face and making little noises to amuse itself.

“That’s my oldest, Alex,” Monro said, with a careless wave of his hand. “He’s a bit young, but I reckoned getting him used to the smells and sights in here now would only help him later. I must have been the same age when my father first brought me to watch his dissections. I was eighteen when I started assisting him in the demonstration of anatomy; I don’t know if I told you that.”

“No, sir.”

George had heard some of the older faculty refer to Monro with the epithet “junior”, since he shared the name Alexander with his father.

“He usually settles when I get to speaking,” Monro continued, still observing his son. “If not, I think I’ve got some kidney stones he can play with.” Another set of creaks broke his attention. “Well, look—if it isn’t Misters Sinclair and Campbell. Good of you to join us, boys!”

When George arrived to dinner at Black’s that evening, the two professors were conferring in the elegant dining room. The teal wallpaper with its intricate floral patterns was the most vibrant internal decor George had ever seen.

Black rose and walked over, with more liveliness than he displayed in public.

“A pleasure to see you again, Mr Stephens.”

“I appreciate your invitation, sir.” George wasn’t used to being in houses with dining rooms.

Cullen waved from across the room. “I trust a studious scholar such as yourself will have found the time to read all those books?”

“Correct. I was familiar with your work, of course, and knew a little of Stahl’s theories before settling down to read his essays.”

Black motioned George to join him at the table. His dark mahogany furniture gleamed in the fading evening light. George noticed the furthest end of Black’s dining room was occupied by a large cabinet filled with what appeared to be rock specimens. Aside from that, there was no other indication he was in the house of a natural philosopher. Dinner consisted of a respectable green pea soup, roasted sturgeon, mutton pie and apple dumplings. The conversation wound through trivial, light-hearted topics as they began to eat, though George sensed both men, but Cullen in particular, wanted to get to the real reason for their invitation as soon as it was polite to do so.

When he decided that point was reached, Black leant forward. He’d given George enough time to relax into the surroundings, but not so long his imagination carried him away debating the possible nature of his visit.

“How familiar are you with the theories of John Brown?” Black asked.

George looked at both men. Neither Cullen nor Black gave indication as to how they hoped he’d respond.

“I heard his medical theories are considered…radical,” George admitted. “But I know little of their nature.”

“His extramural lectures are very popular with students,” Cullen pressed. “Have you considered attending them?”

George’s heart began to accelerate. The professors were shepherding him towards a potential trap, that was clear, but he didn’t know what the trap was.

George knew a little of Brown. James, the querulous fellow, spoke glowingly of Brown’s private lecture courses and of the man himself. Brown had reputedly been so close to Cullen he’d named his infant son William Cullen Brown in honour of his former teacher. Rumours suggested the two men had fallen out, that Brown was recently denied a faculty position, despite a long career lecturing outwit the university. For all George knew, the two men were now reconciled, though if so it was strange the professors were querying him about Brown.

Whatever the answer Black and Cullen were looking for, George realised he couldn’t guess it. He also suspected Black had a keen sense for lies.

“I certainly considered attending Dr Brown’s lectures,” George admitted. “For the reason Dr Cullen stated. But then I decided against overtaxing my schedule.” He also worried that if James was a typical adherent of Brown’s, he’d struggle to enjoy their company. His consideration period was shortened by the knowledge Brown charged three guineas, like the university professors.

“Do not feel ashamed, Mr Stephens!” Cullen laughed. “Youths and their natural curiosity bring so much into the world.”

George allowed himself to believe he’d answered the professor’s question satisfactorily. The meal almost concluded, Black offered him a glass of wine.

“What do you know of phlogiston, Mr Stephens?” Black then asked.

This was at least a clearly defined trap, George noted, because the books Cullen had sent pertained to this topic.

“It is the element of fire,” George replied. “The driver of combustion and calcination, in the words of Stahl. Burning is the release of phlogiston from metal, wood or a match. Once burned, a metal can be returned to its pure state by reacting it with a phlogiston-rich substance, which replenishes the metal’s deficiency.” He knew he was giving the professors a simplistic answer, but they appeared satisfied with the information he had obtained from a few hours’ study. After a pause, he added, “Stahl hypothesised phlogiston could be harnessed for uses beyond these simple chemical transformations, but he didn’t elucidate further.”

“Yes, it’s a wonder, isn’t it?” Cullen mused, slipping into the tone of the lecture halls. “Phlogiston exists in all matter, living and inanimate, and simple experiments show it can be transmitted from one substance to another. We see what destructive and restorative power it is capable of. But maybe you can think of some uses for phlogiston?”

“Phlogiston exists within man, as well as nature?” George asked after an uncomfortable pause. He knew Cullen loved to draw students through this type of Socratic dialogue to the truth, but he had no idea where he was stepping.

“Indeed. Knowing that, now what do you think?”

“Well, I’d assume man has the power to generate fire, though losing phlogiston would surely come at a terrible cost to his body.” George thought of wood in the hearth turned to blackened, crumbling charcoal.

“A wise assumption. But man is more complex than a lump of metal?”

George had been wondering how the evening’s lines of questioning were linked, but now he thought he knew. From James’ rants on the subject, he was aware that a key point of theoretical contention between Brown and Cullen was their understanding of the nervous system. “Well, Dr Cullen, you yourself write extensively of man’s nervous system and its capacity for excitement and depression, which in the healthy individual can regulate itself but otherwise requires the attention of doctors.” He paused. “You think the innate balance of man’s nervous system can protect him from a sudden loss of phlogiston?”

The two professors were looking at each other. Cullen’s hand was resting on his chin, but now he leant an elbow on the table and lightly clenched his fist in front of George’s plate.

“After a fashion,” he said with a chuckle.

Cullen’s fingers began to glow.

Coming in 2025…The Edinburgh Doctrines Omnibus Kickstarter

The Edinburgh Doctrines series is drawing to a close…but that presents an unique opportunity for fans to get a special edition hardback featuring books 1-4.

If you’re not familiar with Kickstarter, it’s a platform that allows fans to bring exciting new projects to life through crowdsourcing funds. And this includes special books!

There was always going to be a combined omnibus edition of The Edinburgh Doctrines series available through online retailers, but through Kickstarter I can create a special, limited edition version of that omnibus not available in shops. It will come with character art, bonus content, new chapter headers and extra-fancy cover design.

I hope to launch the Kickstarter itself in early 2025. More updates will follow in my newsletter and social media, but feel free to head over to my Coming Soon Kickstarter page and click Notify Me On Launch to receive project updates.

Thanks for your support so far! I’m excited to see how this goes.

The Doctrines of Fire & SPFBO 9

In mid May, I was one of the 300 indie authors who entered the 2023 Self-Publishing Fantasy Blog Off (SPFBO9) within 41 minutes of submission opening. If you aren’t familiar with SPFBO, I hope that statistic convinces you of its popularity and visibility within the indie SFF community!

I’m excited to see how The Doctrines of Fire does in the competition. Obviously, it’s my debut, 18th century historical fantasy is a niche interest, and I lack the platform other entrants enjoy…but SPFBO is one of the best opportunities to get my book in front of a wider readership and help it find its audience.

Between June and October the 10 reviewer blogs will be reviewing, cutting and shortlisting their batches of 30 books. You can’t predict when your book will go under the microscope and rise to glory/burn out of the competition – judging teams and individual reviewers all have their own workflow – which adds to the excitement, I suppose.

Anyway, here is some Doctrines of Fire coverage from reviewers (not necessarily assigned to judge my book), other authors and readers. Check the links out and see who else catches your eye in the competition:

  • Katherine D Graham has provided stellar coverage of the competition through her YouTube channel. I joined two other entrants in the Fantasy Faction slush pile to discuss the competition, our books, and indie author life in general
  • The Doctrines of Fire was one of Fantasy Book Critics’ ~50 “Interesting Titles” highlighted at the start of the competition
  • I was interviewed by Rune Nielsen for his ongoing series of SPFBO author interviews
  • Dom of Dominish Books considered Doctrines‘ opening sentence one of the most intriguing among the contenders. He also rated its title as note-worthy
  • Doctrines appeared on a few SPFBO9 TBR lists (one of my goals of the comp is to build a reader profile “readers who like X will like Doctrines” so I’m interested in seeing who is on TBR lists with me)
https://twitter.com/trudieskies/status/1665277952769114116?s=46&t=65jq5J6mToxxzhe_4Vf6pA

Why I self-published my novels

That’s the first question indie authors have to answer, isn’t it? Most self-published authors have to ask themselves if they wish to seek a traditional publishing deal for their books (i.e. “trad pub”) if they want to take responsibility for everything and upload their manuscripts to distribution sites themselves (i.e. “self pub”).

I think my reasons for self-publishing are the same as many authors:

  • A lack of patience (it can take years to find a literary agent, then years to find a publisher willing to take your book, then another 12-18 months until that book appears on shelves)
  • An enjoyment of entrepreneurship (producing your own product, thinking through a business lens, learning new skills to serve your business such as cover design & marketing)
  • A tolerance of risk
  • An overwhelming urge for creative control.

I’ve enjoyed working on the Edinburgh Doctrines series knowing I’m setting the pace and deciding where to take the books (e.g. sub-genre, themes, plot beats).

Thanks to Publishing Paid Me and the Harper Collins strike, we know a lot about the inequities and challenges within traditional publishing: how modest the advances can be for authors, and how overworked/underpaid publishing professionals are. However, I’ve just started listening to the Publishing Rodeo podcast, which offers another kind of cautionary tale for aspiring authors.

When authors like myself imagine a trad pub career, we usually imagine ourselves as one of the industry success stories: books in stores around the world, reviews in the weekend newspapers, strong sales. What the Publishing Rodeo podcast does is shine a cold light on life as a mid-tier author: someone who the publishing company decides isn’t going to sell as many books, and then enacts business decisions that almost guarantee such an outcome. The mid-tier authors get smaller publicity/marketing budgets (if any) and may not receive audio versions or full international distribution of their releases. At times I feel embarrassed listening to co-presenter Scott Drakeford’s experiences with his epic fantasy debut (his publisher used the wrong author bio in their catalogue entry for his book!).

My takeaway from the Publishing Rodeo podcast is that unless you’re sure are on track to be a top-tier author at your trad pub company…you might be better self-publishing. Any book self-published via Amazon or Ingram Spark (the main distributors) gets into every country. As the self-publisher you make the decision on creating an audiobook. It’s shocking to me that a traditionally published author at a big publishing company may not even have that.

I suspect the secret to becoming a top-tier author (six figure advance, scheduled book tours, full weight of publicity/marketing budget, etc) is to have, like co-presenter Sunyi Dean, a high-concept novel. The title of Dean’s debut (The Book Eaters) is enough to arouse curiosity when you hear it, before knowing what the book is about. And having a book concept that’s (i) easy to explain (ii) sounds tasty (e.g. “it’s an African Games of Thrones“) makes it easier for in-house marketing teams to sell. But high-concept is subjective and anything Games of Thrones, for instance, may be less tasty now than it was in 2019.

That said, the decision to self vs trad pub depends on your personality (does the thought of marketing stress you out?), goals (if being an author is something you want to do full-time versus in addition to your main job), and the type of books you write (some genres like dark romance do well in self-publishing and are almost nonexistent in trad pub). But the more information you can gather before making your decision, the better.

Inspiration behind The Doctrines of Fire

My historical fantasy novel The Doctrines of Fire came out of research for a non-fiction book set in the same period. The non-fiction book doesn’t exist (yet), but it’s an expansion of my Physics Today article on Elizabeth Fulhame, a pioneering chemist. Elizabeth Fulhame was active in the late 18th century, lived in Edinburgh and interacted with Joseph Black (a professor of chemistry at the time). Hence a lot of background reading on those subjects.

I didn’t set out to spin a fiction book from my research, but during all that background reading two or three idle thoughts banged into each other within my head and formed a story.

Thought 1: “These 18th century scientific theories sound a lot like magic”

By the 1790s a lot of modern scientific principles were in place. Black’s principle of latent heat is still taught in university chemistry classes; elements like nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide were correctly isolated and characterised (though they had funny names like dephlogisticated air). Elizabeth Fulhame described water catalysis in mechanistic terms we know now to be surprisingly accurate. But scientists also believed substances like phlogiston and aether were sloshing around inside us controlling heat and our nervous system. These amorphously-defined substances appeared very alchemical and mystic to my modern ears.

Thought 2: “Joseph Black is absolutely fascinating.” 

Unfortunately the target of my search, Elizabeth Fulhame, left scant trace on the historical record. We have none of her correspondence. We don’t know her birthday, maiden name or when she married. With archival searches not getting me far, I turned to a historical figure whose life was well-documented, to see if I could detect any echoes of Fulhame in the record of Joseph Black.

I read notes transcribed in ~1776 from Black’s chemistry course, and was surprised to see he spent the first lecture of the term talking about imposter syndrome and good study habits, much the way lecture courses are kicked off today (medical students were advised to take Black’s course in their first year of study). Based on what we know of Black’s mid-career stagnation I suspected he had his own struggles with imposter syndrome. 

I then read the draft of a letter Black wrote to a former student objecting that the student expected him to pay for a rare metal he’d sourced. Pay for it yourself, Black retorted, I’ll consider it compensation “for the“extraordinary trouble I had correcting your dissertation.” In the ~1000 pages of Black’s edited correspondence, this is the only time we see Black lose his temper. And in the next draft of the letter (which he actually sent) he backtracked and diplomatically noted he was sure his former student had a better memory for payment arrangements than him. 

Much like Colin Firth’s fight with Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones’ Diary convinced Matthew Vaughan to cast him in Kingsman, I realised Dr Joseph Black might also have a dark side.

Thought 3: “This is some Shakespearean sh*t right here.”

Another research lead I pursued was the link between Elizabeth Fulhame’s husband and Dr John Brown: the two names appeared on a contract together, and (like Joseph Black) John Brown left an impressive paper trail. Not much luck finding more than a signature, but the trajectory of Brown’s life fascinated me. Here was a man who came from provincial obscurity but was talented enough to dazzle the Edinburgh medical elite; who same legitimate flaws with the current state of medicine/medical theory and tried to revolutionise it; but who fell victim to his own hubris and the jealousy of the medical elite he tried to compete with. Brown was Cullen’s protege for a while, before the two men fell out. The falling out turned into a public spat, roping in the rest of the Edinburgh faculty and students. There were broadsides in the paper, altercations in the medical societies, attempts to ban Brown’s teachings, and the threat of criminal prosecution for some of Brown’s stunts.

Thought 3 then linked up with Thoughts 1 & 2. They were filtered through my love of historical thrillers like The Dante Club and The Alienist to create The Doctrines of Fire close to the form it currently exists in. There’s a Historical Note/Bibliography at the end of my novel where you can find the sources I consulted if you’re interested.

But what about Elizabeth Fulhame? She doesn’t (yet) have the biography she deserves…but you might be able to spot her in The Doctrines of Fire. She then becomes a protagonist in subsequent books, which is the least I can do for her!

Anatomy of a Book Opening: Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

A good novel will hook its reader from the first page. A great novel will lay out the themes and central conflict(s) within the first chapter. Here, I take a look at some of my favourite books, explaining why I believe their openings work so well.

Daughters of Night is the sequel to Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s award-winning debut Blood & Sugar. It features some of the original cast, but centres on a new murder mystery that takes place a few years after the first. The setting is late eighteenth century London.

Opening Lines

In the wrong hands a secret is a weapon.

Daughters of Night, page 1

While this opener doesn’t blow me out the water, it does succinctly convey what I’ll find in this historical crime novel: deception, peril, mystery, opposing (manipulative/hidden) forces.

Establishing Setting

Taking a ginger comfit from her enamelled pillbox…

Muslin, lace and brocade hemmed her in on every side; jewelled buttons flashing on embroidered waistcoats; pastel shades of periwig and kid glove; silver buckles glinting in the light of a thousand beeswax candles that filled the domed roof of the Rotunda with their honeyed scent.

Daughters of Night, page 1

Fashion and lighting are an easy way to establish time period for the reader. From this description of clothing we know we’re in the Georgian period: pre-gaslamp lighting, periwigs and embroidered waistcoats. It’s not subtle, but it’s not supposed to be. In the opening lines the author wants to set the tone of the book for the reader without causing confusion. I also know that this book is set in Georgian high society, since it seems to be opening with a depiction of a fancy party.

Her skin was hot as Hades.

Daughters of Night, page 2

In her Historical Note at the end of the book, Shepherd-Robinson explains that the Georgian fascination with classical mythology is one of the themes of her book. Deploying a classical metaphor in the opening pages is an obvious way to alert canny readers to the fact. The party that Caro, the protagonist, is attending is to celebrate the exhibition of an artist’s classical paintings.

The Authorial Flex

Before Caro stretched a fantasy-land: ten thousand lights adorning the trees and the supper-boxes and the Chinese pavilion.

Daughters of Night, page 2

Part of the reason we read historical fiction is to get lost in another era. Readers want a sensory experience; one that is accurate to the period in question. With her description of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, Shepherd-Robinson is showing that she’s done her research into Georgian London and can deliver the sensory detail readers crave. I don’t just get a historically accurate depiction of the gardens: Shepherd-Robinson manages to evoke the wonder visitors would feel walking through the Gardens at night.

Her lips parted, her words a whisper: ‘He knows.’

Daughters of Night, page 6

This is a hefty paperback book at 559 pages, but within the first 6 pages we’ve witnessed the inciting incident: a woman murdered in the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.

Introducing the Protagonists

Walk away and do it like you mean it.

Peregrine Child rose from the table and crossed the tavern floor. Eyes focussed on the sawdust-strewn floorboards, he counted the seconds as he walked. One…two…three…

‘Thirteen guineas,’ Jenny Wren said.

Daughters of Night, page 7

My favourite fictional character is Samuel Vimes from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. So it shouldn’t be surprising that what really hooked me into Daughters of Night was the action-packed introduction of Child in chapter 2.

What I mean is that I love complex, cynical, morally grey, washed-up dudes slightly past their prime, who still manage to kick ass because they’re still sharp under their mountain of flaws. Child appeared in Shepherd-Robinson’s preceding novel as a minor character, so I was excited to see he’d have POV chapters in this one.

For me, this chapter is where Daughters of Night goes from having my curiosity to having my attention. Although the first chapter introduces Caro, we don’t get that close to her: we learn she has a dangerous secret, and that she has a bit of disdain for the high society she seems to be a part of – but that doesn’t do much to illustrate her personality or goals. The purpose of chapter 1 isn’t really to introduce Caro as a character, so much as establish the stakes (Caro’s unspecified secret) and the murder that kicks the story off. And I mean, I picked this book up knowing it was a historical crime thriller in which somebody was murdered, my reaction to the inciting incident is ‘Yup, that looks like a murder – good job, exactly what I was expecting to read about.’

In the 5 pages that make up chapter 2, we see Child successfully negotiate with a thief to get his client’s watch back, land a punch on a pickpocket trying to grab his purse, then get beaten up and threatened by Irish moneylenders.

‘I might be drunk,’ Child said, ‘but I’ve thirty years’ practice. Diligence in what you do, lad. That’s the key.’

Daughter of Night, page 10

We learn Child is a disgraced ex-magistrate, that he’s an alcoholic (which leads to lapses in his judgement), that he’s tough and streetwise, and that he’s a smart-arse.

That does it for me.

We also get a simple, compelling motivation for Child: he’s in debt, and has a week to find enough money to repay his vicious creditors. Even if we don’t know what Cato wants (yet), her male counterpart has enough motivation to carry the early chapters.

Conclusion

While the Georgian London setting is a little unusual, Shepherd-Robinson hits the key murder mystery beats within the first 10 pages that set the story in motion, with a nice tie-in to Daughters of Night’s overarching themes.

Anatomy of a Book Opening: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

A good novel will hook its reader from the first page. A great novel will lay out the themes and central conflict(s) within the first chapter. Here, I take a look at some of my favourite books, explaining why I believe their openings work so well.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo is a one of my favourite fantasy books, and easily my favourite dark academia novel. Readers are fascinated with the hidden, magical Yale campus Bardugo creates; though the novel’s adult themes (Ninth House features drug addiction, rape, abusive relationships and a system that protects the privileged) are tough to wade through. The novel’s sparkling, dark and gritty tone is established from the get-go.

The Opening Line

By the time Alex managed to get the blood out of her good wool coat, it was too warm to wear it.

Ninth House, page 1

Gentleman, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention.

One sentence in, and Bardugo has already knocked it out of the park. Not only is this a memorable first line, it sets up the tone of the book perfectly. This is going to be a dark, cynical story brimming with violence. Alex may have saved her coat, but she’s too late to benefit from it.

Time and Place

The secret rooms above the shop were affectionately known as the Hutch by Lethe members, and the commercial space beneath them had been, at varying times, a shoe store, a wilderness outfitter, and a twenty-four-hour Wawa mini-mart with its own Taco Bell counter.

Ninth House, page 1

As a reader, as I leaf through the first few pages of a new book, I should be curious…but never confused. Midway down the first page I have no idea who Alex is (beside suspecting she’s the protagonist), why she’s got blood on her coat, or what exactly she’s going. But I’m no not confused by the setting: by choosing to include these unnecessary details about the shops in the building, I can deduce we’re in the USA (Wawa – specific to the North-east coast – and Taco Bell). The use of modern brand names tell me the story is set in modern times, in an America that resembles ‘the real world.’

Introducing the Magic System

The Lethe diaries from those years were filled with complaints about the stink of refried beans and grilled onions seeping up through the floor – until 1995, when someone had enchanted the Hutch and the back staircase that led to the alley so that they smelled always of fabric softener and clove.

Ninth House, page 1

I suspect it’s a very deliberate artistic choice on the part of Bardugo to bring in the existence of magic after the establishing the violent, dark tone and the contemporary American setting. I love the magic in Ninth House, but it’s always deployed in the service of the novel’s main themes.

With the first mention of magic, we’re given a taste of what those themes are. Here, magical is used for a trivial purpose – improving the smell of the Hutch. Magic is not being used to affect social change, or fight evil – instead it’s used to make someone’s life more convenient. The (mis)use of magic to uphold privilege is a big part of Ninth House, and something Bardugo will return to repeatedly.

The other thing to note is we don’t learn much about the magic system at this point, only that there is one. I don’t know how the magic works, what it’s limitations are, or how many people know about magic and/or can wield it.

Themes

No one came to check on her. There was no one left.

Ninth House, page 2

The wound was getting infected. She felt some kind of concern, her mind nudging her towards self-preservation, but the idea of picking up the phone…was overwhelming.

Ninth House, page 4

The Prologue establishes Alex is stranded in the Hutch, a kind of hidden emergency shelter, in the aftermath of an incident that left her injured and isolated. She reflects on her outsider status and her lack of social support. While she recognises she should return to the outside world to seek medical attention, she decides against doing so. To the reader there doesn’t seem to be an external threat waiting for Alex outside the Hutch, it’s just that she doesn’t want to leave.

Ninth House is a book about recovering from trauma. As we’ll learn, Alex has a lot of trauma to unpack that stems from her childhood onwards, but the violent attack alluded to in the Prologue is that trauma in miniature. In the Prologue, Alex believes that no one cares about her. She knows intellectually that she should venture out into the world and confront/address her injuries, but doing so feels impossible.

After the Prologue, we’re going to see Alex face the same dilemmas. Is there anyone she can trust? Is Alex really as isolated as she believes? How can she confront her traumas? How has trauma affected her self-preservation instincts? How does her trauma help or hinder her? It’s already clear in these first few pages that this is a dark, messy story, so Alex’s journey is likely to be dark and messy. Like her bloodied coat, attempts to fix herself might come too late.

The Authorial Flex

Even the big metal sculpture that she now knew was by Alexander Calder reminded her of a giant lava lamp in negative.

“It’s Calder,” she murmured beneath her breath. That was the way people here talked about art. Nothing was by anyone. The sculpture is Calder. The painting is Rothko. The house is Neutra.

Ninth House, page 7

An author shouldn’t overwhelm the reader with similes, metaphors and linguistic flourishes within the first few pages, but (with Look Inside previews of e-books now a huge factor swaying readers’ decision to buy or ignore) there should be something good near the start of the book to convince the reader that the writer can deliver memorable prose and ideas.

With these lines at the start of chapter 1, the reader gets an insight into how Alex (and Bardugo) sees the world. By page 7 we know the story is set at Yale, an Ivy League university, and that Alex is an outsider thanks to her background and trauma. This small detail about how the privileged students around Alex talk about art is brilliant – it’s unexpected and original (if you wanted to illustrate privilege and disconnect in a single example, what first springs to mind?), but rings true. Since Bardugo was educated at Yale, I suspect this snippet comes from her own experiences.

Conclusion

While some readers found Ninth House’s darkness difficult to get through, Bardugo sets up reader’s expectations from the first page, and hooks us with a small mystery.