{"id":174,"date":"2011-07-31T13:53:02","date_gmt":"2011-07-31T20:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lindacollison.com\/blog\/?p=174"},"modified":"2012-05-18T14:03:54","modified_gmt":"2012-05-18T21:03:54","slug":"elizabeth-marsh-and-other-remarkable-real-life-18th-century-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/elizabeth-marsh-and-other-remarkable-real-life-18th-century-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Marsh and other remarkable real-life 18th century women"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Sunday morning, and I\u2019m propped up in bed with my coffee and laptop (indulged by Capt. Bob.)\u00a0 Today is my day to write in bed, following Laura Hildebrand\u2019<\/strong>s example (though I have no chronic fatigue that keeps me abed, just a hangover.) \u00a0The words burst forth in fits and starts, it feels turning on the faucet to find the pipes are filled with air.\u00a0 Ah, be patient, the flow will become steadier as the pressure increases.<\/p>\n

While I sit with fingers on keyboard my eyes wander to the bookshelf for inspiration and I spy The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh; A woman in World History<\/em><\/strong> by Linda Colley<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Adam gave me this book shortly after the publication of my first novel Star-Crossed<\/em><\/strong> (Knopf; 2006).\u00a0 \u00a0I was at once completely engaged by the story and the broad, encompassing perspective. \u00a0I pull it off from the shelf and now am re-reading it, and marveling again at both the subject Elizabeth Marsh<\/strong> as well as the biographer.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBiography, it has been said, is like a net that catches and brings to the surface an individual life. \u00a0But a net is only a set of holes tied together by string, so some things slip through,\u201d \u00a0says Linda Colley on pg. 16.\u00a0 Which makes writing an engaging biography a challenge.\u00a0 Colley succeeds admirably.<\/p>\n

The travels and adventures of Elizabeth Marsh<\/strong> is just my cup of tea \u2013 a nonfiction book that is as readable as historical fiction — in which Elizabeth, the possibly bi-racial and largely self-educated daughter of a shipwright of the Royal Navy (a child of the lower decks), travels widely, spends time in a Moroccan prison and become the first woman to publish in English on Morocco.\u00a0 She goes on to travel extensively inIndia, she marries, has children, undergoes a mastectomy (without anesthesia in those days), but is never the victim.<\/p>\n

Like so many other remarkable women whose names we\u2019ll never know, Elizabethnot only lived in the mid-18th<\/sup> century world, she also influenced the world, observed the world, and wrote her observations. \u00a0She is one more remarkable woman you never heard of.<\/p>\n

The Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series<\/em><\/strong> is a work of fiction \u00a0but women such as Elizabeth Marsh<\/strong> were<\/em> very real and they are my inspiration, as well as\u00a0biographers such as Linda Colley. \u00a0When I\u2019m not writing about remarkable women, I\u2019m reading about them \u2013 the women and the men they loved, influenced, ruled, married, or gave birth to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday morning, and I\u2019m propped up in bed with my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[193,52,53],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-biography","tag-elizabeth-marsh","tag-linda-colley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1146,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/1146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}