A PERSONAL NOTE: MAGIC MOMENTS - A TRUE STORY
30th November 2019, It was evening on a friend’s balcony in the Western Cape, when news arrived that - twelve years after reading the conspirators’ letter - Adelaide Books in New York wanted to publish Turtle Soup for the King. I was officially a novelist.
My view in that moment - beyond the twinkling sprawl of Khayelitsha informal settlement - was of Table Mountain, a site familiar to both George Edwards and Nelson Mandela, who lived two extremes of human existence.
I’m told that I went very quiet and then croaked a command for champagne.
7th March, 2020 I flew to Austria, planning a break with old friends - three weeks in the southern province of Carinthia and one in Germany.
The excursion would last thirteen months, not entirely because of the pandemic.
TURTLE SOUP FOR THE KING , PUBLISHED BY ADELAIDE BOOKS, 1st FEBRUARY, 2021.
Because of covid-related shipping delays from the USA, the book is not yet in bookstores, but is with most on-line retailers. If you wish to buy, please check your favourite on-line retailer for the paperback or e-version.
16th June, 2020 During a lull between lockdowns, enjoying a friend’s alm, I was busy watching a green spider, when my phone pinged.
There was the response to my penultimate draft by historian Robert Poole, the leading expert on Peterloo. Having worked for so long in isolation, it took my breath away. Pine-cone schnapps was considered the correct remedy.
30th November, 2020 Little did I expect to be in Carinthia to see Romanticist, Sibylle Erle’s equally encouraging endorsement of the final draft, precisely a year after the novel was accepted.
A little later, over Glühwein, I thought that I mustn’t get used to this.
THE ENDORSEMENTS
Courtesy Peterloo Memorial Campaign15th June 2020
Dear Editors,
Judy Meewezen sent me last month a draft of her historical novel 'Turtle Soup for the King', about the 1820 Cato Street Conspiracy to assassinate the British government. I don't know the author, but she asked me because I have recently published a well-received history of the 'Peterloo Massacre' of 1819 - the violent attack by the authorities on a pro-democracy rally in Manchester which outraged and motivated the Cato Street conspirators. I have also co-written a graphic novel and spoken at conferences on historical fiction, and I was consultant historian to the very extensive Peterloo bicentenary programme (for which see www.peterloo1819.com ) I am strongly committed to historical writing which is both high quality and readable by non-specialists.
I have deflected several other requests to comment on works of historical fiction, which are always disappointing, but it was immediately obvious that this one was different. It is exceptionally well researched, and shows a deep understanding of the circumstances, personal and historical, that could lead people to imagine that they could assassinate their own government and set off a popular rebellion. There are fictional events and characters, but these fit so well with what is known that the dividing line is almost imperceptible, even to the well-informed reader. It pulls off the trick of making the conspiracy seem at the same time both bizarre and understandable. The historical landscape is described in evocative detail, the characterisation is compelling, and way the period setting is evoked is almost miraculous. The wives and families of the plotters emerge particularly strongly, giving the whole extraordinary drama humanity and depth. The build-up is tense, and the closing sections genuinely moving. This is one of those rare historical novels which even historical specialists can enjoy. The sections set in Manchester should give it an additional regional audience, building on awareness of Peterloo. If you can run to a few period illustrations, these would complete the remarkable job of bringing the Cato Street conspirators to life.
Regards,
Robert Poole
Professor of History
UCLAN, School of Humanities
Preston PR1 2HE
Peterloo: the English Uprising out now at www.oup.com with 30% discount code AAFLYG6
Peterloo: Witnesses to a Massacre, the graphic novel: www.peterloo.org
‘The Manchester Observer: biography of a radical newspaper’, open access at
29th November 2020
To whom it may concern,
I am writing to you about Turtle Soup for the King, an historical novel by Judy Meewezen, which I would like to endorse. I am Reader in English Literature and have written extensively on Romantic literature, particularly on the works of William Blake.
I met the author a number of years ago through my then-tutor at Philipps University in Marburg, Germany. I have since worked with her in the context of The Death Conference, which I organize annually at my University in the UK. Her creative writing workshops, always very well received, brought this project to my attention.
I also accompanied her on a tour of Lincolnshire, where I live and work, and where parts of the action are set. Indeed, Lincolnshire is where it all begins. It is a very British story, but also local and with universal application.
Meewezen’s beautiful story-telling brings the fascinating events of the Cato Street Conspiracy, London, 1820, to life at last. Turtle Soup for the King is meticulously researched, the result of painstaking visits to archives and locations in Britain and beyond, as well as creative immersion in the back-story of a momentous, but all-too-often overlooked historical moment.
It is an essentially British story, but it is also a local story with universal significance. We need this kind of fiction to understand where we come from and, in this case, where we might be heading - particularly in the light of recent global events that seek to restrict human rights and frustrate personal ambition, and in which populations feel increasingly alienated from those who seek to govern them.
Looking at and reading the completed novel, with its radiant prose, I am struck by how much I want this story to exist; I was staring into space, and now I see it all in my mind’s eye.
I will recommend the novel to all students studying the Romantic period, which I teach passionately. This book will make them understand what those times were all about.
Turtle Soup for the King explores and maps human tragedy and great emotions against the facts of a misfired conspiracy - a very human story, that from now on, needs never be forgotten.
All best,
Dr Sibylle Erle MA PhD FRSA FHEA
Reader in English Literature, Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, U.K.
https://www.bishopg.ac.uk/staff/dr-sibylle-erle
William Blake.
Songs of Innocence and of Experience, 1793
Courtesy British Museum Images