Suffragette Disruptions: History, Chronology, Closure

Abstract

In her 1999 essay, “Hunting the Galosh: The Business of Research,” Gillian Linscott describes the process of research that supports her Nell Bray books. A former journalist, Linscott believes in thorough documentary research and consultation with experts, but also in seeing and doing for herself. In the early stages of researching Dance on Blood, she visited the Tadworth railway station on the eighty-third anniversary of the bombing of Lloyd George’s newly built house at Walton Heath; she made note of the light conditions and the environment. Much of the information she gathers does not make it into her books, but she argues that “as a writer, you need all that information you don’t use” (34). Linscott believes that this kind of research allows historical crime writers to meet three essential requirements: to avoid errors that would discredit them with readers, to include the telling detail that brings reality to everyday life of the past, and to “[get] the attitudes right” (34). That Linscott’s Nell Bray series achieves all of these goals will be evident throughout this chapter, but I would like to begin with one example that demonstrates all three.

I’d been so pleased with what we’d done for Rose and it had come to this. A wild girl who’d been prepared to defy the world now wore a hat with a navy blue rose, suffered injustice without protest and talked about rules.

Gillian Linscott, Dead Man’s Music