{"id":9470,"date":"2024-08-30T00:35:05","date_gmt":"2024-08-30T07:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grousablebooks.com\/?p=2372"},"modified":"2026-03-01T18:31:49","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T02:31:49","slug":"august-15-grousable-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/2024\/08\/august-15-grousable-books\/","title":{"rendered":"August 15 @ Grousable Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Grousable<\/p>\n

In this issue: Upcoming events, mystery research, and a newsletter shift.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Upcoming events<\/h2>\n

My books and I will be at two events this fall:<\/p>\n

On October 26 the North Park Book Fair<\/a> happens in San Diego. I love this one. North Park is a wonderfully mixed neighborhood blessed with many different types of people, and a lot of them read. It was my most successful sale last year.<\/p>\n

\"North<\/div>\n

This year, I am pleased to announce a collaboration with DMD Designs<\/a>. David Daymude makes, among other fine wood art, distinctive pens that delight writers. The display should be beautiful!<\/p>\n

Then on November 9, we’ll again be together at the Olivenhain Arts and Crafts Fair<\/a> in Encinitas, California. This event features handmade everything, from food to quilts to jewelry. Everything has to be made by the person in the booth, so I consider that independently published books qualify. 10% of vendor proceeds go to help preserve the 19th century Olivenhain Town Meeting Hall<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mystery Research: Where is the Clerkenwell House of Detention?<\/h2>\n

I know, you’ve been asking yourself this question! But sometimes authoring means a bit of detection about something others would find not only trivial but downright irrelevant.<\/p>\n

For Murder on the Pneumatic Railway<\/em><\/a>, I wanted Samson Light held in prison awaiting trial while his prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Tommy Jones runs around London trying to clear him of the charge of murder. Having already set the first mystery in Southwark, and the second around Holborn, I was cruising around Clerkenwell because I wanted to get a little more East End-ish but not go all out Dickensonian. On a side note, in the late 19th century Clerkenwell was known for clock-making. Here’s a sample:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Gorgeous, huh?<\/p>\n

I knew the infamous Coldbath Fields prison was in the area, because I have a previous character in prison there for debt, but I was seeking not a prison<\/em> but a gaol<\/em>, a place where they hold people until they go to trial.( I\u2019ve seen too many Father Brown<\/em> episodes to want my character rescued after he\u2019s been convicted \u2014 it\u2019s way too complicated.) And there seemed to be one in the area, but it took a lot of searching to get it all separated from Coldbath Fields and the other prison buildings that had been on the same property before. As one website<\/a> tried to explain it:<\/p>\n

Clerkenwell (old) Prison, also known as the Clerkenwell House of Detention or Middlesex House of Detention was a prison in Clerkenwell, London, opened in 1847. It held prisoners awaiting trial. It stood on Bowling Green Lane conveniently close to the Middlesex Sessions House, where prisoners would be tried, on Clerkenwell Green to the south.<\/em><\/p>\n

Well that helped with location, anyway. Then it goes on:<\/p>\n

The House of Detention was built on the site of two earlier prisons, the Clerkenwell Bridewell for convicted prisoners and the New Prison for those awaiting trial. The Bridewell closed in 1794 and its functions were taken over by the Coldbath Fields Prison at Mount Pleasant. The New Prison was rebuilt in 1818 and in 1847, at which time its name changed to the House of Detention.<\/em><\/p>\n

Confused? Me too. Was it the Middlesex House of Corrections? No, I think that\u2019s Coldbath Fields. House of Detention? Why isn\u2019t anyone calling it a gaol (or even a jail)? So Dickens Junior, ever the tour guide, decided to help out, via this page<\/a>:<\/p>\n

House of Detention \u2014affectionately termed by the \u201cprofession\u201d the House of Distinction, or more familiarly \u201cthe Tench \u201c\u2014is designed primarily for untried prisoners, the discipline being less severe than elsewhere. Prisoners under short sentence of imprisonment without hard labour\u2014technically first-class misdemeanants \u2014 are also confined here; being not required to wear any distinctive dress or to have their hair cropped. It stands between Woodbridge-street and Rosoman-street, Clerkenwell. <\/em>NEAREST Railway Station, Farringdon-street; <\/em>Omnibus Routes, Exmouth-street and Goswell-road; <\/em>Cab Rank,Clerkenwell-green.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 Charles Dickens (Jr.)<\/i>, Dickens\u2019s Dictionary of London, 1879<\/p>\n

I also came across the floor plan, which made it easier to identify.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

One ghost tour also calls it the House of Detention<\/a>. By this point, I was pretty sure I had the right place. And look! It\u2019s still kind of there, though it\u2019s called Clerkenwell Prison.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The Old Sessions House was the Middlesex Sessions House, where the cases were taken for trial, so that helped too.<\/p>\n

I even found some engineering information<\/a>. (And this, friends, is why I abandoned studying medieval technology for Victorian England, where there are a fabulous number of sources, all in English and none of them copyrighted.)<\/p>\n

This picture kept coming up as I worked, claiming to be visiting hours at Clerkenwell prison, but I was unable to verify that this was the place I wanted.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

It looks so nice, all the visitors talking to their friends and loved ones in the door holes. But is this the place? I start looking, as one does, at the Illustrated London News<\/em><\/a>, but no. After doing image search and finding the image on Wikipedia, which does occasionally cite sources, it appears it\u2019s not from the Illustrated London News<\/em> (or the \u201cChronicle\u201d as noted on another page), but from Henry Mayhew\u2019s The Criminal Prisons of London, and Scenes of Prison Life <\/i>(1862). <\/i>Stupidly, I go looking at Biblio.com and other vendors to buy it ($65!) only to find the whole book, downloadable for free, at Google Books<\/a>. (Every time I start to yell at Google for being a monstrosity, they do something nice.)<\/p>\n

And in that book was everything: not just the image but what kind of prisoner went in what sort of cell, what furniture was in each cell, where the windows were, what sorts of crimes people were in for, and even a menu:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

(BTW, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s right that if he\u2019s there for three months he doesn\u2019t get a pint of cocoa, but no one asked me. Or Mr Mayhew.)<\/p>\n

So I had the place! And then something serendipitous happened. I was having trouble finding something to watch on the Roku during my exercises when BritBox conked out, so I started watching the film The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society <\/em>(I have been waiting till it was long enough after reading it to see the movie). There\u2019s a scene in a jazz club, and I\u2019m thinking, that looks like Clerkenwell Prison. But of course I\u2019ve got Clerkenwell Prison on the brain, and so I look it up and what do you know: that\u2019s where it was filmed, in the cellar. You can go there and visit the cellar, which didn\u2019t get destroyed in the Blitz, or even hire it for events<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A newsletter shift<\/h2>\n

Haven’t heard from me since the beginning of July? You’re not alone.<\/p>\n

Before that, I was sending out newsletters twice monthly, on the 1st and 15th. But sometimes things get in the way. So I’ve decided to publish the newsletter once a month, around the middle of the month. Hope this works for you!<\/p>\n

Want to read previous newsletters? They’re located here<\/a> at my website, where you can also find information and buy links to all my books.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Until next time, keep grousing!<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this issue: Upcoming events, mystery research, and a newsletter shift.\u00a0 Upcoming events My books and I will be at two events this fall: On October 26 the North Park Book Fair happens in San Diego. I love this one. North Park is a wonderfully mixed neighborhood blessed with many different types of people, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10560,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9470\/revisions\/10560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}