HISTORICAL CHARACTERS
Names are, of course, not a problem when dealing with characters who are real historical persons. The chief difficulty in these instances is to do justice to the actions and personality of the dead (or at least to treat them with such respect as they seem to deserve), while still ruthlessly subverting them to the purposes of the story.
This is an ethical as well as a technical problem, though one luckily has the advantage of not needing to worry about being sued for defamation. Any novelist who deals with historical characters has to determine how to handle them—and the handling of course grows somewhat easier if little is written about those characters, since this allows the author maximum flexibility.
The principal historical character with whom I was dealing was, of course, Charles Stuart, a person about whom much has been written—most of it glamorized, inaccurate, and wildly misleading.
A major difference in doing real historical research, versus that required for writing a historical novel, is that with the latter, one need not be quite so picky about the reliability of the sources. Still, a sense of obligation and respect toward the historical characters—who were, after all, real people—dictates that one should try to obtain at least fairly accurate information as to who they really were, and then to do nothing to discredit them, beyond the bounds of their known reputations.
I was fortunate enough to find a book titled Bonnie Prince Charlie, by Susan Mac-Lean Kybett, on a remainder table (one of a writer’s greatest resources). It appeared to be by far the best description of Charles Stuart available; the book is scholarly (Kybett being a respected British historian), thorough, and—luckily—very readable, and presented an excellent picture both of Stuart and of the political situation surrounding the circumstances of the Rising.
I’ve found that when doing historical research, while one may consult hundreds of books, normally only a few prove to be extremely useful. Bonnie Prince Charlie was one such book, and I used Kybett’s portraits of Charles Stuart and the other prominent Jacobites as the basis for my own fictional portrayals.
While it was, of course, necessary to invent incident and dialogue involving Stuart and other historical persons, I tried to make sure that such descriptions fit with what was known of each character’s real persona and actions. Hence, Charles Stuart’s speech; while he did speak English, he spoke it badly, and with a pronounced Italian accent. While the incident of the rooftop excursion and the monkey bite (in Dragonfly in Amber) is invented, the affair with Louise de Rohan was not. The affair of the cargo ship full of port is invented; the negotiations with Manzetti the banker and the purchase of the Dutch broadswords were not.
With Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat (the Old Fox), I played somewhat more loosely. Though I saddled him with a thoroughly fictitious illegitimate grandson,1 the general depiction of his personality as wily, sensual, and politically astute is based soundly on a good many accounts of his life and behavior—even though those accounts vary considerably in detail and reliability.
At the same time, the prostatitis that served as his ostensible excuse for not joining Charles Stuart was purely my invention.
I had been reading an article at the local health club about the symptoms of prostate enlargement and prostatitis, which included a remark about how common this problem was in men over sixty-five. I at once exclaimed “Eureka!,” went home, and wrote the scene at Beaufort Castle (the Castle also had to be invented, as the original was leveled after the Rising, and thus wasn’t available for research) in which Claire performs her dinner table diagnosis.
Young Simon (the Young Fox) is also a real historical character, about whom a fair amount is known. Most of the actions for which he was known, though, took place in the latter years of his life—a span that falls outside the constraints of the story so far. However, I rather think we haven’t seen the last of Young Simon.
Louis XV was—obviously—a real historical person. The descriptions of his levee and Court customs, his sexual behavior (exchanging political patronage for the favors of the wives of those seeking advantage), and his deep interest in the occult were taken from various historical sources.
Dr. Fleche and his servant, Plato, are likewise real historical characters; the Doctor, in fact, is widely credited with having caused the premature demise of a good many of the French Royal Family.
The Comte St. Germain was a real character of the times, and one with a reputation for being involved in occult matters—but very little else seemed known for sure about him. I consequently took nothing but his name and his unsavory associations, and beyond that, invented wholesale. (I note in passing that another author—Chelsea Quinn Yarbro—evidently took the Comte and used him fictionally; as a vampire, whose immortality allows him to live in various interesting time periods.)
Monsieur Forez was a professional hangman, operating in Paris at roughly the time of Dragonfly in Amber. I found mention of him with a description of the perquisites of the hangman’s trade, and—being quite unable to resist including “hanged-men’s grease” in the book—included Monsieur Forez, too.
Governor Tryon of North Carolina is naturally a real historical personage. While his dialogue with Jamie is of course invented, he did in fact pursue an aggressive policy of land grants in an effort to settle and civilize the backcountry of the Colony. The language of the land grant—and of the oath required of the defeated Jacobites—is taken word for word from historical documents of the time.
Farquard Campbell, Jocasta’s friend in Drums of Autumn, was likewise a real person, prominent in the affairs of the Cape Fear River area and very influential among the Highlanders who settled there. His personal life, however—wives, children, etc.— is invented.
Other minor characters taken from the pages of history are marked in the Cast of Characters for each novel.
REAL PEOPLE
There is a second classification of Real People who serve as characters in my own books; these are the beloved and long-suffering friends whose forebearance has allowed me to exercise my sense of humor at their expense, by writing them into my stories.
John Simpson Sr. and John Simpson Jr.
John E. Simpson Jr. was one of my earliest electronic friends, distinguished by his gentle wit and beautiful prose, as much as by the rather unusual style of his name. Having shared a close relationship with his father, John sometimes used the “Jr.” style, both professionally and personally. (He writes wonderful literary short stories and computer books [Just XML], and has just published a mystery novel.)
I was therefore astonished and delighted when, in the course of my research into Scottish weaponry, I came upon a mention of the historical Simpsons—a father and son team of sword makers, operating in Scotland during the mid-eighteenth century, and famed for the quality of their blades. Both, coincidentally, named John. I therefore wrote a small piece for Dragonfly in Amber featuring the sword makers, but giving them—with John’s permission— the approximate physical characteristics of the contemporary Simpsons.
Labhriunn MacIan
Labhriunn MacIan was an early electronic acquaintance, who helpfully supplied my first lesson in Gaelic pronunciation, with regard to his name: Lay-vree-AHN. While I didn’t know Labhriunn well, have never met him, and have long since lost all contact with him, we shared one very long telephone conversation, in which he told me a great deal about Celtic heritage, the Shetland Islands (from which he hailed), and other things that proved indirectly inspirational in the writing of the books. He also told me the story of his grandfather, a blind piper who practiced on the seashore, bouncing the sound of his pipes off the sea cliffs. I therefore wrote Labhriunn himself into Dragonfly in Amber in a small walk-on role as a piper, incorporating the story of his grandfather in the process.
Margaret Campbell
As is evident, this process of character cannibalization began with online conversations. In one such conversation, Margaret Campbell (a longtime friend and duct-tape dilettante)2 confided that
she had harbored a childhood ambition to be a carnival geek—the person in old-time carnival sideshows whose “act” was to bite the heads off live chickens.
Someone jokingly responded that— given the SPCA and modern attitudes toward performance art—her only chance of achieving this particular ambition was likely to be “if Diana writes you into one of her books that way.”
Now, I wish to state for the record that I am, too, capable of resisting insidious random suggestions. Just not all of them.
Well, I did intend to write a section of the book located in the West Indies. Ergo, I might quite reasonably have a small voodoo ceremony, at which it would be entirely appropriate to have the sacrifice of a black cock, and so … enter the Scottish voodoo oracle, Miss Margaret Campbell, sweetheart of Captain Ewan Cameron, and sister to the Edinburgh Fiend.
Barry Fogden
Likewise, another electronic friend, Barry Fogden, made the mistake of mentioning in casual conversation that his grandfather had been a shepherd, and that he, Barry, had often helped with lambing and other chores in his wanton youth. Human nature being what it is, this revelation led to a predictable outbreak of sheep jokes among the inhabitants of the CompuServe Literary Forum.
Consequently—a writer’s mind being what it is—the notion of sheep led to the notion of “flock,” which in turn suggested a priest. And I did need some way for Fergus and Marsali to get married. Thus B. Fogden, erstwhile shepherd, reputable and eminent British poet, became the disreputable and outcast Father Fogden, accompanied into the pages of Voyager by his dog, Ludo, and his … er … flock (Ludo is real; the sheep are fictional).
John (Quincy) Myers
One of my oldest electronic friends is the novelist John L. Myers, who—among his other notable attributes—possesses a striking physical appearance, being six-feet-seven in height. John also hails from North Carolina, and was most helpful in supplying incidental information, ghost stories, and other arcana having to do with his home territory (I am indebted to John for the story of the Brown Mountain Lights, which loosely inspired the ghost story in Drums).
I repaid this kindness by creating Johnnie Lee Myers, Mountain Man, and—as is my custom—forwarding the fictional creation to his namesake for approval prior to publication, asking whether there were any changes that I ought to make before JLM appeared in print.
John replied that the fictional creation was really amazingly similar in appearance—beard, snaky locks, and all—to his own grandfather Quincy Myers, who had been a revenuer in the North Carolina mountains. He requested that I change the character’s name slightly, to include “Quincy,” as a small tribute to his grandfather—and thus, the character emerged into publication in Drums of Autumn as John Quincy Myers.
1However, the existence of bastard sons is quite consonant with what’s known of Lovat’s character
2Look, don’t blame me; I asked her how she wished to be described here and that’s what she said.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
now and then get letters or E-mail from people who cannot recall quite who one or another of the characters in the books is1—or recall the name, but not which book the character occurred in—or recall name and book, but not what the character was doing in the story. After considering for some time how best to organize a list of characters in order to make them easy to look up, and most effective in jogging errant memories, I finally decided to provide a simple alphabetic listing, giving a capsule description of the character and his or her relationships, and noting the book or books in which each character occurs.
On the other hand, there’s nothing really “simple” about an alphabetical listing, given the number of characters and the variety of their names. Still, that seemed the only reasonable approach, so I’ve adopted the following conventions, for the sake of consistency:
All characters are listed alphabetically 1) by their last name (if they had one), 2) by first name (if they were referred to by only one name), or 3) by the main word describing them (if they were nameless)— like “ghost.”
Characters who appear under different names at different points in the story (e.g., Claire Beauchamp Randall becomes Claire Fraser; James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser appears as Alexander Malcolm, Captain Alessandro, and a variety of other aliases; Roger Wakefield reclaims his original family name of MacKenzie, etc.) are listed under all their names, though only the main listing (the name by which the character is most commonly known) gives a description of the character; aliases merely refer the reader to the original name.
Characters who were real people existing in historical times (or at least my fictional version of them) are marked with a dagger(†). Characters who are real people, and friends of mine (or at least were before I began putting them—liberally embellished by my imagination—in books) are marked with a double dagger (‡).
Many characters do not appear directly in one book or another, but are mentioned with some significance—such as the ghost in Outlander. We never actually see the ghost, and yet Frank’s description of meeting him is sufficient to make the ghost a significant character. Likewise, Jamie’s parents,Brian and Ellen Fraser, never appear directly in the story, but are important figures, nonetheless. Ergo, characters who are mentioned in the story (and important to it in some way), but who do not appear directly, are listed with an (m) notation following their names.
Very Minor Characters, who are named individually, but appear only as members of a group and have no great importance to the story, are listed collectively at the end of the alphabetical listing (e.g., Dougal’s men, Monks at the Abbey of Ste. Anne de Beaupré, etc.). Minor characters who have no names, but are identified only by their office (e.g., “Le Havre harbormaster”), are also listed here.
A
Barnabas Abernathy (m)—last husband of Geillis Duncan, who died under mysterious circumstances, leaving her Rose Hall. [Voyager]
Mrs. Abernathy of Rose Hall—the last known alias of Gillian Edgars/Geillis Duncan. [Voyager]
Dr. Joseph Abernathy—Claire’s best friend, whom she met at medical school, and whom she later leaves in charge of her daughter. [Dragonfly, Voyager, Drums]
Leonard Abernathy—son of Joseph Abernathy; a friend of Brianna’s. [Dragonfly, Drums]
Abigail—one of Jamie’s small great-nieces; a red-haired lassie with outspoken opinions. (“We call him Snot-rag,“ she informed me.) [Voyager]
Absalom—MacRannoch’s cowherd. [Out-lander]
Don Armando Alcantara (m)—the betrayed and deserted husband of Ermenegilda. [Voyager]
Ermenegilda Ruiz Alcantara y Meroz (m)—the young woman for whom Father Fogden abandoned his priestly vows. [Voyager]
Mina Alcott—merry widow of Kingston; murdered by the Reverend Campbell at the Governor’s reception. [Drums]
Judge Alderdyce—a prominent Justice, a friend of Jocasta Cameron’s, and (Jocasta thinks) a good potential husband for Brianna. [Drums]
Mrs. Alderdyce—the widowed mother of Judge Alderdyce, eager to see her son wed to Brianna, in hopes of obtaining a grandchild. [Drums]
“Auld Alec”—see “Alexander MacMahon MacKenzie.”
Captain Alessandro—Jamie’s alias, when he temporarily joins the Spanish garrison on Hispaniola. [Voyager]
“Young Alex”—serving boy at Castle Leoch. [Outlander]
Etienne Marcel de Provac Alexandre— one of Jamie Fraser’s aliases, used in Jamaica, where he attends the Governor’s reception disguised as a French planter from Martinique. [Voyager]
Aline—Simon Fraser’s sister-in-law. [Dragonfly]
Dame Aliset (m)—a legendary figure; the “White Lady” of the Highlands. [Dragonfly]
Rufus Allison—innkeeper of the Lime Tree tavern, where Lord John Grey and Jamie go to question Duncan Kerr. [Voyager]
† Richard Anderson, of Whitburgh—the man who showed the Highland army a secret way across the field at Prestonpans, thus allowing them to take the English by surprise. [Dragonfly]
“L’Andou
ille”—“The Sausage.” A French courtier, known for his sexual proclivities. [Dragonfly]
Mrs. Andrews—secretary to Dr. McEwan at the Institute for Highland Studies, where Gillian Edgars began her research into the standing stones. [Dragonfly]
Sister Angelique—a nun at L’Hôpital des Anges. [Dragonfly]
Uncle Angus—a stuffed Aberdeen terrier, companion of Roger’s youth. [Drums]
Angus Mhor (“Big Angus”)—Colum’s body servant, bodyguard, and general factotum of justice. NB: “Mhor” is not a last name, but rather a Gaelic adjective. [Outlander, Dragonfly]
Anne—Geillis Duncan’s serving woman. [Outlander]
Father Anselm—a priest visiting Ste. Anne de Beaupré who counsels with Claire on the morality of time travel. [Outlander]
M. and Mme. (Marie) d’Arbanville—social acquaintances of the Frasers in Paris. [Dragonfly]
Arnold (and Harry)—English deserters, who come upon and attack Jamie and Claire. [Outlander]
† M. Arouet (aka Voltaire) (m)—eighteenth century philosopher and critic. [Voyager]
Atlas and Hercules—twin slaves, belonging to Geillis Abernathy at Rose Hall. [Voyager]
B
Father Bain—the local priest in Cranesmuir, who condemns Claire as a witch and a Sassenach. [Outlander]
The Outlandish Companion Page 20