In search of Rosamund's World

The Leven Estuary, looking north towards the Lakeland Fells

From the same spot looking south

Chapel Island, a refuge for those who get caught by the tide racing in from the south

Chapel Island from high up on Birkrigg Common. The tide is starting to go out

The stone circle on Birkrigg Common. Rosamund dances here on Lammas Eve

And this could be Rosamund herself riding her pony in the surf at dusk!

Rosamund's World

Overview of the whole area. Rosamund escapes from Frith Hall, and travels north up Dunnerdale and crosses the high fells to Coniston

Detail. Rosamund lives in Park, and travels north to see Colonel Kirkby. Stephen crosses the Sands south of Chapel Island

Following on my quotation from Rosamund's encounter with Colonel Kirkby of Kirkby Hall, I thought readers would find it interesting to see Kathleen's map of Furness, showing all the places in the book. I will try to post photos of some of the locations in the coming weeks, as I take a trip south, looking for illustrations for the book cover.

Deja Vue

I have several times had the slightly eerie experience of going to a place and thinking that I'd been there before, and of course I had- in my mind; transported there by writers as diverse as Thomas Hardy, Virgina Woolfe, Malcolm Lowry- and Kathleen Herbert! Kathleen's research was meticulous, which is why she can bring her settings to life. The link below will take you to an interview with her in which she explains her working methods:

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/intrvws/herbert.htm

Some further sites where you can see some of the locations from Moon in Leo:

Frith Hall in Dunnerdale, the isolated hunting lodge where heroine Rosamund is kept as a prisoner:

She escapes over the fells to Coniston Hall


The quicksands of the River Leven in Morecambe Bay are a pervasive and sinister presence in the book, and they continue to be a present day danger. Who can forget the fate of those poor Chinese cockle pickers in 2004?

Towards the end of this video there is a chilling evocation of Kathleen's words as we watch a man being swallowed by the "toothless mouth" of the quicksands:

I plan to make a trip to the Furness Peninsula in the near future, to track Rosamund's travels and take photos, which I will post on this blog.

Mike's Synopsis

A time and place much like our own. Hardship up and down the country. People turned out of their homes; others living rich beyond the dreams of the dispossessed. Above all, religious hatred sending groups into hiding; feeding constant fear of plots and threats and rumour. Terrorist packmen roam the remote parts of the country. Celebrity and Royalty parade in a public sexual carnival.
This is England in the last years of the Stuarts; England in the days just before Monmouth’s rebellion; England at the time of the “Popish plot”; England of Restoration Comedy romps.
In these dangerous times how can a naïve girl live? It’s harder to find a safe path through the thickets of treason and bigotry than through the rip-tides and quicksands, solid routes and sanctuary in the sand of Morecambe Bay.
 Her occultist father’s body burned; her brother pronounced dead from the deepest dungeon of Lancaster Castle; she fears herself threatened by with marriage-by-rape to a predatory Placeman.
The man she trusts is a fellow scholar of the occult, who speaks of her father with respect, who rescued her from the backstreets of Lancaster. On separate occasions, she has given him her necklet, her pledge and her maidenhead.
Too late she realises that he is a sexless megalomaniac, who will use any vulnerable woman in his experiments in hypnosis and generating mass hysteria.
That’s how she finds herself a desperate prisoner in a grim old farmhouse high in the Cumbrian Fells, the centre of a network plotting the overthrow of the government, and dares the only escape she can think of.
More to follow...