Mimi Matthews

“If the Academy was your Eton, then Paris was your Oxford. I’ll allow that you have been a most devoted student. But a student is all you have been. It is now your work begins.”

In the first half of the century and entering the early 1860s, it was widely believed that the job of physically defending a woman fell to a man. Women, by contrast, were viewed as the gentler sex: hothouse flowers whose role was to be protected and admired, rather than resourceful individuals capable of defending themselves in their own right.

During the time when Rules for Ruin is set, these kinds of beliefs were just beginning to be challenged. In her 1858 essay, A Woman’s Thoughts About Women, Victorian author Dinah Maria Mulock Craik declares:

“The age of chivalry, with all its benefits and harmfulness, is gone by, for us women. We cannot now have men for our knights errant, expending blood and life for our sake while we have nothing to do but sit idle on balconies, and drop flowers on half-dead victors at tilt and tourney. Nor, on the other hand, are we dressed up dolls, pretty playthings, to be fought and scrambled for— petted, caressed or flung out of the window, as our several lords and masters may please.”

Instead, according to Craik, women had to learn to depend on themselves. For women moving through overcrowded Victorian cities like London, this meant learning to deal with all sorts of assaults and encroachments. Popular publications of the day, including etiquette manuals, would have women believe that simply dressing modestly and adhering to social rules— like refusing to acknowledge impertinent men— would be enough to protect them. But rational Victorian women realized that etiquette and drab dresses weren’t enough. They required a familiarity with self-defense.

Miss Corvus’s students learn boxing, fencing, and jujitsu. All skills are historically accurate for women of this period, but for the latter aspect, I had to massage the time line a bit to make it work for my story. Though Japan opened trade with the West in the 1850s, it wasn’t until the close of the century that martial arts began to become widely known to the British public.

In her excellent book Femininity, Crime and Self-Defence in Victorian Literature and Society (2012), historian Emelyne Godfrey expands on the rise of Japanese martial arts for Victorian women and “the phenomenon of the ‘ju-jutsuffragettes.’” Her book was an invaluable resource when crafting the self-defense curriculum for the Crinoline Academy. I highly recommend it to any readers who want to learn more about women’s self-defense in Victorian England.

A: One of the major plot points of the story is what happened to the letters exchanged between Miss Corvus and her then fiancé, Lord Compton. This part of the story underlines how vulnerable a Victorian woman was to interference by those who would wish to harm or control her. Miss Corvus's letters are stolen by her brother, which brought home to her and to her students that one couldn't trust anything set down on ink and paper. But women's creative pursuits (especially those deemed to be ladylike and acceptable) weren't scrutinized too closely.

Most of the samplers used are already completed except for the bit of code. Stitching that would have taken no time at all. **Also, how could I resist a nod to Dickens's Madame Defarge?

A: Effie is concerned about the lack of rights for married women. But again, she exists in Victorian reality, where marriage and children still would have been seen as a valid choice. Additionally, it's established pretty early in the story that Effie cares a lot about things. Beautiful clothes and the accoutrements of wealth. Luxury means security, and deep down, safety and security are what she most craves. That, and a sense of belonging. In falling in love with Gabriel, she finally feels that she belongs somewhere and with someone. This is an incredibly powerful emotion, and given that this is, after all, a romance novel, I felt that Effie would ultimately take a chance on marriage with the man she loved.

Also, just to mention again, that the Academy girls operate from within Victorian society. To live with Gabriel unmarried would have been scandalous and would have impacted her ability to move in society. It wouldn't make sense for Effie to make this choice.

A: This part was actually edited out, but...they just threw a blanket over him. It's a tried-and-true tactic to subdue a fractious little dog. Franc came to no harm being bundled up and carried out, but it ultimately didn't make sense to show the scene on page or to spend too much time explaining it.