Eight weeks to go: time for some Seeton history
The 25th Miss Seeton adventure (Watch the Wall, Miss Seeton) is now just eight weeks away, and my editor is finalising her work on it, but in this blog post I’m considering books 6 to 10 - when the HC pseudonyms began.
Heron Carvic does sound like a pseudonym, and it was certainly his stage name as an actor, but his marriage certificate calls him “Heron Carvic formerly known as Geoffrey Harris”. Both names originate within his family: Georgiana Carvick was Geoffrey Harris’s great-grandmother, while her husband (Sir Richard Mayne, Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police in the 1850s) had a sister who married Mr Basil Heron.
Heron Carvic died in 1980, and Miss Seeton’s first reappearance after his death came in 1988, when the books were issued in a different order. Picture Miss Seeton was released third, which must have puzzled readers new to the series. By the time the fifth and last title, Odds On Miss Seeton, appeared in 1989 the series had proved popular all over again. I don’t know exactly who said what to whom, but the first Miss Seeton sequel appeared in April 1990, written by the secretive Hampton Charles. (You’ll notice that, unlike Hampton Charles, I have always had the copyright for my titles registered in my real name.)
In those days it took nearly a year to go from manuscript submission to published book, so by the time Miss Seeton, By Appointment appeared on the bookshelves I had already been approached to succeed Hampton Charles. James Melville (author of the Superintendent Otani series) told me that he’d heard I was to write some Miss Seeton books - and then admitted that he’d been behind the three Hampton Charles titles. I learned that James Melville was also a pseudonym, for (Roy) Peter Martin, and that Hampton Charles was the name of a tiny hamlet in his part of England.
The new publishers (Berkley) were obviously keen for us to use pseudonyms that retained the HC initials. I chose Hamilton as this had been my hall of residence at the university of St Andrews, but I couldn’t at once find a relevant surname beginning with C. However, herons and cranes come in the same section of most bird books, and the problem was quickly solved.
The most pressing problem was time. Berkley had been able to issue the Heron Carvic titles at three-month intervals, but to maintain this schedule both James and I had to write fast while still adapting to someone else’s characters and style of writing. There were inevitably some mistakes. It was a great relief to discover the odd inconsistency in Heron Carvic’s own books!
While I was researching his work I realised that Heron Carvic must have based Plummergen on a real place. He mentions distances to real places, so it wasn't too hard to deduce which village was in the right location; it was close enough to where I then lived for me to go exploring and take some (very amateur) photographs.
The Francis Frith Collection of professional photos includes some views of the village in the 1950s, when it must have looked much as Heron Carvic saw it, and here's a tiny example (you can, of course, buy larger ones):
Although the pub is not called the George and Dragon it is, like Plummergen's George, close to the church; the road past it really is The Street. But there are also differences. Miss Seeton’s cottage should be just out of the picture on the right, but unfortunately that's something else Heron Carvic had to invent. A house with its own considerable history stands in that location, with a clear view northward up The Street; but The Street does indeed narrow to a lane running south beside the garden wall and across the Royal Military Canal.
I hope you now feel inspired to attempt the second of the five new Miss Seeton quizzes. You can find it at https://www.goodreads.com/quizzes/112.... This quiz deals with the three Hampton Charles titles, and the first two of mine.
Good luck!
Heron Carvic does sound like a pseudonym, and it was certainly his stage name as an actor, but his marriage certificate calls him “Heron Carvic formerly known as Geoffrey Harris”. Both names originate within his family: Georgiana Carvick was Geoffrey Harris’s great-grandmother, while her husband (Sir Richard Mayne, Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police in the 1850s) had a sister who married Mr Basil Heron.
Heron Carvic died in 1980, and Miss Seeton’s first reappearance after his death came in 1988, when the books were issued in a different order. Picture Miss Seeton was released third, which must have puzzled readers new to the series. By the time the fifth and last title, Odds On Miss Seeton, appeared in 1989 the series had proved popular all over again. I don’t know exactly who said what to whom, but the first Miss Seeton sequel appeared in April 1990, written by the secretive Hampton Charles. (You’ll notice that, unlike Hampton Charles, I have always had the copyright for my titles registered in my real name.)
In those days it took nearly a year to go from manuscript submission to published book, so by the time Miss Seeton, By Appointment appeared on the bookshelves I had already been approached to succeed Hampton Charles. James Melville (author of the Superintendent Otani series) told me that he’d heard I was to write some Miss Seeton books - and then admitted that he’d been behind the three Hampton Charles titles. I learned that James Melville was also a pseudonym, for (Roy) Peter Martin, and that Hampton Charles was the name of a tiny hamlet in his part of England.
The new publishers (Berkley) were obviously keen for us to use pseudonyms that retained the HC initials. I chose Hamilton as this had been my hall of residence at the university of St Andrews, but I couldn’t at once find a relevant surname beginning with C. However, herons and cranes come in the same section of most bird books, and the problem was quickly solved.
The most pressing problem was time. Berkley had been able to issue the Heron Carvic titles at three-month intervals, but to maintain this schedule both James and I had to write fast while still adapting to someone else’s characters and style of writing. There were inevitably some mistakes. It was a great relief to discover the odd inconsistency in Heron Carvic’s own books!
While I was researching his work I realised that Heron Carvic must have based Plummergen on a real place. He mentions distances to real places, so it wasn't too hard to deduce which village was in the right location; it was close enough to where I then lived for me to go exploring and take some (very amateur) photographs.
The Francis Frith Collection of professional photos includes some views of the village in the 1950s, when it must have looked much as Heron Carvic saw it, and here's a tiny example (you can, of course, buy larger ones):
Although the pub is not called the George and Dragon it is, like Plummergen's George, close to the church; the road past it really is The Street. But there are also differences. Miss Seeton’s cottage should be just out of the picture on the right, but unfortunately that's something else Heron Carvic had to invent. A house with its own considerable history stands in that location, with a clear view northward up The Street; but The Street does indeed narrow to a lane running south beside the garden wall and across the Royal Military Canal.
I hope you now feel inspired to attempt the second of the five new Miss Seeton quizzes. You can find it at https://www.goodreads.com/quizzes/112.... This quiz deals with the three Hampton Charles titles, and the first two of mine.
Good luck!
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