Dale Hurst
When I talk about what inspired my historical mystery series, The Berylford Scandals, three names come to mind. Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Charles Dickens. I grew up knowing about all three, but Dickens resonated with me from an early age, probably going back to watching The Muppet Christmas Carol as a kid. The language, the costume, the ways of life in 19th century England, they fascinated me, all the way through studying Great Expectations at school and then falling in love with Bleak House and Little Dorrit as I got older.
I had been “writing” by this point for about six years but had only dabbled in childish attempts at high fantasy. But in 2008, something in me switched, from wanting to be the next Tolkien like every other 15-year-old aspiring author, to wanting to write like Dickens. To breathe new life into the world of 1800s England and to create this little world of rich characters, much like he did. The love for Dickens, as well as Austen, Gaskell, and other writers of the Regency and Victorian periods, started the road to bringing my fictional English town of Berylford to life.
A lot of Dickens’ work is set in London, so I looked to other authors to help shape my market town setting. With Dickens, it’s the characters, from their diverse personalities, their catchphrases, even their somewhat unorthodox names. I have written blogs before about the mixed reception of some of my characters’ surnames – Vyrrington, Stirkwhistle, Urmstone and Haffisidge to name a few – but when they’re compared to instances like Veneering, Peerybingle, Pumblechook and Chuzzlewit, I don’t think mine are too bad!
Another thing I can thank Dickens for – teaching me how to write a ruthless villain. I say it on my podcast a lot as well that I think writing heroes is quite boring, so I devote more of my energies to creating ambiguous antiheroes and nasty baddies. The relationship between Mrs Clennam and her son Arthur in Little Dorrit formed a blueprint for my own Lady Vyrrington and her son Edward in Sin & Secrecy – though it evolved over the editing process. Similar could be said for my Abel and Rebecca Stirkwhistle and David Copperfield’s Edward and Jane Murdstone.
Toward the end of the process for Sin & Secrecy, Abel became more of a Tulkinghorn-like figure from Bleak House – to the extent that I wouldn’t object to Charles Dance playing him on screen if we ever get there!
The Berylford Scandals may be lying dormant for now until I have the energy to resurrect it, but my love for Dickens, his immortal work, his indomitable characters, and his incomparable wizardry with the English language, that will always be alive and kicking. If you haven’t read one of his works before – maybe you think they’re too long or they might be too dull or just too old-fashioned – I cannot recommend him enough.