{"id":22776,"date":"2023-03-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T23:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/?p=22776&preview=true&preview_id=22776"},"modified":"2023-04-24T16:49:44","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T14:49:44","slug":"from-fact-to-fiction-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/2023\/03\/16\/from-fact-to-fiction-2\/","title":{"rendered":"From fact to fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

FROM FACT TO FICTION <\/h4>\n\n

Deadly decor<\/h2>\n\n

JM Varese<\/span> <\/strong>on The Company, <\/em>his Gothic thriller set in the colourful world of luxury Victorian wallpaper-making <\/h5>\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Your new novel, The <\/em>Company, <\/em>takes inspiration from a historical Victorian scandal involving the use of arsenic in fashionable wallpaper. What was the story?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Scheele\u2019s Green, a colour invented by the Swedish- German scientist Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1775, was a brilliant green that became all the rage in home decor in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The problem with it was that it was derived from arsenic and could be deadly, especially under damp conditions, when the pigments reacted with moisture to produce a toxic gas. <\/p>\n\n

How did you research such a sinister topic? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Two great books on this topic were instrumental for me: Lucinda Hawksley\u2019s Bitten <\/em>by <\/em>Witch <\/em>Fever <\/em>(Thames and Hudson, 2016) and James C Whorton\u2019s The <\/em>Arsenic <\/em>Century <\/em>(OUP, 2010). Hawksley\u2019s book is really the bible on this topic \u2013 and is gorgeous to boot, including hundreds of samples of arsenical wallpaper from the National Archives. I also consulted numerous primary sources and medical journals to get a flavour of the language of the debates that raged during the 1870s. <\/p>\n\n

Did you take inspiration from any real-life historical figures? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

While I did not cast the great Arts-and- Crafts wallpaper and textile manufacturer William Morris as a character in the book, I did take great inspiration from him. It was Morris who said that the doctors had been \u201cbitten by the witch fever\u201d during the arsenic controversy, and he remained an outspoken denier of the toxic effects of arsenic \u2013 though public demand eventually forced him to begin offering \u201carsenic-free\u201d wallpapers in the late 19th century. <\/p>\n\n

\n\n

The Company <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

by JM Varese <\/p>\n\n

Baskerville, 256 pages, \u00a316.99 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FROM FACT TO FICTION Deadly decor JM Varese on The Company, his Gothic thriller set in the colourful world of luxury Victorian wallpaper-making Your new novel, The Company, takes inspiration from a historical Victorian scandal involving the use of arsenic in fashionable wallpaper. What was the story? Scheele\u2019s Green, a colour invented by the Swedish- […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5818,"featured_media":22788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","purple_page_number":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_page_number":"","purple_seq_number":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_seq_number":"","purple_source_article":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_article":"","purple_source_issue":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_issue":"April-2023","purple_external_id":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_external_id":"April-2023-d9a906e9-fc98-4ec7-b9af-3fe30815db04","purple_issue_code":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_issue_code":"|0000085643||","purple_android_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_android_product":"com.im.historymag.293","purple_ios_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_ios_product":"com.im.historymag.293","purple_web_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_web_product":"","purple_publication_id":"","purple_migrated":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"2023-04-24T14:35:45Z","apple_news_article-theme":"","apple_news_api_id":"b4fb84fb-d2ce-4fc8-b629-276563f7fcb3","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2023-04-24T14:49:49Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AtPuE-9LOT8i2KSdlY_f8sw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_article_theme":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/03\/JM-Varese-author-photosml-e1678200979648.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"rosemarysmithdesign@gmail.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/author\/rosemarysmithdesigngmail-com\/"},"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2","apple_news_title":""},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/03\/JM-Varese-author-photosml-e1678200979648.jpg",1243,836,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/03\/JM-Varese-author-photosml-e1678200979648-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/03\/JM-Varese-author-photosml-e1678200979648-300x202.jpg",300,202,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/03\/JM-Varese-author-photosml-e1678200979648-768x517.jpg",768,517,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/03\/JM-Varese-author-photosml-e1678200979648-1024x689.jpg",800,538,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/03\/JM-Varese-author-photosml-1135x1536.jpg",1135,1536,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/46\/2023\/03\/JM-Varese-author-photosml-e1678200979648.jpg",1243,836,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"rosemarysmithdesign@gmail.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/author\/rosemarysmithdesigngmail-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"FROM FACT TO FICTION Deadly decor JM Varese on The Company, his Gothic thriller set in the colourful world of luxury Victorian wallpaper-making Your new novel, The Company, takes inspiration from a historical Victorian scandal involving the use of arsenic in fashionable wallpaper. What was the story? Scheele\u2019s Green, a colour invented by the Swedish-…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22776"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5818"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22776"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22990,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22776\/revisions\/22990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}