Dear Subscriber,
My story, Alas, Poor Yorick, which is free in May, is also about royalty, just as today’s British Cornonation was about that topic.
I know, I am probably insulting my relatives at the Musgrave Manor in Great Britain, but I love how humans anthropomorphize their pets. What can I say? They even anthropomorphphize their royals!
In fact, my entire Portia of the Pacific series of Historical Mystery novels chooses modern issues that are in the headlines today, and takes them back to when they were first established in the U.S.A. and other countries. I have a belief that nothing is new in history, so we can learn from our earlier mistakes if we take the time to see why the present folks are attempting to fool us again by using the same techniques of making fools of us. Or else, why study history at all, right? Most totalitarian governments enjoy changing history to make themselves look good. You know, like that Orwellian statement, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
These are the issues in the present that I symbolize in each of the six mysteries I wrote:
- Chinawoman’s Chance (The Chinese Exclusion Act = Modern Exclusions of poor people of color in U.S.A. Immigration Policy).
- The Spiritualist’s Murders (Women in Nineteenth Century Spiritualism = Modern Focus on Western Religions)
- The Stockton Insane Asylum Murder (Reasons People Were Committed to an Insane Asylum in Nineteenth Century = Insane Asylums are the Prisons of Today)
- The Angel’s Trumpet (The Birth of Jim Crow Laws During Post-Reconstruction U.S.A. = New Jim Crow Laws in the Post-Trump Era)
- Dark Justice (The Old Anti-Abortion Years in the U.S.A. = The New Anti-Abortion Years in the U.S.A.)
- The Dancing Murders (Biological Plagues and Warfare in the Nineteenth Century = Modern Plagues Caused by Over-Development)
There you go, subscribers! Six fantastic lessons in fictional format about how history repeats itself in new and exciting ways. I hope you enjoy my creations and learn about what’s happening all around you.*
Be kind and enjoy your weekend!
Professor James Musgrave
*This newsletter was written by a 100% human being. Even the links were added by hand!
