A few words about my personal selection criteria. I had to find cut-off points, not least because there are so many interesting ladies. But I decided not to pick any who while born in the 18th century had the majority of their lives happening in the 19th, and/or key events of their lives, which meant, among others, no Emma Hamilton (who should definitely get a miniseries), and no Rahel Varnhagen. (Generally speaking, I used the French Revolution as a cut off point, not least because it felt like the beginning of a new era, though in one case I picked somone who did experience that era and beyond, will explain there.) Conversely, I didn't pick any lady who lived into the 18th century but had the majority of their lives happening in the 17th, which means, alas, no Liselotte (Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, she who was married to Philippe d'Orleans, Monsieur, the gayest man of his time and our German correspondent in Versailles with ALL the good gossip) and not her favourite Aunt, Sophia of Hannover (almost Queen of England but for Cousin Anne surviving her for a few months), either. (Both definitely deserve their own series.)

Also, I tried to consider the demands of tv, i.e. someone like Laura Bassi, philosopher, physicist and sole female member of the University of Bologna has the drawback that her life went too smoothly, the patriarchy not withstanding. She got the recognition. She married the man she loved (despite some grumblings from the university which was prepared to accept chaste Minervas but not married women as lecturers (of men, omg!). Her husband was a champ who didn't oppress her or stand in her way but supported her. She was financially independent. Basically, unless you invent a lot and make her life very different from what it was, there are no big obstacles to overcome. I could see a movie made about Laura where the grumblings about her getting married are the obstacle and the happy ending is when she continues to teach as a wife and mother, but it's not enough for a miniseries, never mind a multi season one. On the other end of the scale, there's Luise Gottsched, one of the female pioneers of German writing, who had a very very depressing life in that her husband (also a writer) demanded she devote herself to his work first and foremost, exploited her, and in the end cheated on her. Leaving aside the difficulty of dramatizing the act of writing (always tricky with writers who didn't have another job), it's just one depressing thing after another, and no satisfying pay off because it would take centuries until she was properly appreciated in cultural history.

All this being said: here are some fascinating women from the 18th century with series format friendly lives, belonging in several (overlapping) categories: ladies of the theatre, ladies of science, writers, politicians and courtiers. This is by no means a complete list, but Darth Real Life has returned to me.


Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Who was she? Georgian wit, writer, traveller and member of a bisexual love triangle

Miniseries or multi season: Both possible; you could focus on just one era of her lilfe (miniseries) or cover the decades from her childhood where she's teaching herself Latin when she's not cheeky with members of the Hellfire Club to her middle and old age in Italy when she's dealing with Italian robbers when she's not shocking young Horace Walpole by dancing and having bodily fluids while over 50.

Lady Mary's most famous work as a writer were the Embassy Letters, from when her husband was the British Ambassador to Turkey. (Which also led to her becoming a medical pioneer who brought inocculation against smallpox to Britain.) You can read my review of her biography here and a summary of her part in the bisexual love triangle here.

Émilie du Châtelet

Who was she? French Mathematician, physicist and philosopher; had a stormy decades long love affair with Voltaire

Miniseries or multi season: Miniseries. Alas, she died at age 42 in the aftermath of childbirth, so you can do the childhood, youth and getting married thing in the first episode and devote the rest to her career as a scientist and love affairs, of which there were several in addition to the main one with Voltaire, until she dies early and tragically but not before finishing her magnum opus, the translation and commentary of Newton's Principia into French which is still the one in use today.

Reviews of several biographical works about her can be read here.

Caroline Neuber "Die Neuberin"

Who was she? German actress, company manager (which women just weren't in those days, so people constantly felt obliged to say she had a manly spirit) and German theatre reforming pioneer

Miniseries or multi season: Both are possible, again depending on whether you pick just one era of her life or cover the whole thing. Given teenage Caroline has an abusive Dad to escape from (seriously: he whips her, she has a scar from that in her face for the rest of her llife, and given she's an actress, a great many people get to see it, and then after her first escape attempt he gets her locked up in prison for 14 months, but then she escapes again and for good), it starts with great drama right from the beginning. What she's most famous for is a) working with the Gottscheds (see above for Luise and her exploitative but important for German literary history husband) to produce dramas in German on the stage that weren't just Punch-and-Judy farces, thus proving the claim you can do serious drama in German instead of French, and b) leading her company instead of letting a man do it. Her life ended mid 7 Years War, so about as dramatic as it started, and there really is enough material for a a whole series, but equally you can do a classical theatre drama (i.e. focus on Caroline getting her company going against the odds and landing her first successful performances, something like that.

Her wiki entry is here.


Margaret "Peg" Woffington

Who was she? Georgian Irish stage actress, successful in both female and male parts (her debut was as Macheath)

Miniseries or multi season? Miniseries; another lady who made it barely past 40, alas. But she died wealthy and admired, i.e. the exact opposite of the contemporary cliché involving actresses with lots of love affairs and fiery rivalries.

Her wiki entry is here.


Barbara "La Barbarina" Campanini

Who was she? Italian Ballet dancer, international European superstar of her day

Miniseries or multiseason?: Miniseries, this time not because of an early death but because once she retires into respectability and heading charities in Silesia, there's not much tv friendly material for her old age.

Here is a highly entertaining summary of her dramatic life (and love life) written by mildred_of_midgard; let me add that since then, we found out the Scot Barbarina was either engaged or married to when Frederick the Great kidnapped her was the brother of Lord Bute (as in teacher of George III, short lived PM of same, son-in-law of Lady Mary, because it's a small 18th century world).


Gertrud Elisabeth Schmeling Mara

Who was she? musical violinist Wunderkind turning soprano European superstar; marries debauched cellist and boyfriend of Prussian Prince.

Miniseries or multi season? Miniseries, but one devoting the entire first episode on her wunderkind phase where her father is a wannabe Leopold Mozart, not least because it's an interesting possible reply to "what if Leopold had continued to tour with Nannerl as well as Wolfgang once she hit puberty?" Conversely, the last episode will have to cover her entire old age once Napoleon invades Russia and this sets her retirement funds literally aflame. The dramatic middle point being of course her time in Prussia, complete with bisexual love triangle and dramatic escape attempt. (Again; what is it with Prussia and dramatic escape attempts?)

All the juicy details about her life are to be found here.

Julia von Mengden

Who was she? Livonian courtier, favourite and likely lover of Anna Leopoldovna; was involved in Anna Leopoldovna becoming Regent in 1740, got engaged to Anna's male fave, Saxonian Envoy Lynar (if you're thinking threesome, you're thinking what everyone was thinking at the time); after Elizaveta Petrovna's coup that deposed Anna, chose so go with Anna into exile and imprisonment; was eventually freed by Catherine II.

Miniseries or multiseason? Miniseries, with the last episode devoted to the decades of imprisonment - entire seasons of same would not offer much drama, after all.


Julia has only a short wiki entry in English, but I picked her for a couple of reasons: a) as a courtier, she experiences four female Russian rulers in a row (Anna Ivanova, Anna Leopoldovna, Elizaveta and Catherine), but by focusing on her instead of them, the miniseries has the chance for simultanous closeness and critical distance; Julia's loyalty to Anna Leopoldovna is genuinely touching; it's one in the eye for Putin's homophobia and machismo.

Maria Theres(i)a

Who was she? Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary, Queen of Bohemia, Empress (Consort, technically) of the Holy Roman Empire, etc., etc. One of the most important rulers of the 18th century. She and Frederick the Great were each other's Arch Nemesis. English speaking folk mainly know her as the mother of Marie Antoinette, which is a source of frustration to me.

Miniseries or multi season? Multi season. There has been a series in recent years which was basically three different miniseries, one for young, one for middle aged and one for old MT, but while it had some good bits, by and large I felt all the changes were hugely talking down to the audience, assuming it wouldn't get 18th century politics or female main characters as problematic in their way as their male counterparts. So I really want a series that covers her entire life (okay, fine, it can start when she's a teenager) in the spirit of John Adams.

Her English Wiki entry is okay as a start, but if you want something less dry with original quotes that are fun to read and give a good idea of her personality and why I find her interesting, here is a collection of quotes by her and Frederick about each other during their life time rivalry.


The other days

To no one's surprise, my story was the 18th Century. To my considerable surprise, my recipient wasn't a salon friend but completely new to me, so I was a bit nervous. My recipient had asked for Voltaire and given several good prompts, but the problem was that I had already written the story about Émilie du Chatelet, and the story about his love/hate relationship with Frederick the Great. However, fortunately Gummy_bean added that while Madame Denis, Voltaire's niece-slash-companion-slash-lover of decades, had not been among the offered characters, they would also love something centered on her if I were so inclined. I most definitely was - that was the one significant character and relationship I hadn't focused on fictionally before, and also one who usually gets a lot of condescension and dislike by biographers. Say no more, recipient, thought I, reading the prompt, and voila: the story:


The Other Woman (6893 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Marie Louise Mignot Denis/Voltaire (Writer), Émilie du Châtelet/Voltaire (Writer), Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Voltaire (Writer), Marie Louise Mignot Denis & Émilie du Châtelet, Émilie du Châtelet/Jean François de Saint-Lambert
Characters: Marie Louise Mignot Denis, Voltaire (Writer), Émilie du Châtelet, Catherine Arouet Mignot, Alexandre Jean Mignot, Elisabeth Mignot de Fontaine
Additional Tags: Character Study, Complicated Relationships, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Jealousy, Family Dynamics, Uncle-Niece Relationship, Uncle/Niece Incest, POV Female Character, Rival Relationship, Yuletide Family Affair, Yuletide 2024
Summary:

What was it like, being in a polycule with Voltaire, Émilie du Châtelet and Frederick the Great? Madame Denis tells all!

During a quick visit to Berlin this weekend, I visited Charlottenburg Palace for the first time since I was 16, and wow, did they ever get some restoration work done. For a big pic spam, see here.

Also, having read the "Radiant Emperor" duology, I checked whether there is fanfiction, and indeed there is, like Rivers and Mountains, which takes the "character X after their death ends up back in time and has the chance to fix things (or not)" trope and runs with it in a compelling way.

I wll say something about the swap suggestion that inspired this question at the end, because I have my own opinion about it, unsurprisingly, but first, here are some spontanous 18th Century ideas from yours truly. I tried to pick contemporaries of the same generation:


( Kingdom Swap 1: Friedrich Wilhelm I. (Prussia) swaps with his first cousin George II (Britain and Hannover) )

( Kingdom Swap 2: Stanislas I. Poniatowski (Poland) swaps with Joseph II (HRE) )

( Kingdom, err, Realm Swap 3: Peter the Great (Russia) swaps with Gian Gastone de' Medici (Tuscany) )

Now, what thornyrose42 wrote to me was: I was listening to a podcast (You’re Dead to Me) where a comedian quipped that Peter III of Russia and Frederick the Great would have both been quite satisfied with a kingdom swap, since Peter admired Prussia so much and Frederick would not have said no to such a giant hunk of Empire.

Whether or not that is true, what do you think would be some of the best and worst kingdom swaps from your favourite periods? Whose style of governance was much better suited to another kingdom’s problems? Who managed where they were ruling but would have floundered when forced to deal with someone else’s political brew.

( And okay, Peter III and Frederick are contemporaries but of two different generations, but here's my own opinion of how that would go: )

The other days

If this year's Yuletide stories written by yours truly had a theme, it was "comedy with dark undertones". I had originally planned something else as my main gift to write, but then firstly a lot of real life stuff happened, and secondly I wanted to cheer myself up while writing, so I continued my quest to throw the most unlikely outrageous tropes at Frederick the Great. This time, it was babysitting comedy. Not involving an actual baby, but his ten years old brother, whom no one tries to eata, but it was still an eerie feeling to watch this year's Doctor Who Christmas Special and see that RTD had gone for babysitting comedy tropes as well. With my thing for messy family relationships in general and siblings relationships in particular, I always enjoy writing Frederick and the brother who was way too much like him for them to get on, and Frederick with my favourite of his long term boyfriends, Fredersdorf.


The Sitter (5885 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802), Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf
Additional Tags: Siblings, Dysfunctional Family, Slice of Life, Queering The Tide, Family, Humor, Established Relationship, Yuletide 2023, Yuletide
Summary:

Tragedy is behind him, glory ahead: Crown Prince Friedrich of Prussia is about to enjoy the best years of his life. At least that's what he thinks when fate inflicts what might be his harshest trial: having to take care of his brat of a younger brother...

Otoh, this story is another example of my tendency to get drawn into a fandom and emerge being primarily interest in not the juggernaut pairing and/or the characters the friend who tried to get me interested in. Not that the Third Century Crisis followed by the Tetrarchy in the late Roman Empire is a megafandom, and thus does not have a juggernaut pairing. But if there was one, it surely would have been the Emperors Diocletian/Maximian, who are the guys mildred_of_midgard wants to hear/read about. But while I do find them interesting, I am even more interested in the women around them - and one woman who started out really low on the social scale but ended up not just on top but surviving the various changes in power which had much of the remaining cast drop off like flies was Helena. Yes, the mother of Constatine (the Great). No, she wasn't a British princess. Why not more people fictionalizing her used her actual origins as a barmaid which are way more interesting at least from the 20th century onwards is a mystery to me, but hey: all the more fun to write about her for me, and to provide her perspective on the late Roman Game of Thrones:



Invicta (4566 words) by Selena
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 3rd Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Helena (Mother of Constantine)/Constantius, Helena (Mother of Constantine) & Diocletian, Emperor Diocletian/Emperor Maximian, Diocletian & Maximian & Constantius
Characters: Helena (Mother of Constantine), Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus | Emperor Diocletian, Flavius Valerius Constantius "Chlorus" | Emperor Constantius I., Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus | Emperor Maximian, Constantine the Great (d. 337 CE), Aurelia Prisca (d. 315 CE)
Additional Tags: POV Female Character, Game of Thrones-esque, Yuletide Treat, Yuletide, Yuletide 2023, Origin Story
Summary:

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: three future Emperors walk into a bar. The one who’s going to end up with the Empire is the barmaid.

 

Or: Helena, history has its eyes on you....

Dear Yuletide Writer,

we share at least one fandom, which is great, and I'm really grateful you take the time and trouble to write a story for me. All the prompts are just suggestions; if you have very different ideas featuring the same central characters, go for them. Also, I enjoy a broad range from fluff to angst, so whatever suits you best works fine with me.



DNW:

- bashing of canon pairings or characters in general. By which I don't mean the characters have to like each and everyone - a great number of those I've nominated can be described as prickly jerks, among other things, and it would be entirely ic for them to say something negative about people they canonically can't stand - but there's a difference between that and the narrative giving me the impression to go along with said opinions.

- Alpha/Beta/Omega scenarios, watersports, infantilisation. Really not my thing, sorry.


Likes:

- competence, competent people appreciating each other

- deep loyalty and not blindly accepting orders

- flirting/seduction via wordplay and banter (if it works for you with the characters in question)

- for the darker push/pull dynamics: moments of tenderness and understanding in between the fighting/one upman shipping (without abandoning the anger)

- for the pairings, both romantic and non-romantic, that are gentler and harmonious by nature: making it clear each has their own life and agenda as well

- some humor amidst the angst (especially if the character in question displays it in canon)


The question of AUs: depends. "What if this key canon event did not happen?" can lead to great character and dynamics exploration, some of which made it into my specific prompts, but I do want to recognize the characters. Half of those I nominated are from historical canons, and the history is part of the fascination the canon has for me. ) However, if you feel inspired to, say, write Maria Theresa, space captain, and manage to do it in a way that gives me gripping analogues to the historical situations: be my guest!

How much or how little sex: I'm cool with anything you feel comfortable with, from detailed sex to the proverbial fade out after a kiss. Or no sex at all (case in point: several of the non-romantic relationships I prompted), as long as the story explores the emotional dynamics in an intense way.

( Josephus Trilogy - Lion Feuchtwanger )

( 18th Century Fredericians )

( Byzantine Empresses )



( Foundation (TV) )


( Lost in Space )

( Vikings: Valhalla )

Dear Trick or Treater,

we share at least one fandom, which is great, and I’m really grateful to you for writing a trick or treat for me. All the prompts are just suggestions; if you have very different ideas featuring the same central characters, go for them. Also, I enjoy a broad range from fluff to angst, so whatever suits you best works fine with me.



DNW:

- bashing of canon pairings or characters in general. By which I don't mean the characters have to like each and everyone - a great number of those I've nominated can be described as prickly jerks, among other things, and it would be entirely ic for them to say something negative about people they canonically can't stand - but there's a difference between that and the narrative giving me the impression to go along with said opinions.

- Alpha/Beta/Omega scenarios, watersports, infantilisation. Really not my thing, sorry.


Likes:

- flirting/seduction via wordplay and banter (if it works for you with the characters in question)

- for the darker push/pull dynamics: moments of tenderness and understanding in between the fighting/one upman shipping (without abandoning the anger)

- for the pairings, both romantic and non-romantic, that are gentler and harmonious by nature: making it clear each has their own life and agenda as well

- some humor amidst the angst (especially if the character in question displays it in canon)


The question of AUs: depends. "What if this key canon event did not happen?" can lead to great character and dynamics exploration, some of which made it into my specific prompts, but I do want to recognize the characters. Half of those I nominated are from historical canons, and the history is part of the fascination the canon has for me. ) However, if you feel inspired to, say, write Maria Theresa, space captain, and manage to do it in a way that gives me gripping analogues to the historical situations: be my guest!

How much or how little sex: I'm cool with anything you feel comfortable with, from detailed sex to the proverbial fade out after a kiss. Or no sex at all (case in point: several of the non-romantic relationships I nominated), as long as the story explores the emotional dynamics in an intense way.

( Babylon 5 )

( Matthew Shardlake Series )

( 18th Century RPF )


( The Last Kingdom )

( Josephus Trilogy - Lion Feuchtwanger )

This is a delightful book given to me as a Christmas present by kathyh. Subtitle: "The Secret History of the Georgian Court", it covers the era between the time of Georg Ludwig, Prince Elector of Han(n)over, becoming King George I. of England, and the death of George II, with a brief "Where are they now?" overview about the last of the protagonists spending their final years during George III's reign. The "Georgian" designation not withstanding, I can understand why Lucy Worsley makes a break after G2's death, since the court culture changes with the new incoming young King, the third George and the first one to be born and raised in Britain (and will of course change again once he has his final nervous breakdown and we get into the Regency era).

While the lives of the first two Hannover Kings, their wife (in the case of the second George), children and mistresses form the red thread through the narrative, the central focus is more often than not on the courtiers of the title, with the main protagonists other than the Royals being Lord and Lady Hervey (nee Molly Lepell), Henrietta Howard, Peter Wentworth, "Wild Peter", G1's Turkish bodyservants Muhammad and Mustafa, and in the last fourth or so Horace Walpole the younger. Now, I've read and reviewed several of the memoirs and biographies quoted in this book (which allowed me to nitpick a little, more about this later because I'm a show-off this way), but there still was enough new to me to make me treasure the book for the additional information alone. Luckily for me, it's also very entertainingly written. Mind you, while Lucy Worsley accurately points out source bias in, say, Lord Hervey, she then does things like ten pages later reproducing only slightly paraphrased Hervey's account without saying a) the story is from him and b) he's the only source.

It's also a very British book in that while Worsley laudably refutes several of the older clichés about the Georges (such as G1 being undereducated when in fact he spoke more languages than most of his usually monolingual English courtiers - English unfortunately was the one he learned last and spoke worst), you can tell her impressive bibliography is 99% British in origin, and the rest is translated. This sometimes means the reproduction of older errors - more about this in a moment - and sometimes it means repetitive descriptions - so every time a German principality is mentioned, be it Hannover itself or Queen Caroline's native Ansbach or Princess Augusta's state of origin, it is "sleepy". Sidenote re: Hannover, compared to London, sure. Compared to just about every other British city? Not so much. Thanks largely to the only recently dead Sophie (granddaughter of James I and VI and reason why her son Georg Ludwig became George I), it had a thriving cultural life, with Leibniz as one of the top stars, politically, it had accumulated enough power to become an Electorate in the first place before getting the British crown and was one of the prime movers and shakers in the HRE. And of course bloodlines are ridiculous, but given all the fuss the British nobility made about their new German sovereigns as recent upstars, it's worth pointing out that the Hannover clan were Welfs, i.e. they were members of one of the oldest noble families of Europe, who could trace their ancestors back to to the time of Charlemagne, which is more than any of the snobby English aristocrats would have been able to do, who were usually lucky of they had ancestors going back further than the Tudors. Lastly, that enterprising and witty travelling English writer, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, did visit Hannover as most British visitors did at the time and had a great deal of sarcastic observations to make, but something that really impressed her were the (then) modern housing facilities, especially the tiled stoves, which she would have much liked to have in often damp London.

(Speaking of Lady Mary, she is alas quoted and referenced re: tie innocculation against smallpox innovation - but not one of the courtiers focused upon in this book, which I can understand because Lucy Worsley went for people who really lived at court nearly all the time, and this was only briefly true of Lady Mary.)

Within that selection of characters, I appreciated we got as much about the Turkish attendants of G1 as we did; they're written as characters, not set decorations, and they're other than "Wild Peter" and late in the day G2's mistress Amalie von Waldenburg (later Lady Yarmouth) the only non-English courtiers. (Which is unsurprising due to the lack of German sources used.) They're also a counterpoint to an otherwise near exclusively aristocratic cast, though with the focus on court life, the booik neither intends to nor does provide a cultural history of Engliand in the era per se. The character who surprised me most, due to the difference of what I had read before and how Lucy Worsley described her, was Molly Lepell, later Lady Hervey. How she shows up in, say, her husband's biography or Leonhard Horowski's immensely entertaining "Das Jahrhundert der Könige": one of Caroline's maids of honor, marries for love future biting memoirist and bisexual icon Lord Hervey, who proceeds to fall out of love and neglects or ignores her for most of the remaining marriage while persuing his affairs, and then treats her meanly in his last will as a final insult, for not only does he explicitly not give her more than he absolutely has to, legal-wise, but he wants their children raised by someone else (this clause was subsequently ignored). The words "long-suffering" are used more than once by both Hervey's biographer and Horowski. Just about the only explanation I had found in Hervey's memoirs for why he didn't just grow indifferent to his wife but came to dislike her when she seems to have been liked by most other people was that she favoured the guy politically he later dueled with (not about her! the guy basically described him as gay as openly as you could as a bitchy Georgian courtier, in an age where sodomy was still a capital offense).

Meanwhile, Worsley: attributes the fallout between the Herveys in addition to these factors to a brief but intense flirtation Molly had with G1, quotes her as saying children bore her and she can't stand being with them (this makes the clause in the last will look different) and describes Molly then becoming an open Jacobite, which for a Georgian career courtier certainly is...original. (Sadly, Worsley does not include what used to be my favourite story involving Molly, the fact that when Hervey's passion du jour, 18th century sex pot Francesco Algarotti, got a call from Prussia from newly ascended to the throne Frederick the Great, he departed so quickly from Hervey's lodgings that almost his entire luggage remained behind, and Molly was the one to pack it and mail it to Algarotti in Berlin.) Anyway, Molly is still a cheated on wife in Worsley's book, but anything but long suffering and with a spiky personality of her own.

The potentially saddest story which I was afraid would go horribly but which then turned out to go far better than most other similar cases was that of "Wild Peter", a feral boy found in the woods in the Hannover principality who didn't wear any clothing and could not speak. Bearing in mind the most famous case of similar "wild children" , Kaspar Hauser, I braced myself for impending tragedy as the kid was treated as a mascot/pet which G1 and his daughter-in-law Caroline competed for for a time and who attracted a lot of curiosity as well as scientific attention. But as opposed to other cases, Peter fared relatively well. He never did learn to speak, and after Caroline's death, the crown paid a succession of farmers to take care of him in the countryside, but he wasn't abused, or forced to work, and he became very attached to his caretakers. While no one was ever sure how old exactly he was, he seems to have died of natural causes as an older man". The fascination "Wild Peter" caused for a while was a very 18th century thing with all the musings about the "natural state of men" and the debate on how language was formed, and again, I can understand why Worsley picked him and not, say, Händel.

The constant family soap opera with fierce intergenerational fights that marked the Hannover royal family and accordingly split the courtiers who always had to decide whether to go with the royals in power or bet on the Prince of Wales and future preferement is reported with relish but also more sympathy than their contemporaries had, with Worsley good at reminding her readers of long term causes in this series of family dysfunctionalities. Where we miss out, and that's not a big complaint because you can only include so much before readers get hopelessly confused, are all the continental cross connections. I mean, I can understand Lord Hervey getting bored by G2 treating genealogy as one of his two favourite subjects and regularly tuning out - I'd have, too -, but who was related to whom actually was politically relevant in that century, sometimes caused wars, and on a less bloody but still important scale, completely alters the perception of relationships in question. Thus Worsley, following Hervey, repeats his quip that a certain "Countess d' Elitz" slept with G1, G2 and Frederick, Prince of Wales. Except that the lady in question was Anna Luise von der Schulenburg, Countess of Dölitz, illegitimate daughter of G1 and his mistress Melusine von der Schulenburg. (One of three daughters; Worsley is only ware of the younger two.) Now keep in mind Hervey doesn't claim three generations incest has been going on (and he so would have). Bored-by-German genealogy Hervey simply wasn't aware of the actual relationship but did notice the woman was hanging out and treated with intimacy by three generations of Hannovers. (More about this here.) This is a similar mistake to the one most Georgian courtiers and following them lots of British historians made about the Countess von Platen, G1's half sister, the illegitimate daughter of his father Ernst August, whom they thought was his alternate mistress to Melusine von Schulenburg until someone finally bothered to check out the German sources, only Worsley is aware of that one, while missing out on the "D'Elitz/Dölitz" case.

(Sidenote: in case you're wondering, this being the gossipy 18th century, the German courtiers and memoirists so would have reported incest gossip - they sure did in the cause of Augustus the Strong of Saxony and his favourite daughter - but in this case, there is zilch. It simply was customary to treat your (noble) illegitimate children as part of your family for the Hannover clan. Noting the familiarity, speaking little French and no German, the English aristocrats promptly went for the wrong conclusion.)

And speaking of German relations, when I read that G2 and Caroline's daughter Amalie/Emily - who remained unmarried - never had a prince interested who could have been a serious match, I imagined generations of Prussian historians having coughing attacks. In the interminable saga dubbed "The English marriage project" that provided the fodder of the fierce marital warfare between Frederick the Great's parents, with his mother, G2's sister Sophia Dorothea, wishing for nothing more than to marry her oldest son and daughter to their Hannover cousins and his father Frederick William going from luke warm to actively against it, future Frederick the Great was not just the intended groom for Amalie/Emily but actually pledged himself in writing to marry only her in a letter to Queen Caroline which when found out resulted in his abusive father‘s most famous explosions and beat downs. I mean, it's not that I'm unaware G2 wasn't any more keen on those marriages than Frederick William, and so they never had much of a chance to happen, but the fact of the matter is, young Friedrich did propose, and certainly he was an interested prince who could have been a serious match. (Two more Frederick the Great trivia not appearing in this volume, his tragically to be executed boyfriend Hans Herrmann von Katte was losely related to Melusine von Schulenburg, visited Britain in the late 1720s and had a brief flirtation with one of her daughters, the later Lady Chesterfield. Oh, and Molly Lepell/Lady Hervey was directly related to the guy in charge of Küstrin who had to oversee Katte's execution and Frederick's imprisonment.)

Anyway, these are just minor nitpicks, and since they concern matters not really the focus of the book, they did not take away from my enjoyment of it at all. It really does paint a vivid picture of 18th century court life and of all the invidiuals Worsley chose to highlight, and has not one boring page in it.

trobadora asked. Boringly, there's no question about it: it's still geeking out about various historical subjects, mainly but not limited to the 18th century, with cahn, mildred_of_midgard, felis and the occasional guest, and archiving the highlights at rheinsberg. You know you've found your people when a harmless sentence like "To Ferdinand, who has always shown me friendship" sends everyone reliably sniggering. :)

Seriously, though, it is fun reading through gossipy envoy reports and indignant memoirs. And hotly debating personalities and llikely causes for outrageous actions. Speaking of that, the runner up for "most fun fannish thing of 2022" is of course the second half of my Babylon 5 rewatch. It was the dawn of the third age of mankind, and I am still as much in love with the show as ever. Plus there were actual comments and some debates!

The other days

May 2023 be a good year for you. I celebrated with my APs, and a good tiime was had by all, though also some sadness due to various illnesses in the wider family. Now, about Yuletide: my assignment was a story for cahn. Originally, I had planned to write her another trope combined with history - body switching, to be precise, but when I plotted and pondered, the irresitable idea occured to me to do a time loop story instead. Less Groundhog Day than Russian Doll, though, starring Frederick the Great as Nadia. (The personalities completely match, trust me on this. I now propose Natasha Lyonne to follow Katharina Thalbach's footsteps and be the next female actress playing Frederick.) Incidentally, I went back and thro as ato whether to list this story as a fusion rather than an "inspired by", but ultimately went with the later, because while, Nadia/Frederick identity aside, I took another key twist from Russian Doll - ( which is spoilery - ), I abandoned others, such as the fact that in the Russian Doll universe, said verse is shrinking and more people are disappearing the longer the loop goes on. As it was iimportant for my story that Frederick should be seriously tempted at one point to stay within the loop (which is more Nadia s2 than Nadia s1), this could not be the case.

Anyway, next I had to figiure out when to set my story, and since I wanted it to be more funny than not as a present, setting it during one of the wars was out. Also, cahn had wished for Frederick, Voltaire and Frederick's younger brother Heinrich/Henry to be all in the story, and without going (more?) AU about this, this meant the 1750 - 1753 era when Voltaire was actually living in Prussia was the ideal time frame. Moroever, the repeating day should be a bad one for our antihero, but not "gets his boyfriend executed in front of him by father when he's 18" level of bad. Thankfully, there were a less than thrilling couple of days in the autumn of 1753 that came to mind, what with the ongoing hilaribad trainwreck of the Frederick/Voltaire relationship at that point and, not completely unrelatedly, Frederick's long time companion Fredersdorf wanting to get married. Not a day you want to get stuck in even if you have less issues than Prussian!Nadia, err, Frederick the Great. I thus had my premise and plotted this:


Prussian Doll (12290 words) by Selena
Chapters: 6/6
Fandom: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF, 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802), Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Karoline Marie Elisabeth Daum, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Voltaire (Writer)
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802), Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, Karoline Marie Elisabeth Daum, Comte de Saint-Germain (d.1784), Elisabeth Christine von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern | Elisabeth Christine Queen of Prussia, Voltaire (Writer)
Additional Tags: Time Loop, Groundhog Day, Inspired by Russian Doll (2019), Dysfunctional Family, Siblings, Character Study, Established Relationship, Queering The Tide, Yuletide, Yuletide 2022
Summary:

His lover announces his intention to marry, his feud with his favourite writer keeps escalating, and then there's his pest of a younger brother: all in all, the 14th October 1752 isn't one of Frederick the Great's better days. And that's before it starts repeating itself....