Talking Women, History, and Books with Greer Macallister

Greer Macallister's latest novel, Woman 99, tracks an intrepid young woman who willingly checks into a 19th century insane asylum to investigate and report abuses against those forcibly held there.

As Women's History Month winds down, Greer and I exchanged a few thoughts on writing about our remarkable female forbears. You can read it right now, and leave a comment to join in the conversation, at WomensHistoryReads interview: Stephanie Barron .

I wonder what each of us will be working on next?

JENNIE Salutes the Wearing of the Green

Green Pietro Yantornay shoes, metmuseum.org

Green Silk Brocade gown, Worth, 1890-93

Jennie Jerome Churchill had a number of ties to Ireland, but they were of an Anglo-Irish sort. Her husband, Lord Randolph Churchill, had cousins in the Anglo-Irish peerage; his father, the 7th Duke of Marlborough, served as Viceroy of Ireland from 1876 to 1880, when Jennie and her family lived with him in Dublin. (I've discussed Jennie's time in Ireland previously here on the blog). 

Jennie's youngest sister, Leonie, married the Anglo-Irish peer Sir John Leslie, whose home, Castle Leslie, still sits in County Monaghan hear the town of Glaslough, where Jennie occasionally visited. It's now a country house hotel--which means that you, too, can hack through the fields where Jennie and Leonie once rode, or linger by the fire in Leonie's library. The sisters' collected letters are held in the archives of the Irish National Library.

Library Fire, Castle Leslie, copyright www.castleleslie.com

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone.

Queen Victoria's 1845 Diamond and Emerald Tiara designed by Prince Albert,
Duke of Fife's Collection on load to Kensington Palace