Vulgar History - Mary Shelley Month： Slashed Beauties, with Allison Rushby

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00:00:18.320 hello and welcome to vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast

00:00:33.780 my name is ann foster and this is mary shelley month a month where we're talking all about the

00:00:39.180 author of frankenstein her mom her friends her family and her ongoing influence and today

00:00:45.480 Today, I have an interview with author Alison Rushby about her new book, which is, she says in the interview, you can hear there's some real Mary Shelley vibes in this book. It's such a good book. I was so excited about it. It's called Slashed Beauties. Even just a few months ago, when I first read about it, I was just like, oh, I have to read this. And then I have to have this person on the podcast. And I was right.

00:01:05.760 so what this is is a gothic feminist body horror book which is also arguably what frankenstein is

00:01:13.380 written by mary shelley so this book is about we explain this all in depth but just so you know

00:01:17.760 what got my attention so this is about um cursed wax figures so we did an episode last season about

00:01:24.740 madame tussauds so we know that we've talked before this podcast and maybe you already know

00:01:28.740 that making sort of life-sized wax figures of people that looks hyper realistic was a real

00:01:33.600 trend in the 1700s and 1800s. And so at that time in real life, there was also some anatomical

00:01:41.100 venuses, they're called, which are hyper-realistic looking mannequins, wax figures of women that

00:01:47.360 were used to teach male medical students just about the inside organs of people. So they're 0.59

00:01:53.320 like beautiful, lying down women with kind of like sexy expressions on their faces. They're 1.00

00:01:58.260 often wearing like a string of pearls, like a real necklace. So they're lying there sort of

00:02:01.880 like come hither but then they're like vivisected and you see their organs inside and the whole 0.91

00:02:05.360 thing is so fucked up and um what this book is about is allegedly some of these anatomical 0.97

00:02:11.080 venuses come to life at night and go around and murder the men who wronged them iconic amazing 0.98

00:02:16.780 concept i was so excited to read this book it's so good and i was really excited to talk to alice

00:02:21.540 and rushby about it um and the frankenstein and the mary shelley of it all so please enjoy this

00:02:26.620 conversation um just time for halloween with author alice and rushby

00:02:31.880 So, I'm joined today by Alison Rushby, author of Slashed Beauties. Welcome, Alison.

00:02:41.120 Thank you so much, Anne. I'm very happy to be here.

00:02:43.980 Now, I've read this book and I loved it. And I want you to describe the plot because I don't

00:02:49.820 know how much you're telling people and I don't want to spoil anything.

00:02:53.260 Sure. So, Slashed Beauties is a dual narrative. So, we're running across two time periods.

00:02:59.400 It's about three women in 18th century London whose lives become magically and murderously

00:03:05.240 intertwined when they meet an anatomist and a witch with a wicked plan, and about a young

00:03:10.700 antiques dealer in present-day London who's got to find a way to break her cursed connection

00:03:15.600 to that trio of women.

00:03:17.900 And it's got so much, I mean, your accent, obviously, you're in Australia.

00:03:21.240 The book is set mostly in England.

00:03:24.720 So how did you go about researching?

00:03:26.900 I guess there's a couple of different topics I want to ask you about researching.

00:03:29.720 But first of all, just life in 18th century London, because I want to let the listeners

00:03:34.600 know, I think it's on one of the first pages of the book, when one of the characters in

00:03:38.760 that time period arrives in London, and you just described the smells.

00:03:42.460 And she's coming from a small town, and she's just like, oh, wait, this is actually gross

00:03:46.500 and terrible. 0.77

00:03:47.260 And I thought, I'm sure it was.

00:03:50.260 I've never thought about the smell of it.

00:03:52.440 She thought it was going to be all glittery and amazing, I suppose.

00:03:56.240 but it's just, you can imagine Covent Garden at that sort of time, it would, you know,

00:04:02.180 just overcrowded and the stench would just be, you know, if you'd come, even a rural

00:04:07.720 atmosphere would be smellier than we are used to, but imagine just being dropped into the city,

00:04:15.100 you would be absolutely reeling, I think. So research wise, like I've always had a very

00:04:19.900 strong connection to the UK my dad is English and so I am actually a British citizen as well

00:04:27.260 so I've been lucky enough to go and live there for extended periods I lived in outside of

00:04:33.500 Cambridge for a while which was very helpful research-wise so I've always had a very strong

00:04:39.620 connection and I've always sort of moved back and forth we I traveled there a lot with my family

00:04:46.020 And so, yes, I've always had a huge interest in England.

00:04:52.120 And, you know, I really, most of my books are set,

00:04:59.040 my children's work and my adult work are set with,

00:05:04.020 even if they're not in the UK, they still have ties.

00:05:06.660 So Slash Beauty starts actually in Seoul,

00:05:09.520 but then very quickly moves to England.

00:05:13.060 So there's always this sort of English element,

00:05:15.080 just like always had that fascination. Well, and I think also the events you're talking about,

00:05:20.320 the olden times setting, the present times, yeah, she's a world traveling antiques dealer,

00:05:24.760 but in the 18th century, it's very much, it has to be there because that's kind of where these

00:05:29.640 wax figures come in. And we'll talk about that. But first I want to talk about the fact that the

00:05:33.680 women in that time period are sex workers. And what was your research like to learn about 1.00

00:05:40.420 lives for them and also what did you learn tell us about oh well it was a real deep dive um so

00:05:48.020 when i came up with the initial idea for slash beauties um that was via the anatomical venuses

00:05:55.320 i knew that i wanted to write about these anatomical wax figures um but that in itself

00:06:00.780 is not a story and i knew i needed characters to drop into this world uh and so where those

00:06:07.920 characters came from was I stumbled across Harris's list. So, Harris's list of Covent Garden

00:06:15.460 ladies, which was a sort of pamphlet that was published between around late 1750s to

00:06:23.880 about 1794 or 95, around there. And it was like an annual directory of sex workers in

00:06:31.880 Georgian London. So, it would give their names, their physical appearance, and their charms in

00:06:38.340 sort of lurid detail. I mean, you needed to take this with a grain of salt. It wasn't 100% accurate,

00:06:45.440 but, you know, I think this cast of characters, they were certainly, you could certainly go and

00:06:51.940 drop yourself into Comet Garden, you would find a lot of women just like this. So, you can actually

00:06:57.700 still read them today there's a bunch that are available for free on project gutenberg and they

00:07:02.100 are just when i started reading them i couldn't stop they were just so interesting um and you

00:07:10.240 know there's uh i've got a couple um of the listings here so there's one that is emma at

00:07:16.460 mother gray's number 30 market lane near the opera house in all her actions she shows the 1.00

00:07:22.900 lewdness of a monkey and the lechery of a goat. So we didn't love Emma, but then we've got Fanny 1.00

00:07:29.780 at number 14 King Street, St. James's Square. This merry little lively tit appears to be about 16

00:07:37.200 and is never to be met without a smile upon her countenance and a frisky song at her tongue's end. 0.99

00:07:42.900 She is very short, a brunette in complexion with a lustfully sparkling eye and jetty ringlets down 0.91

00:07:48.700 her back. So we liked Fanny. We didn't love Emma so much. So you can see what the listings were 0.92

00:07:54.120 like. And as soon as I started reading Harris's list, I just was absolutely captured. I knew that

00:08:01.880 I had found, you know, my cast of characters. And so I read all of these and that was sort of where

00:08:08.660 I came up with Elizabeth, my villain, and my two sort of naive other heroines, Emily and Eleanor.

00:08:18.700 Can you tell me when you were reading through, I'm just, the whole thing about the Harris's

00:08:22.560 List is so interesting to me.

00:08:23.960 And we kind of see in your book a bit, no spoilers, but you know, like as people's fortunes

00:08:28.860 change, their reviews might change in the next edition of the Harris's List.

00:08:32.840 So did you come across when you're reading it, oh, this person wasn't so well-reviewed,

00:08:37.300 but then she really got her act together and now she's doing well?

00:08:40.160 I didn't actually come across that, but I just sort of realized, you know, how similar

00:08:45.720 that is to being cancelled for us today um you know it's exactly the same isn't it that you

00:08:52.160 you realize that you're on this break that if you did something wrong you could be cancelled

00:08:57.460 in the next edition of Harris's List and I thought that was really interesting you know we think

00:09:03.060 that our times are so different and that we are so different and things are just perennial

00:09:08.320 but they always stay the same in some ways yeah well and things like I would presume like certain

00:09:15.020 medical conditions would be listed like you don't want to go to see somebody who has syphilis or

00:09:20.100 something so yes exactly and they did talk about that you know people who um were diseased or had

00:09:27.880 um you know they would discuss this in harris's list yeah who is writing these reviews are these

00:09:34.160 like restaurant are these like you know you have to go and pretend you're not a reviewer

00:09:38.240 It was actually a drunken poet by the name of Samuel Derrick, apparently.

00:09:43.780 It was one person?

00:09:47.200 Well, yes, they know it was Samuel Derrick's writing,

00:09:50.860 but Harris's list continued on even after Samuel Derrick's death.

00:09:55.300 So they think it was a bunch of people then because it was selling pretty well.

00:09:59.940 I think it sold about 8,000 copies of the first edition.

00:10:03.400 So it was doing pretty well.

00:10:05.820 So I think it wasn't that cheap.

00:10:09.220 I think it cost about the equivalent of about 15 pounds or something today.

00:10:15.140 So it wasn't, you know, you had to be able to afford it.

00:10:18.460 Yeah.

00:10:19.160 But it was just the whole thing is pretty interesting.

00:10:21.820 Apparently there was a pimp, I think, called Jack Harris.

00:10:24.960 But the whole thing is a bit of a fabrication.

00:10:28.160 And yet you still know that it has to have a grain of truth in it because people are essentially lazy, aren't they?

00:10:35.080 They're not going to just completely make up all these listings of women.

00:10:39.540 There's going to be some truth in there somewhere.

00:10:43.760 So it's sort of like, I don't, like a travel book.

00:10:46.920 You know, if I was traveling to Australia, I'd be this and it lists like, here's this

00:10:49.640 restaurant and this is what it's like and these are the prices.

00:10:52.220 So it's sort of like that.

00:10:53.020 But if you're like, okay, you know, I'm going to this area and like what sort of experience

00:10:57.200 do I want and who is offering that at this point?

00:10:59.540 It's such a fascinating historical document.

00:11:02.340 It's absolutely fascinating.

00:11:04.120 I just couldn't, you know, get enough of it.

00:11:06.620 It's the same as reading Samuel Pepys' diaries, I think.

00:11:09.700 Like, you just read them wide-eyed because you're like,

00:11:13.220 it's like being dropped into that time.

00:11:16.600 You know, often documents are so dry,

00:11:18.740 but these are so real and full of colour and life and personality.

00:11:26.000 I think that's the really interesting thing about them.

00:11:29.740 And then also, I mean,

00:11:30.900 this comes to how you were developing the characters for your book,

00:11:33.480 I would imagine is that this is a way to see what some information about what was it like for sex

00:11:38.900 workers like women in the lower class often poor women in these time periods who are not written

00:11:45.240 about a lot otherwise this would be I would presume just you were saying like that's such a

00:11:49.260 good resource for you to develop these characters otherwise they're not going to be mentioned are

00:11:52.900 like and you know some of the statistics are just they're absolutely horrifying you know a lot of

00:11:58.020 these women and like well they're not even women they're girls they start between 10 to 12 years

00:12:04.240 of age in sex trade um and they're saying the stats are as high as like one in five women

00:12:09.560 were involved in sex trade in some way in London and which is just when you start reading these

00:12:15.380 statistics your your eyes just widen and widen um and so that is where my my characters came from

00:12:22.200 and their backstories um and things like that too yeah well and one of the things that happens

00:12:28.720 in the book again like stop me if i'm i want to be really careful because there's so many good

00:12:32.500 surprises in this book but one of the things that comes across in this book and it's also

00:12:36.320 i saw it on the um the tv show harlots which is set in a similar sort of world like the auction

00:12:41.100 for a virginity of a sex worker yeah that's sort of like someone's debut into this world and it's

00:12:47.560 a way to make money off of a new employee. 0.91

00:12:50.920 Yeah.

00:12:51.320 And that's, you know, they usually, they could range from between 100 pounds to 150 pounds. 1.00

00:12:57.380 And when you look at, a maid would have been earning about five pounds a year. 1.00

00:13:02.180 So a sex worker could earn, they thought maybe around 400 pounds a year. 1.00

00:13:07.160 So you can see why women did it. 1.00

00:13:08.920 They did it so they weren't cold and hungry. 1.00

00:13:12.980 It's a bit of a no-brainer.

00:13:15.720 And they used what they had.

00:13:17.560 which wasn't much so you know that that was the options that were open to you especially if like

00:13:23.520 my heroine you're dropped into the city and then your um husband-to-be decides he doesn't really

00:13:29.960 want to be your husband anymore um and you don't have a lot of skills you don't have many options

00:13:35.840 open to you and then also just getting into the the medical stuff that you have in your book as

00:13:43.020 well like i mentioned there's the virginity auction and then you do explain in your book like

00:13:47.780 whether the person's a virgin or not there's ways to fake that yeah how did you research that yeah

00:13:53.620 it does it does actually come up there are some little recipes out there for you know like um

00:13:58.800 using little um like encased uh gut or animals blood and sponges and all sorts of things you

00:14:08.760 know this was a reality um you know if you wanted to make that 100 100 to 150 pounds that's that's

00:14:15.980 what you were going to do i'm not sure i can't remember if this was in fanny hill or not or i

00:14:20.640 can't particularly remember where i read it but um it's definitely there are definitely some recipes

00:14:27.300 out there it's so interesting that this is a part of history that's not you know there's so many

00:14:33.880 books about wars and kings and queens but this kind of like the matter of fact what life was

00:14:38.860 like for these people there's not so much written about it or it's not as widely known but i'm i'm

00:14:43.680 glad that you're able to find research and like things from that time to to help you with this

00:14:48.740 yeah and that's the thing i am not a historic a historian so i sort of drop in and out of

00:14:56.440 particular time periods and i cherry pick what i want to talk about and then of course in the

00:15:01.360 author's note you have to make a lot of um you have to apologize a lot so i had to move this i

00:15:07.340 had to move that um and that's just how it is if you want to create the story you want to create

00:15:13.060 but when it comes to my research i am pretty meticulous about you know i i always do say

00:15:19.960 this isn't right this isn't right this isn't right um uh so i i do want people to know when

00:15:27.080 things aren't a hundred percent correct but they also can't be if you want to write the story you

00:15:31.700 can write well and also your story is about you know witches and evil spells and yeah yeah so i

00:15:41.060 appreciate that the history stuff feels very grounded um and it feels true to what the research

00:15:46.060 i've done over this time period so then when you kind of step out of that world into something more

00:15:50.720 fantastical it's it's already been grounded in what feels like oh this terrible situation that

00:15:55.060 this young woman has found herself in. And I think the reader always knows that too. You can feel

00:15:59.820 what is well-researched. And you mentioned Fanny Hill, which is a book that your characters

00:16:05.600 encounter in this book as well. I did an episode a few, I guess last month, where I was talking to

00:16:10.400 an author about what did people in this era know about sex basically, and where did they learn it

00:16:16.560 from? And a lot of that is from novels like that. And a lot of that is from, frankly. So I think a

00:16:22.080 lot of people don't know that there were like sexually explicit sort of books and that's where

00:16:25.940 people are learning things from so I think that's also important to know I know I think everybody

00:16:30.680 there is this sort of idea that everybody was so chaste and knew nothing and that's just not true

00:16:35.980 at all um of course Eleanor my heroine you know her father was well educated and he had a copy

00:16:43.000 of Fanny Hill and she was desperate to get her hands on that um you know so those those books

00:16:50.460 were definitely out there and um of course you know people were reading them but it was fanny

00:16:55.340 hill was like such a massive bestseller it was one of the most banned books in history i think

00:17:00.380 um and you know my heroine had to read it in secret as every good teenager would

00:17:05.900 and it's that's a pro tip actually for people today like that book still

00:17:09.980 you're still gonna get some like um pretty exciting stuff if you read that now it's so good

00:17:15.900 Fanny Hill is really good. And what the best bit about Fanny Hill is that, you know, she has a 0.99

00:17:21.120 happy ending, really. Like, it's not a tragic ending. And I did have my heroine and her friend

00:17:30.360 Emily talk about that in the book. You know, what happens to her in the end? Does she also have this

00:17:35.380 horrible, tragic ending? It's like, well, actually, no. Which is heartening.

00:17:42.400 Yeah, I remember that conversation from the book, and I appreciate that as well.

00:17:45.900 So the other piece of history that I really wanted to talk to you about as well, now that we've set the scene for kind of the time and place of this one timeline in your book, are the anatomical venuses.

00:17:56.560 Yes.

00:17:56.880 Can you explain what those are to people who've never heard of them?

00:18:01.080 They're so hard to explain.

00:18:02.340 It's like as soon as you see one, you're like, oh, right.

00:18:07.780 Explaining them takes a long time.

00:18:09.700 So they were first created in about the 1780s in Italy.

00:18:14.680 of course cadavers were in short supply they always are they decompose quickly so you know

00:18:23.100 a wax figure is a far better way to teach anatomy so these were life-size figures of women made of

00:18:33.860 wax and they were incredibly well they are because you can still see them they're incredibly

00:18:39.520 beautiful they've got this sort of long lush hair beautiful golden locks of real hair real hair

00:18:46.260 they've got sort of dewy waxen skin and um an erotic expression on their face like an ecstatic

00:18:53.380 expression and then often they've got real pearls at their neck and um sort of sometimes usually a

00:19:01.880 um a leg sort of half lifted up a little bit coquettishly um and then of course all their

00:19:08.600 guts are on display or you can take them apart to do the actual bit of studying anatomy. 0.68

00:19:14.660 And this was because, of course, men's interests couldn't really be sustained unless the anatomical

00:19:22.020 figure of a woman was pretty and had pearls on. But they're really very distinct to other

00:19:32.860 medical models. And, you know, the whole idea of where Slash Beauty's came from for me was I saw

00:19:40.480 one, I'd never seen one. And I just chanced upon one in a museum in Vienna. And the moment I saw

00:19:46.920 her, I was just absolutely transfixed. Like as a woman, there's something like deeply in the

00:19:54.420 uncanny valley about an anatomical Venus. It's this just horrifying sort of mix of medicine and 1.00

00:20:01.860 art and science and sex, and you just look at it. And as a woman, you go, oh, that's not right.

00:20:10.700 It's just very horrifying to the modern eye. And so that's where the whole idea came from.

00:20:16.700 I sort of was transfixed by this anatomical Venus, and I just stood there for a really long time

00:20:22.660 watching other women come into the room to see what they thought about it. And pretty much most

00:20:28.580 of the women were just kind of recoiled and there's something about them you just want to

00:20:32.680 offer them a blanket or it's just they just every woman knows I think what it means to be stared at 0.95

00:20:43.220 to be sort of perceived or objectified or taken down to nothing but your reproductive parts because 0.56

00:20:49.380 most of the anatomical venus is to have a small fetus inside them they're just all kinds of wrong

00:20:56.600 It's just the male gaze turned up to about 11 and I just knew that there was something in there that I needed to write about this.

00:21:05.300 But at the time, of course, I was writing mostly, I was writing all children's books.

00:21:09.420 I'd spent about 15 years writing children's books and I knew I also couldn't write a children's book about the anatomical Venus.

00:21:16.140 So, yeah, it sort of went from there.

00:21:18.600 Well, and it reminds me of a while ago, I did an episode about Madame Tussauds, the real life person on my podcast

00:21:25.120 and talking about how the figures

00:21:26.260 that she and her mentor would make.

00:21:28.000 And one of them, they did a figure.

00:21:29.600 And you can look at pictures of this.

00:21:31.040 It's not as distressing

00:21:31.860 as looking up the anatomical Venus's,

00:21:33.560 but it's similar.

00:21:34.680 So there's a wax figure that they made

00:21:36.280 of Madame du Berry,

00:21:37.740 the famous mistress of the past King of France.

00:21:41.220 And she's laying back

00:21:42.380 and it's called the Sleeping Beauty

00:21:43.480 with like one arm over her head.

00:21:45.160 So she's sleeping, but it's a very erotic.

00:21:47.980 And to have her lying down

00:21:49.380 with her hair let out like that. 1.00

00:21:50.860 And they added some sort of mechanism in it.

00:21:53.800 So it looks like she's breathing.

00:21:55.120 This is the clockwork.

00:21:56.320 Yeah.

00:21:56.960 Yeah.

00:21:57.980 Yeah.

00:21:58.420 So it's, so I was familiar with that.

00:22:00.040 I'd seen that from when I was doing the Madame Tussauds episode.

00:22:02.720 And then when I was reading your book and I'm like, oh, I want to see what these look

00:22:05.520 like.

00:22:05.760 And I was like, oh my God, it's like that, but vivisected.

00:22:08.740 Yes.

00:22:10.000 Yes. 0.93

00:22:11.120 Langris, kind of like sexy, undone woman.

00:22:14.840 But then it's just like, oh, and she's completely, it's such a, yeah, I had this visceral reaction

00:22:19.260 just to the pictures, just from an internet search.

00:22:21.820 It is.

00:22:22.320 Yeah.

00:22:23.040 They're really horrifying.

00:22:24.020 And I think it's always the pearls that get me the most.

00:22:27.400 It's like, really?

00:22:28.440 You couldn't pay attention unless she was wearing pearls. 0.83

00:22:32.980 There's just something about that beautification is really sickening.

00:22:38.680 And, you know, it's Joanna Ebenstein's book,

00:22:42.600 The Anatomical Venus is the time to read in the anatomical,

00:22:47.660 if you're researching the anatomical venuses.

00:22:49.500 and, you know, I've brought multiple copies of this book to gift to people

00:22:55.100 because I'm that strange.

00:22:58.880 It's the ultimate gift, isn't it?

00:23:00.860 But the longer you spend in there, the more sickened you become.

00:23:05.740 There's some really horrifying ones in there.

00:23:09.420 There's a particular one that is probably the worst, I think. 1.00

00:23:13.840 She is a woman in a pretty white nightgown 0.87

00:23:18.920 with lots of lace on it and she has four sort of ghostly male hands hanging above her

00:23:28.480 which must be on pieces of metal because it's only the hands and then a little bit of 0.81

00:23:35.140 suit you can see a little bit of suit of shirt cuff and suit like they're about to go to the

00:23:41.480 opera after they do this they're doing a cesarean section on her and you know they're holding a

00:23:47.860 retractor and a sponge and she is awake um it's just it is the stuff of nightmares it really is

00:23:58.300 i actually did have nightmares about these the photographic plates in here they're just

00:24:04.120 there's um no kindness in there whatsoever or anesthetic yeah but um there's some truly

00:24:11.900 horrifying things in that book. And I just knew there was a story to be told in there. But of

00:24:18.520 course, that's where Harris's list ended up coming in later because an anatomical Venus in itself is

00:24:24.280 horrifying and shocking, but it is not a story. But then from a Douglas point of view, what is a

00:24:31.700 story is somebody thinking that she needs to have pearls on and placing them around her throat.

00:24:37.600 that's a story. So, you know, you're always finding these things as a novelist along the

00:24:44.360 way that you're like, oh, yes, that's interesting. But just because something's interesting,

00:24:48.820 it doesn't. It's not a story. You're always looking for the story.

00:24:52.580 And now for a quick advertising break.

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00:25:25.560 The war is over

00:25:27.740 and both sides lost.

00:25:29.860 Kingdoms were reduced to cinders

00:25:31.660 and armies scattered like bones in the dust.

00:25:35.320 Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world,

00:25:39.500 praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.

00:25:42.780 But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.

00:25:47.060 This is old school adventuring at its most cruel.

00:25:50.560 Your torch ticks down in real time.

00:25:52.860 And when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.

00:25:56.460 This is a brutal rules light nightmare

00:25:58.660 with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make.

00:26:04.040 This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.

00:26:08.780 Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark

00:26:11.740 every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon

00:26:16.080 with the podcast version dropping the next day.

00:26:19.480 See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.

00:26:23.300 welcome to the realms of peril and glory explore the mechanically magical vistas of vale

00:26:35.220 the paranormal mysteries of liminal london and the cyberpunk chaos of cyborg be awed by our

00:26:46.440 incredible guests from familiar shows like Oxventure and No Rolls Barred.

00:26:52.860 Search realms of peril and glory to find out more.

00:27:00.860 Ever look at someone at the top and wonder, do they even remember where they started?

00:27:05.820 What did it take to get there?

00:27:07.600 I do on every episode.

00:27:10.000 I'm Evelyn, and on my podcast, Reppin', the people the world thinks it knows,

00:27:14.840 gets to say who they actually are.

00:27:17.980 The grit, the doubt, the moments nobody sees

00:27:21.160 and everything they learned getting there,

00:27:24.060 it's yours for the taking.

00:27:26.720 Reffin, find us wherever you listen.

00:27:29.340 Go get it now.

00:27:32.520 And we're back.

00:27:34.120 The whole thing, it reminds me of,

00:27:36.840 I don't know, it's such a good idea for a story.

00:27:39.860 I'm really glad that you figured out how to turn it into one

00:27:42.520 because there's just something horrifying about

00:27:44.360 it's a bit you know like a robot that's been turned off or like uh like the automatons and

00:27:51.200 yeah yeah just something about when you it just i don't know something like a taxidermied animal

00:27:57.420 where it's just like this is just this is so close to being alive but it's not that it just

00:28:03.100 becomes gross yeah it is that sort of uncanny valley sort of element isn't it and that's

00:28:08.460 another i've written about taxidermy animals too so you can see where all my interests lie

00:28:13.000 and it's it's also just the one you were describing with the hands poised over it

00:28:20.520 like it's somehow like you said her eyes were open that one her eyes are open and she has this

00:28:26.560 sort of horrified expression on her face like this is really unpleasant 0.89

00:28:31.260 yeah and her I mean even worse her hands are tied her legs are tied up with like a nap

00:28:38.080 like some sort of a white napkin it looks like and 0.60

00:28:43.000 I think, you know, the, just their suit, the wearing this, these little, you can see these

00:28:49.140 very clean white shirt cuffs, like this will be easy and then we'll just go to dinner.

00:28:55.420 It's just, there's just so much wrong in there that, you know, yes, this is, other people

00:29:01.400 will be interested in this too.

00:29:04.060 Yeah.

00:29:04.660 It's something about the, well, like you said at the beginning of the figures were made

00:29:08.160 sort of like beautiful so that the male medical students would be interested in them which is

00:29:14.780 just a whole other grotesque thing we don't need to get into but the fact that they're just it just

00:29:21.880 kind of shows like there was not women in those medical schools where they're like how can we get

00:29:26.320 how can we get these young men interested in learning about like it's just it's so strange

00:29:32.600 yeah yeah there is this whole feeling of well why would you bother unless she was pretty

00:29:37.660 yeah yeah why would we try to save this person's life or try oh wait she's hot yes yeah 0.98

00:29:45.020 it does feel like that it does feel like that you know real eyelashes beautiful long blonde hair

00:29:52.400 um okay we'll have a crack at saving her yeah and there's something about just because i've

00:29:59.420 read the book but i feel also just when i look at these the images that i looked at briefly before

00:30:03.640 I was like ah I closed down my browser I'm on the like I empathize with this fictional person

00:30:11.100 like with this woman I just think oh she's being victimized and she's being trapped forever in this

00:30:16.160 gruesome moment yes that's so true and that is actually that is what my the first thing I did

00:30:22.880 with that anatomical Venus when I met it in Vienna was I sort of stood back and watched those women

00:30:28.440 other women come into the room. And novelists go to strange places, I think. I sort of started 0.60

00:30:33.760 this dialogue with the anatomical Venus, asking her, what does it feel like to be perceived in

00:30:42.220 this sort of way for hundreds of years, to have people touching you unwillingly and to be nothing

00:30:51.360 more than this you know your skin and bones and and your you know pretty looks and did they think

00:31:00.180 about you afterwards did they touch you inappropriately um that was all I could think

00:31:06.900 about as I sort of stood there with her um other than wanting to get her that blanket it's just

00:31:12.280 the male gaze could not be turned up higher there and you know just thinking about what it would

00:31:17.180 feel like for her to be gawked at and prodded and it was just you know it's really icky and

00:31:23.360 yeah that that's novelists go to strange places and um we do start up yeah yeah exactly

00:31:30.760 because you have something to do with these thoughts yeah yeah yeah you just start up that

00:31:35.640 long unending series of what ifs what if what ifs yeah so you've got kind of the two historical

00:31:42.520 things like so you've got like life of a sex worker in this era and we've got the anatomical

00:31:47.160 venuses and who they were and then you've also got a plot line that somebody in present day

00:31:50.920 who's an antiques dealer who's kind of tracking down what has become of these venuses yeah which

00:31:56.600 what do you know about the like there's this book you have so obviously they're there still some of

00:32:01.440 these around in museums and things like they still exist in the world oh yeah world today yeah um i've

00:32:06.240 just got back from italy actually where i made a bit of a pilgrimage to see more of them and um

00:32:13.060 The most stunning one I saw in Bologna, I think she's called the Venerina, and she's just, I mean, I could have spent hours in there just by myself.

00:32:26.480 Nobody else even came into the room.

00:32:29.060 And she's, you know, on this beautiful pink silk bed, and she's got the pearls, and it's dark in there.

00:32:37.760 You know, you can still see these.

00:32:40.240 There's quite a few around.

00:32:41.760 And then I went to Parvia, which is a little university town, and they had an original one there.

00:32:51.280 And they're just, yeah, they're just so beautiful and so interesting.

00:32:57.200 So I, you know, took 5,000 photos.

00:33:01.520 Yeah, but it was really fascinating to go and see a few more.

00:33:07.140 And so your book is coming out in towards the, is it coming out?

00:33:10.860 I just know I'm in North America, so I know it's coming out here towards the end of September.

00:33:14.260 I think the 23rd of September in the USA and Canada, 16th of September in Australia,

00:33:24.220 and I think also the 23rd in the UK.

00:33:29.200 I feel like that gives people time to get the book and have it on hand for Halloween

00:33:32.820 because it's a real Halloween vibes book to me.

00:33:36.720 yes we did um push back to halloween it was it was i think it was meant to be originally out like

00:33:43.160 february this year but um you know the oh halloween would be great well i'm just picturing

00:33:48.780 this would be a fantastic and really gruesome and i'm sure people have done this halloween costume

00:33:52.800 to dress up really beautiful with pearls and then just apply some sort of prosthetic to your mid

00:33:57.180 section and have everything hanging out and some pearls don't forget your pearls the pearls and

00:34:02.160 just sort of attached like four men's hands wearing opera gloves yes that sounds great

00:34:08.760 i think it does i well and that's why i just feel like oh good this book is coming out just

00:34:13.880 when people are really in the mood for this sort of like yeah you've also it's got just listeners

00:34:19.140 just know there's also like witchcraft is involved sort of like an evil curse or a spell so it's

00:34:25.080 it's got so much in it and i think a lot of it is perfect for halloween really

00:34:29.240 Yeah. And I think, I mean, the other thing that was really interesting to write about was the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. That was really interesting. And, you know, I don't know if your listeners have had much to do with Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, but it was like, you know, night clubbing in the 1700s, but in the gardens. And that was fascinating to write about.

00:34:53.760 And that sort of came out of at the old Museum of London.

00:34:59.160 The Museum of London is currently closed.

00:35:01.120 They're having a massive renovation and they're moving site and everything.

00:35:05.020 So it's been closed, I think, for a couple of years.

00:35:07.540 But there was this amazing exhibition they used to have, which was like a small recreation of the Pleasure Gardens.

00:35:16.200 And anybody could go to the Pleasure Gardens.

00:35:19.320 I think it cost about a shilling to get in.

00:35:21.220 And so rich people would go and poor people and pickpockets and everybody went.

00:35:25.900 So it was sort of all walks of life.

00:35:28.400 But this exhibition they used to have in the Museum of London was very dark.

00:35:33.280 And you entered it and there was music playing and some beautiful sort of large recreations.

00:35:41.280 Like they had actors on big screens and they were dressed up and they were recreating little scenes.

00:35:46.260 like there would be one person whinging that the ham was so thinly sliced these days and other

00:35:52.680 people listening to music and they had this amazing thing at the Vauxhall Pleasure Garden

00:35:57.600 called the Cascade which was like a fake waterfall which was made out of little tin sheets and sort

00:36:05.060 of gave the illusion of falling water and people would go and watch that and they had fireworks and

00:36:09.840 all kinds of things. And so they had this recreation there. And so I would, every time

00:36:16.360 I was in London, I would try to go right at the start of like the opening time or closing time

00:36:23.300 when it would be very quiet. And you could go in there and there would be music playing and these

00:36:28.400 little recreations. It was very dark. And if there was some benches in there, you could sit

00:36:33.240 there and pretend you're in the pleasure gardens. And so I knew that I wanted to write about the

00:36:39.320 Pleasure Gardens and this amazing installation.

00:36:44.740 And sadly, it's not going to be recreated in the new museum.

00:36:48.300 I've just been in contact with them actually and had this massive dialogue

00:36:51.700 with the person who created it in the first place.

00:36:54.520 And, you know, she was so interesting and so, you know,

00:36:58.600 told me so much information about it.

00:37:00.300 And she was thrilled that somebody had felt so much for it, I think.

00:37:05.820 And so, yeah, it was fascinating to write about that too.

00:37:08.680 And, you know, just that also, of course, you know, these three young women that I'm writing about in 1769 London and, you know, what would they have done for entertainment?

00:37:20.820 And they would have gone to the Pleasure Gardens and just to sort of recreate that scene for them was really interesting.

00:37:28.860 I'd never heard of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens before.

00:37:31.060 So I enjoyed those parts of your book and you explain it in the book what it is too.

00:37:34.600 but I just didn't know that there was a place where like people of all different income classes

00:37:39.680 could all be there all at the same time like versus at the opening of your book when the

00:37:44.320 young woman arrives in London and it smells bad and there's dogs yelling and everybody's

00:37:48.980 starving and it's just like there's just like you know feces everywhere and then the pleasure

00:37:53.380 gardens where it's like oh it's nice here but the way you describe it there's like a fake waterfall

00:37:57.500 you know so it looks nice but it's kind of a theme park almost yeah it is a bit and then you know

00:38:02.740 skip the dark walk you know there's some bits you don't go to um in the pleasure gardens and

00:38:09.200 so it did definitely had its seedy side as well but um you know it's a fascinating space

00:38:15.640 and there's quite a lot written about it yeah it was one of my um friends recently just very

00:38:22.480 belatedly has been watching bridgerton he found it so interesting that people just kind of would

00:38:28.040 go out and what they do is they would just walk back and forth through a park and see who you run

00:38:34.320 into. And I was thinking, yeah, because well, for a TV show, you need to have that because people

00:38:38.360 have to run into other people. But in back in the day, you'd have places like the Vauxhall Pleasure

00:38:42.100 Gardens, because how else would people interact or accidentally run into somebody? You need to

00:38:47.020 have these public spaces. These public spaces. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So I feel like I risk

00:38:54.820 spoiling parts of your book if I ask you any more questions unless you have more history you want to

00:39:00.800 share with us I think it's it's interesting to sort of talk about the horror elements you know I

00:39:08.440 I didn't want to particularly write a book about body horror body horror is having a real moment

00:39:16.300 I think you know with we've had the substance out probably more people are being introduced

00:39:22.960 to body horror than in the past um so of course you know frankenstein is body horror and um that

00:39:33.200 was a real touchstone for me when i was writing slash beauties because um i've always really

00:39:39.540 loved frankenstein and um mary shelley says in her introduction to frankenstein um what terrified me

00:39:48.300 will terrify others. And I need only describe the specter which had haunted my midnight pillow.

00:39:55.000 And that was a real touchstone for me in writing Slash Beauties because

00:39:57.740 as soon as I saw the anatomical venus to start with, I was absolutely horrified.

00:40:04.740 And when I was writing the book, I thought, nobody, editors are going to run a mile when

00:40:11.220 I pitch this book. When I started even talking about it to people, I'm like, well, I'm writing

00:40:14.980 this book and it's about these wax figures that come to life and they murder me at night,

00:40:20.540 people would kind of recoil as they very well might. I'm 25 years published now. So I've been

00:40:30.320 doing this a long time. I've reached a point now where I write things to entertain myself.

00:40:36.020 I don't write to the market or anything like that. And so when I started writing slash videos,

00:40:42.160 I was like, this is weird. Maybe nobody will buy this. Editors are going to run away.

00:40:51.860 And the funny thing was, when I look back at it now, looking at what Mary Shelley said,

00:40:59.180 of course people were going to be interested. If I was horrified by the anatomical Venus

00:41:04.420 and saw the other women's reactions as they walked into the room, people were going to

00:41:09.580 feel the same way I did um and I didn't I should have thought about that more but so when the book

00:41:14.980 went out on submission editors went wild for it there were I had you know they bid on it there

00:41:21.500 was auction so I shouldn't have been so surprised um that that it would horrify other people too

00:41:30.320 so you know that that rise of body horror at the moment and I guess the thing is you know when

00:41:35.820 horror always looks at our cultural insecurities, I suppose. And so at the moment when women's 0.82

00:41:43.480 bodily autonomy is on the line, it is no great surprise that body horror is on the rise because

00:41:50.400 horror does always feed into our cultural fears. And so if we're looking at reproduction,

00:41:57.320 women's pain, politicization of our bodies, feeling uncomfortable in medical settings or

00:42:04.020 not being able to access medical settings, then you're being trapped or silenced. 0.99

00:42:10.840 Yeah.

00:42:11.240 It's no great surprise, actually, that when the book went out on submission at just the

00:42:16.820 right time and the editors were interested in it because those are all problematic spaces

00:42:23.120 at the moment.

00:42:24.760 Well, and I'm grateful that all those editors were enthusiastic because I told you before

00:42:28.200 we started recording my absolute, I love a costume drama, but only mostly if it's about women and

00:42:36.900 olden fashion costumes, murdering men is like, or solving murders. Those, I don't just like to

00:42:44.300 watch a costume drama of people and like, who am I going to marry or whatever? Like all love to those

00:42:48.220 sorts of things, but I like a murder based story. So I just read a description of your book and I

00:42:53.220 was like, I had barely finished reading the description where I was like requesting an

00:42:57.560 advance copy getting in touch with your publicist i was just like even if even if this author doesn't

00:43:02.560 come on the podcast i need to read this book because it's a hundred percent exactly you were

00:43:06.500 there for that yeah so when you were saying like you're like oh who's gonna like that i'm like me

00:43:10.200 yeah you don't want to know about the diamond of the season unless unless she's married

00:43:17.180 yeah unless she's like some sort of like secret superhero like buffy the vampire slayer at night

00:43:24.640 then I'm interested you want that real conflict yeah yeah yeah exactly exactly so I like a

00:43:30.780 costume drama with a little bit of something else yeah yeah um yeah no and there has been a bit of

00:43:39.500 talk about that like um you know women's revenge um that's why a lot of people have been reading in

00:43:45.160 the the the advanced copies that want to read a tale of women's revenge um yeah well I mean it's

00:43:52.060 So it could not be more timely in kind of just the, well, you know what, timeless in the Frankenstein sort of way.

00:43:58.680 People always like to read about these kind of like weird, scary things.

00:44:02.540 But also just, I hadn't even made that connection until you said it just now about, you know, women's bodily autonomy and stuff. 0.92

00:44:08.340 Your book also talks about how women's health was not taken seriously to the extreme of like these anatomical, to get men interested in it, they had to make these like sex dolls. 0.68

00:44:19.860 Yeah. And I did, you know, there's no proof that, you know, that any of them came from being modeled on sex workers, but it wouldn't surprise me if they had been. It's unlikely that they fashioned them out of thin air. They're most likely going to be fashioned on a real person. 0.84

00:44:40.080 um and there's no proof that they were sex workers but you know i just that was the the

00:44:46.420 jump that i took um it wouldn't have surprised me if that's where you where you would get your

00:44:51.100 model from well i think it's where you get your model from well for painters like that's where

00:44:55.080 there's a lot of overlap between who is posing for nude for painter and other sorts of and sex

00:45:00.980 work generally there's a lot of blurred lines in that era yeah exactly yeah and i also remember

00:45:06.860 from the Madame Tussauds episode.

00:45:08.340 Like she made waxworks of real people, 0.68

00:45:10.020 but she had to model it.

00:45:11.280 You can't just imagine a face.

00:45:12.640 It wouldn't look like a real person

00:45:14.000 if you just dream it up.

00:45:16.380 No, you can't.

00:45:17.360 No, not out of thin air.

00:45:19.020 Yeah.

00:45:19.860 Well, Alison, thank you so much for joining me

00:45:22.140 long distance from Australia.

00:45:25.300 No, thank you.

00:45:26.400 It was great.

00:45:27.700 Yeah, it's wonderful.

00:45:28.580 And this episode,

00:45:29.560 it's going to come out in October.

00:45:32.400 So it'll be like just after your books come out.

00:45:34.100 And then just so you know, the next episodes are going to be about Mary Shelley.

00:45:38.500 So it all ties in.

00:45:39.460 Oh, really?

00:45:40.200 I didn't even realize it was going to tie in so perfectly.

00:45:42.540 Yeah.

00:45:42.680 And I'm doing Mary Shelley month in October.

00:45:45.760 Oh, fantastic.

00:45:47.180 Tell me about your next book, Alison.

00:45:49.260 So I have just handed over the second book in my contract and it is called All Her Beautiful

00:45:57.140 Deaths.

00:45:58.460 So it looks at Victorian death photography.

00:46:01.420 so you can see how, where all my interests lie.

00:46:06.340 And so all her beautiful deaths shifts between 1865

00:46:09.780 and present-day London, so it's Victorian London,

00:46:12.980 and it's about Hadley, a young installation artist

00:46:16.380 who's bequeathed this sort of mysterious album

00:46:19.320 of stunning Victorian death photographs of young women.

00:46:23.740 Could you explain what death photographs are?

00:46:26.200 So memorial photography.

00:46:28.520 So, you know, photos taken after death.

00:46:31.140 Because, of course, people often didn't have a photograph, especially if a young person had died unexpectedly.

00:46:37.800 Their family might not have any photograph at all of their loved one to keep.

00:46:42.920 So they would have a photographer come in and take a photograph of their loved one after death so they could keep it forever.

00:46:50.320 But they like pose them.

00:46:52.020 But it's not just here's a picture of a body in a coffin.

00:46:54.040 It's like you'd put them in a chair or something to make them look like they're alive.

00:46:57.560 Sometimes, usually. Usually it's just laid out on a bed. There are a few examples where they are

00:47:07.080 posed in a chair. There's a lot of also fake Victorian death photographs out there or people

00:47:15.360 think that they're death photographs and they're actually not. It's a bit of an interesting space

00:47:20.560 because, yeah, there's a lot of, you can actually view a lot of these photographs online and a lot

00:47:25.900 of them are not actually death photographs but mostly they are laid out so you know she's my

00:47:35.540 heroine is bequeathed this amazing album of four death photographs they're very very unusual ones

00:47:42.580 but when she goes to use it in an installation sort of the handsome head of a philanthropic

00:47:48.800 trust turns up on a doorstep and he's going to stop at nothing to prevent her from finding out

00:47:53.940 how the women in the album actually died um so she has to go it's that dual narrative again moving

00:47:59.820 between 1865 and present-day london but there's this mystery to solve of how the women in the

00:48:06.260 album died and what their truth is and she has to uncover that i was gonna say is it like it's not

00:48:12.940 this but when you said when you're introducing the twist i was like is it gonna be like the ring

00:48:17.660 and when you look at this photo then you're suddenly cursed no she has so it's a lot of um

00:48:22.760 A lot of modern day installation art and also, you know, that 1865 setting in this, it's set on the very edge of Highgate Cemetery in London.

00:48:35.220 So, you know, I got to, I've spent a lot of time in Highgate Cemetery.

00:48:39.240 I've written a series of children's books set within Highgate Cemetery about a ghost, a little girl ghost.

00:48:45.560 And so I've spent a lot of time in Highgate Cemetery and I got to do it again.

00:48:50.480 There's also the present day hero in all her beautiful deaths lives in this amazing,

00:48:56.660 there is this house on the edge.

00:48:58.500 It's like jutting into Highgate Cemetery.

00:49:00.860 So from this amazing glass frontage, all you can see is graves and Highgate Cemetery.

00:49:07.420 It's like living in the middle of the cemetery.

00:49:09.320 And that house is actually currently for sale for five million pounds.

00:49:12.380 So if anybody would like to buy it for me, that'd be great.

00:49:14.320 Thank you.

00:49:15.360 Affordable.

00:49:16.460 Yeah.

00:49:16.740 it's actually come down from seven million pounds so I feel it's a saving oh okay the time is now

00:49:22.440 like yeah if any any listeners are there so I went and stood next to the house in Highgate

00:49:27.260 Cemetery and but he wasn't there which was so rude yeah yes and that book comes out you said

00:49:35.360 you've turned it in it should be next year yes yes yeah so I'm very excited about that one because

00:49:41.000 I've just I've always had a real interest in sort of Victorian death photography but also

00:49:46.520 So, you know, hair work and morning jewellery and all those sorts of just the morning practices are just fascinating.

00:49:55.520 So I got to really delve into the research there.

00:49:58.880 And, you know, Victorian London's always fascinating to write about.

00:50:04.100 Victorians did have a lot of hang-ups, which are always really interesting.

00:50:10.300 I'm just like pre-booking you now to come back next year.

00:50:13.920 Love to.

00:50:14.640 Just so you know.

00:50:15.620 yeah amazing yeah well thank you again so much for talking thanks it's great thanks very much

00:50:22.020 i mean how can you not want to read the book after hearing this discussion i would think um

00:50:30.400 so the book is called slashed beauties by a rushby and you can find it wherever you get your

00:50:36.580 amazing horror books like you know bookstores libraries all the places where you get books

00:50:41.460 it's such a perfect book to read this time of year i think and so much of what we talked about

00:50:45.100 this conversation really ties into what we talk about on this podcast a lot. And in the story,

00:50:49.280 we've, we're in the midst of with Mary Wollstonecraft and also Mary Shelley's life, which 0.65

00:50:52.680 is like women on their own without the protection of man, of a man, like of a husband or a brother

00:50:59.460 or a father, like what, what happens to them. And in this book, you know, maybe they cursed

00:51:05.960 things happen to them, but it's really just twisting sort of what the real life situation

00:51:10.040 was like, anyway, Slash Beauty is by Alison Rushby. I want you to go and read it. If you

00:51:15.320 want to buy a copy of it that sort of supports this podcast a little bit, there's a link in the

00:51:19.680 show notes to my bookshop store where when you buy things through that link, I got a little bit

00:51:23.920 of a, it's like an affiliate link. Anyway, next week, like Mary Shelley month continues on. We're

00:51:31.160 in our goth feminist moment. So next week, we're going to have part two of the story of Mary

00:51:36.240 wallstonecraft mary shelley's mom so stay tuned for that i'm really excited this whole month

00:51:42.040 just really dive into you know the horrors of you know horror novels and things like that like

00:51:48.140 goth vibes but also just the horrors of the patriarchy which is you know the scariest thing 0.99

00:51:53.700 of all anyway until next time keep your pants on and your tits out vulgar history is researched 0.99

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Vulgar History - October 10, 2025

Mary Shelley Month： Slashed Beauties, with Allison Rushby

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