The Adventuress of Henrietta Street (novel)

On February 9, 1783, a funeral was held in the tunnels at the dead heart of London. It was the funeral of a warrior and a conjurer, a paladin and an oracle, the last of an ancient breed who'd once stood between the Earth and the bloodiest of its nightmares.

Her name was Scarlette. Part courtesan, part sorceress, this is her history: the part she played in the Siege of Henrietta Street, and the sacrifice she made in the defence of her world.

In the year leading up to that funeral, something raw and primal ate its way through human society, from the streets of pre-Revolutionary Paris to the slave-states of America. Something that only the eighteenth century could have summoned, and against which the only line of defence was a bordello in Covent Garden.

And then there was Scarlette's accomplice, the "elemental champion" who stood alongside her in the final battle. The one they called the Doctor.

Plot

to be added

Characters

Worldbuilding

Biology

The Doctor briefly grows a beard to demonstrate how change is possible.
Sabbath removes the Doctor's second heart.

Locations

The Jonah is Sabbath's steam ship.
People of Hartlepool are called "monkeydanglers".

Philosophy

Sabbath cites "Knox's maxim" when remembering his experience in the deeper realms of time.

Species

The Babewyns originated in the Kingdom of Beasts.

Notes

This novel departs from the "normal" novel style in that it is told as a non-fiction history book.
What is suggested as the remains of Gallifrey is seen in this novel.
The novel saw Lawrence Miles' surprise return to writing Doctor Who novels following a well-publicised online "resignation" in August 1999.^[1] He claimed that he wrote it for money so he could buy new LEGO sets.^[2]
A hidden page on the Faction Paradox website listed several behind-the-scenes facts about the novel.^[3]
- The novel begins in 1782, which saw the first printing of Les Liaisons dangereuses, a story about "a teenage girl's initiation into society while her destiny is manipulated by a scheming courtesan-queen and a dashing gentleman who seduces her in the name of society politics. Towards the end of the story, the gentleman finally asks the courtesan-queen to marry him. But then he dies horribly."
- Though thirteen groups were invited to the wedding, only twelve were ever named or mentioned, and one name on the list of invitations was illegible. The website parenthetically notes that it "obviously" couldn't be Faction Paradox, which "doesn't exist in this version of the universe". The comic Political Animals showed that the Faction did indeed survive the end of the War in Heaven.
- Given the book's "reliance on the mythology of the Doctor's universe", the website says it seems odd that no vampire contingent is invited to the Doctor's wedding. However, the Russian group, the Ereticy, is named for a vampire sect from Eastern European folklore. They were represented in the novel by Katya.
- The historical Lady Hamilton, who appears in the novel as Emily Hart, indeed has a significant gap in her life story around the time of this novel, and there has never been an explanation of why she changed her name from "Lyon" to "Hart".
- The Mozart premiere attended by the Eighth Doctor and Sabbath is the same one depicted in the film Amadeus.
In AHistory, Lance Parkin acknowledges that Lawrence Miles intended the Man with the Rosette to be the Master. He is present at the Doctor's wedding: the Doctor's only family. He has no beard because the Doctor grows one, wears all black, apart from a blue and white rosette on his lapel, and refuses to fight the Doctor on the grounds that there are only four Time Lords left in the Universe. Despite being amnesic, the Doctor recognises him; Parkin wrote The School of Doom for the fanzine Myth Makers, showing a previous meeting, and discussion about the four survivors, between the Doctor and the Master during the first interim of Father Time.
Daniel O'Mahony's A Rag and a Bone, published in the fanzine Myth Makers Presents: Essentials in 2003, follows this novel and shows Sabbath successfully supplanting the Doctor as part of the story's metafictional commentary on the state of Doctor Who at the time.

Continuity

Sabbath continues to turn up in novels (though not always the main "villain") including PROSE: Anachrophobia, History 101, Camera Obscura, Time Zero, The Infinity Race, The Domino Effect, The Last Resort.
The Man with the Rosette is next seen in The Gallifrey Chronicles.
Mary Culver appears alongside Sabbath in AUDIO: Sabbath Dei and AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat.
The Mayakai reappear alongside Sabbath in COMIC: Political Animals and COMIC: Bêtes Noires & Dark Horses.
The Hellfire Club appears also in AUDIO: Minuet in Hell.
The zoo on the Strand seen in the opening of this novel is later mentioned in PROSE: The Book of the War.
The Doctor mentions the worlds of Ceres Alpha (PROSE: Dark Progeny) and one where faerie-tales come true. (PROSE: Grimm Reality)
Fitz recovers a wheelchair from the TARDIS. (TV: Castrovalva)
Thomas Jefferson's expedition for woolly mammoths in the American midwest is seen in PROSE: Grass.
Scarlette mentions George III's mammoth. (PROSE: Grass, The Book of the War, COMIC: Political Animals, Bêtes Noires & Dark Horses)

Footnotes

External links

[1] Resignation

[2] Interview: Lawrence Miles

[3] A Handful of Footnotes

[1]

[2]

[3]