Lady Mary in Pictures
Before her bout with smallpox Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was a famously beautiful woman. She was painted many times, before and after…
read moreJennifer on All Things Considered (NPR)
Jennifer talks about “The Speckled Monster” and smallpox with Michele Norris on NPR’s “All Things Considered”
read moreJennifer on The Diane Rehm Show (NPR)
Jennifer talks about smallpox and “The Speckled Monster” with Diane Rehm on NPR’s “The Diane Rehm Show” (June 20, 2003)…
read moreHow I Came to Write about Smallpox
I’m often asked how I came to write about smallpox. I found Lady Mary in a literary footnote fantasizing about Circassian slaves…
read moreSmallpox: the “Speckled Monster”
Smallpox was a hideous disease that made its victims unrecognizably monstrous, and many died in agony. The terror it fueled was intense…
read moreThere’s Nothing Small About Smallpox
The course of the disease from rash to pocks to scabs…
read moreOne Big Sore: Confluent Smallpox
Pustules grew so thick that they congealed into one massive sore. Skin sometimes sloughed off in sheets…
read moreEveryone Died: Hemorrhagic Smallpox
The rarest and most lethal form of the disease, once called “the purples,” was a death sentence…
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New Light on the Newgate Six
History may seem solid, but it changes as new facts come to light. Since I published “The Speckled Monster,” the trial records of the prisoners…
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About My Blog
Occasional musings about stories, history, art, ideas, and the adventures of a writer's life...
