Rain Dodging

A Scholar's Romp through Britain in Search of a Stuart Queen

Susan J. Godwin

• Publisher: She Writes Press
• Year: 2023
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781647425708
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

Scholar Susan Godwin is hooked when she comes across the captivating story of Mary of Modena—a seventeenth-century Italian princess who was only fourteen when coerced into marriage with the future king of England, James II, yet went on to cultivate a court full of women writers in an age when female authorship was rare. How did Mary achieve such a feat?

Rain Dodging is Susan’s creative nonfiction account of the years-long search upon which this question—and her own unquenchable curiosity—launched her. Godwin travels through both space and time, solo adventuring through Britain in pursuit of truth and, in a spicy parallel arc, chronicling her own cluttered but resilient feminist path. From schizophrenic lovers to out-there musicians to one unhinged mother, Susan tells the story of her personal enlightenment even as she visits the palaces and manor houses in England and Scotland Mary once inhabited and pores over materials in Oxford’s stunning 400-year-old Bodleian Library, finding moments of transcendence and unexpected delight along the way.

Join Susan in this irreverent and illuminating journey—a fascinating account of the late Stuart monarchy, the progression of feminist history, and the unexpected connection between the two.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Chapter One: Getting There
• Chapter Two: Meet Mary
• Chapter Three: She Was a Bitch but the Room Was Lovely
• Chapter Four: The Bod
• Chapter Five: All in the Family
• Chapter Six: Special Collections and a Bearded Maître d’
• Chapter Seven: Commencements
• Chapter Eight: Ochre and Burnt Orange
• Chapter Nine: LA or Bust
• Chapter Ten: Never Anger a Stalwart Stallion
• Chapter Eleven: Wasn’t Much fer Stickin’ Around but He Sure Could Make Me Laugh
• Chapter Twelve: Training
• Chapter Thirteen: Queenie Parties
• Chapter Fourteen: Pretty Maids All in a Row
• Chapter Fifteen: Loving London
• Chapter Sixteen: Popcorn, Parkinson’s, and Party Girls
• Chapter Seventeen: Palaces and Politics
• Chapter Eighteen: Red Lantern
• Chapter Nineteen: Bermondsey or Bust
• Chapter Twenty: This Is What Hell Must Be Like
• Chapter Twenty-One: Upscale
• Chapter Twenty-Two: Final Days
• Chapter Twenty-Three: Cambridge
• Chapter Twenty-Four: Patient Patient
• Chapter Twenty-Five: Kent or Bust
• Chapter Twenty-Six: Hatfield to Holyrood
• Chapter Twenty-Seven: Goodbye
• Appendix I
• Appendix II
• Appendix III
• Appendix IV
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Selected Titles from She Writes Press