The next title in the Bridgerton book series will be a graphic novel. It will also be author Julia Quinn’s “last love letter” to her sister, comic strip artist Violet Charles.
The sisters worked together on the project before Charles died in a car accident last July.
“She and my father were killed by a drunk driver,” Quinn, who will be appearing at the ongoing Emirates Airline Festival of Literature on February 12 and 13, tells The National.
“It was very difficult, but I’m finding joy in [the graphic novel] again. It’s kind of my last love letter to her. I really want the world to see how talented she was. It says it was written by me and illustrated by her, but honestly, she wrote a lot of it.”
Titled Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron, the graphic novel is less a continuation of the Bridgerton saga than it is an elaboration of a literary work that appears as a running gag within the book series.
A gothic novel, it first appears in the seventh Bridgerton book, It’s In His Kiss, as Hyacinth, the eighth and youngest of the Bridgerton siblings, reads it to Lady Danbury during her weekly visits.
“It is this totally over-the-top gothic novel,” Quinn says. “It’s so much fun to write bad writing. It’s the kind where the heroine dies in almost every chapter. I had so much fun with it. Several books later, I had two more characters reading it. Then I did it again, I wrote a book where the hero was the secret author of the novel. So this book keeps popping up as this ongoing joke.”
It’s incredibly exciting to me just to realise the books are coming out in Arabic
Julia Quinn,
author
Eventually, Quinn says, readers began to ask her to actually write Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron, but Quinn was initially reluctant, saying while it was fun writing snippets, it wouldn’t make for a good, complete novel.
“My sister was an illustrator and cartoonist,” Quinn says. “And we realised it would make for a really fun graphic novel. I think kids can actually read this too.”
Like any project between siblings, Quinn says there was moments of tension while working together. “But it was really, really special,” she says. “I’m really excited for it. It was supposed to come out last year but it got delayed.”
By this point, Bridgerton hardly needs any introduction, thanks to the hit Netflix show based on Quinn's novels.
Thinking back to the beginning, Quinn says she can’t quite pinpoint what the primordial inspiration was for the Bridgerton family. She's always been drawn to historical romances, though, particularly those set in England’s Regency era.
“I was drawn to it because that’s what I like to read,” she says. “What I read for fun in high school and university were Regency historical romances, which is basically exactly what I write.”
One reason the time period fascinates Quinn is that it is far enough in the past to evoke a fairy tale quality.
“It is removed enough that it’s a little bit not magical, but we can permit the characters to do things that we would never accept in a modern character,” she says. “We can romanticise things that we couldn’t romanticise in a closer time period. Even early 20th century is too close.”
There are a lot of areas in the world I wouldn’t feel safe traveling to because of Covid. Dubai is not one of those
Julia Quinn
When Quinn wrote the first book in the series in 1998, she knew there would be more. She never imagined, however, that it would grow to encompass eight novels, each featuring one of the eight children of the late Viscount Bridgerton.
“I thought I was going to do maybe three books,” she says. “The romance genre is full of trilogies and so I was just thinking I’d write a trilogy, but it then started to take off in a way my previous books hadn’t before.”
It's now also been adapted into the TV series and translated into more than 40 languages, and Quinn reveals the books are now also being translated into Arabic.
“It’s a Cairo-based publisher and it’s incredibly exciting to me just to realise the books are coming out in Arabic.”
On the television adaptation, Quinn says it was not difficult giving up creative control when Shondaland picked it up. Released in 2020, the series has become one of the most popular shows of the pandemic era, introducing the glitzy world of Bridgerton to a whole new audience.
The experience, Quinn says, has been surreal.
“It’s Shonda Rhimes,” she says, with a deep sense of awe. “I trusted her. Every single step in this journey has been wonderful. I remember before the series came out, my sister said to me ‘wouldn't it be funny if, like, you get spoofed on Saturday Night Live?’ And then it happened! They were spoofing the show but I realised these were characters I wrote and now they’re on Saturday Night Live!”
Another signal that Quinn’s world had broken into pop culture came when the US National Football League spoofed the show in their draft reveal last year.
“They made it look like the football players were the debutantes,” she says. “I never thought I’d be culturally relevant to the NFL. It just blew my mind.”
Quinn says she's now looking forward to discussing the Bridgerton books with fans at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.
“I love to travel and to be able to sort of see the world through readers is incredible,” she says. “I’m grateful. You know there are a lot of areas in the world I wouldn’t feel safe traveling to because of Covid. Dubai is not one of those. I’ve done my research and I feel we’re good here.”
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Fringe@Four Line-up
October 1 - Phil Nichol (stand-up comedy)
October 29 - Mandy Knight (stand-up comedy)
November 5 - Sinatra Raw (Fringe theatre)
November 8 - Imah Dumagay & Sundeep Fernandes (stand-up comedy)
November 13 - Gordon Southern (stand-up comedy)
November 22 - In Loyal Company (Fringe theatre)
November 29 - Peter Searles (comedy / theatre)
December 5 - Sinatra’s Christmas Under The Stars (music / dinner show)
What is safeguarding?
“Safeguarding, not just in sport, but in all walks of life, is making sure that policies are put in place that make sure your child is safe; when they attend a football club, a tennis club, that there are welfare officers at clubs who are qualified to a standard to make sure your child is safe in that environment,” Derek Bell explains.
LAST-16 EUROPA LEAGUE FIXTURES
Wednesday (Kick-offs UAE)
FC Copenhagen (0) v Istanbul Basaksehir (1) 8.55pm
Shakhtar Donetsk (2) v Wolfsburg (1) 8.55pm
Inter Milan v Getafe (one leg only) 11pm
Manchester United (5) v LASK (0) 11pm
Thursday
Bayer Leverkusen (3) v Rangers (1) 8.55pm
Sevilla v Roma (one leg only) 8.55pm
FC Basel (3) v Eintracht Frankfurt (0) 11pm
Wolves (1) Olympiakos (1) 11pm
Game Changer
Director: Shankar
Stars: Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, Anjali, S J Suryah, Jayaram
Rating: 2/5
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
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Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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The essentials
What: Emirates Airline Festival of Literature
When: Friday until March 9
Where: All main sessions are held in the InterContinental Dubai Festival City
Price: Sessions range from free entry to Dh125 tickets, with the exception of special events.
Hot Tip: If waiting for your book to be signed looks like it will be timeconsuming, ask the festival’s bookstore if they have pre-signed copies of the book you’re looking for. They should have a bunch from some of the festival’s biggest guest authors.
Information: www.emirateslitfest.com
The specs
Engine: 2.4-litre 4-cylinder
Transmission: CVT auto
Power: 181bhp
Torque: 244Nm
Price: Dh122,900
3%20Body%20Problem
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Napoleon
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One in nine do not have enough to eat
Created in 1961, the World Food Programme is pledged to fight hunger worldwide as well as providing emergency food assistance in a crisis.
One of the organisation’s goals is the Zero Hunger Pledge, adopted by the international community in 2015 as one of the 17 Sustainable Goals for Sustainable Development, to end world hunger by 2030.
The WFP, a branch of the United Nations, is funded by voluntary donations from governments, businesses and private donations.
Almost two thirds of its operations currently take place in conflict zones, where it is calculated that people are more than three times likely to suffer from malnutrition than in peaceful countries.
It is currently estimated that one in nine people globally do not have enough to eat.
On any one day, the WFP estimates that it has 5,000 lorries, 20 ships and 70 aircraft on the move.
Outside emergencies, the WFP provides school meals to up to 25 million children in 63 countries, while working with communities to improve nutrition. Where possible, it buys supplies from developing countries to cut down transport cost and boost local economies.
