Inside Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron - Julia Quinn

Inside Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron

  • Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron (the fictional gothic novel, not the very real graphic novel) appears in six of my books: It’s in His Kiss, What Happens in London, Ten Things I Love About You, Just Like Heaven, The Sum of All Kisses and The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy. It’s a very badly written, over-the-top gothic novel that half of my characters love and and half of my characters think is utter drivel.
  • When readers asked me to write Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron, I always said no. The writing is florid, the plot absurd—It’s a lot of fun in bits and pieces, but an entire book would not be a pleasurable reading (or writing) experience. But my sister Violet Charles was a cartoonist and illustrator, and it occurred to me that while it would be a terrible prose novel, it could be a spectacular graphic novel. I gave her the idea, and she ran with it.
  • On the interior title page, one pigeon says to the other, “I’m not sure the author used ‘purview’ correctly.” This is a nod toward What Happens in London. Olivia says this to Harry, who says it to Prince Alexei, who says it Sebastian, who (predictably) says, “Of course it is.”
  • The pigeons have names, even though the reader doesn’t learn them all. We made magnets out of them (below). Left to right, they are: Sylvia Van Nest, Jean-Clawd, Clarence, Wingston, Rebeaka, and Eggsmerelda. Not pictured: the Propriety Pigeon. And Gerald.
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