What can anyone truly know of another’s life?

Was it only as the author of the leading guidebook to Europe that redoubtable Mariana Starke (1762-1838) was known to those in high places?

Might her specialised knowledge not have been allied to courage, skill, and ingenuity?

Might she not, in 1828, have unmasked the infamy of a royal duke?

And by doing so determined the complicated fates of crowns and states?

Subscribers to this website will recognise my interest and affection for Mariana Starke, ‘the celebrated traveller’. She was the author of Information and Directions for Travellers on the Continent that went through a number of editions in the first three decades of the 19th century. I have researched her early life – and those of her ancestors – in detail and posted a number of articles on this website. I did consider attempting a biography, but reluctantly concluded that there was insufficient primary material covering her later years. I may well be mistaken but, instead, I have had a good deal of amusement in imagining a life for her.

The minutiae of the information she imparted inspired from me an adventure that begins when we encounter Mariana in Rome in January 1828. A malevolent figure, ‘the Demon Duke’, is orchestrating turbulence in Britain and in Hanover. But in Rome events transpire to convince Mariana that she has proof of his infamy. Can she succeed in delivering it? Can she outwit and outrun his proxies?

From Rome we accompany Mariana – and others – on journeys by land and sea, north through Italy and France to a London denouement. We live the roads on which they travel, the cities, towns, villages, and ports through which they pass, the barges, carts, ships, carriages in which they are conveyed, the inns in which they stay, and the food that they eat. Dangers lurk. Of course they do.

The whole is woven around real historical figures and real historical facts. You will know the genre.

My question is, if anyone is sufficiently motivated to venture an opinion,

Should I publish, that is, self-publish, Mariana Starke and the Demon Duke?