A Hidden Life in Naples, Italy.
The secrets of the Honourable Keppel Craven (1779-1851).
The world remembers Keppel Craven as the son of the scandalous Margravine of Anspach, vice-chamberlain to the Princess of Wales, travel writer and constant companion of Sir William Gell.
He was all of these things.
But the journal he kept assiduously for more than forty-five years tells another story. Beneath the polished surface of his public persona, Craven was a man of secrets. He carefully concealed unsavory quarrels. He notated his sexual encounters in code. Mary Carter—whose name and initials appear sporadically from 1809 to 1850—seems to have been the central love of his life, while X Anacharsis (X for sex, and Anacharsis his nickname for Sir William Gell) proves Craven was more than just friends with the archaeologist.
Keppel Craven was painfully aware he was famous. He understood that, after his own death, his journals could be published for all the world to read. The result is a record riddled with omissions, disguises and misdirection. Financial support of Gell becomes repayment of a loan from Gell’s servant. An annuity purchased for Mary’s daughter is passed off as a pension for a former valet. The names of male lovers are feminized, and those of women are hidden in doodles, or recorded with initials.
Yet read closely and Craven’s hidden life comes into view.
He could not live without Sir William Gell. Andrea Pasquini was both secretary and lover. Hundreds of soldiers, watermen and servants—and not a few famous women—were marked down in Craven’s journals as conquests. And running through this world of queer relationships, secrecy, jealousy, dependency and deep abiding love is the constant presence of the parson’s daughter: Mary Carter, the glue that held everything together.
I’m going to be posting here some of the research I’ve done over the last fourteen years for The Wife and the Mistress, my biographical novel about Keppel Craven’s life based upon his unpublished journals and letters. If you’re interested in learning more, come visit me at www.keppel-craven.com.
