Historical novelists do it with the dead.

The lovely Melanie over at Madame Guillotine has just made a brilliant post on her 'historical crushes' (or 'dead guy crushes' as I call them), and naturally I couldn't resist doing one of my own (so to speak). So, a few historical personages I wouldn't have kicked out of bed (although I would now - eww):


French stage magician Alexander Herrmann (1844-1896), better known in his day as Herrmann the Great. His wife Adelaide took over his show after his death and went on to become one of the first (and still one of very few) female magicians (as opposed to assistants, in manner of The Lovely Miss Debbie McGee).


Leon Herrmann (1867-1909), nephew of Alexander and Adelaide, who definitely took after his uncle in the looks department! He was also a magician, touring with his aunt Adelaide until 'creative differences' put them on separate paths.


Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1819-1861). Yes, it's a cliché for a Victoriana junkie, I know, but I can't fault Vic's taste. Something about Albert must appeal to chubby, pale chicks with mops of dark hair.


Edward Elgar (1857-1934). Composer and the man who makes £20 notes even more fun, Elgar is someone whose looks I first found myself paying proper attention to when I was in WH Smith and noticed that the portrait of him on the cover of Classic FM magazine was rather tasty. When image-googling for pics for this post, though, I was even more floored when I found this pic, posed by Elgar in about 1900, because it looks as if ageing made him into an eerie likeness of one of the characters in my most recently completed novel (he needs sideburns as well as a moustache, though). It's not an exact match - outside of identical twinning, two people rarely are, even if one's imaginary - but it's quite uncanny.

And...er...


John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865). Before I go any further, I should stress that this has nothing to do with his politics, which were undoubtedly vile - I'm just putting that aside for the moment and looking at the exterior, because it's much nicer to look at. An actor before he decided to give generations of politicians an uneasy feeling about visiting the theatre, JWB came from a family of actors (including his brother Edwin, who was also quite nice-looking but - cringe - not as attractive, for my money, as his homicidal little bro), and was considerably famous before adding an in- prefix to the word. As one commenter on a pic of JWB on Tumblr recently remarked, it was a bit like Brad Pitt murdering Barack Obama (although I've never really been a Pitt girl, myself). So yes - Johnny's politics and psycho streak bad, looks good (at least before the soldiers got hold of him).

So, like Melanie, I'm looking back over those pics to see if I can identify a 'type'. There is one obvious connection, I suppose, although I hasten to add it's not a requirement, and by no means do I find all moustaches attractive - the droopy handlebar ones beloved of male members of stoner rock bands, for instance, just make me want to reach for bleach spray and a scouring pad, somehow. Still, I do like a well-kept 'tache, possibly because it tends to look quite old-fashioned. As I was recently telling my agent, during the World Cup some of our local buses had photos on the side of the Preston North End footy team circa 1890-odd, and I was both surprised and amused to see that, despite being pro footballers and decked out in their team strip and what have you, the players all still had immaculate hair and well-trimmed 'taches. As I said to Edwin, I was then forced to conclude that the last time a professional footballer was attractive was during the 19th century...



So, who are your dead guy/girl crushes?