Annotations to "Revolution"

Literary references are plentiful in Revolution; here are all of them, listed and credited, in alphabetical order. Do note that not all of them are literary; some of them are from movies and various pop culture. I use the title 'literary' because most of them are still from classic literature.


1899 newsboy strike: [Chapter 21] The 1899 newsboy strike of New York was the result of the decision to raise newspaper distrubtion prices by ten cents per hundred. The newsboys (or 'newsies') were poor enough as it was, and this caused them to go on strike. The strike was settled, eventually. During WWI, American cities raised their distrubtion prices; New York was the last. They had to make sure another strike didn't occur. Disney made a movie-musical in 1992, called Newsies, starring Christian Bale.

AJ Raffles: [Chapter 12 onwards] Raffles was created by E.W. Hornung and debuted in The Ides of March (Cassell's Magazine, June 1898). Hornung was Arthur Conan Doyle's brother-in-law. Gentlemen thief Raffles was meant as a opposite of Doyle's Holmes.

Albert Frederick Arthur George Saxe-Coburg-Gotha: [Chapter 25] In 1936 he would ascend to the throne as King George VI after his brother, King Edward VIII, abdicated the throne. Born in 1895, he wsa the second son of King George V and Queen Mary of Teck. His older brother abdicated in order to marry his American sweetheart, leaving him the throne. He was most famous for his role in World War II as a symbolic leader for the British Empire's fight against Nazism. He died in 1952, and left the throne to his daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. (He is referenced as part of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and not the House of Windsor, as he really was. This is due to the fact that World War 1 never occured in this timeline, and therefore his father never changed the family name to Windsor.) For more information on him, you may want to check out Wikipedia's page.

Anthony Dewhurst: [Chapter 18] He appeared in The Scarlet Pimpernel and was created by the Baroness Emmuska Orczy. He is a trusted associate of The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Amy Lawrence: [Chapter 17] Amy Lawrence is Tom Sawyer's original love interest in 1876's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Amy is abandoned when Becky Thatcher comes to town.

Armand St. Just: [Chapter 1] Armand St. Just is the brother of Marguerite Blakeney, wife of Sir Percy Blakeney. He was created for 1913's The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Arsène Lupin: [Chapter 3 onwards] He was created by Maurice Leblanc and first appeared in The Arrest of Arsène Lupin on 15 July 1905. Lupin is much like AJ Raffles in many ways.

Baker Street Irregulars: [Chapters 8 onwards] The Baker Street Irregulars are a band of street kids who help Sherlock Holmes gather information, when offical sources cannot. They were created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, making their debut in A Study In Scarlet (1886), one of the four Sherlock novels that Doyle wrote.

Becky Thatcher: [Chapter 17] The newcomer to St. Petersburg in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Becky is the child Tom Sawyer's new love interest.

Bevis: [Chapter 23] Bevis is the creation of Richard Jefferies, an English writer of some note. There were two books about Bevis: Wood Magic (1881), now considered a Victorian children's classic, and Bevis (1882), its sequel. The one used here is from the second book. In Bevis, Bevis (aged about 5 or 6) has the ability to talk to plants and animals. They have intelligence, and talk to him and to each other.

"Black Michael": [Chapter 18] "Black Michael" is the evil Duke of Strelsau, in the fictional central European country of Ruritania. They were created by Anthony Hope Hawkins and the story of The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) is set here.

Broad Arrow Jack: [Chapter 18] "Broad Arrow Jack", whose real name was John Ashleigh, was created by E. Harcourt Burrage (popularly known as "the boys' Charles Dickens") in a 1966 penny dreadful.

Cannon Street: [Chapters 5 and 10] Cannon Street is a street in Justin Richards' Invisible Detective series where the heroes of the series have their base, a disused carpet warehouse.

Captain Ahab: [Chapter 12 onwards] Captain Ahab was the one-legged captain created by Herman Merville in Moby Dick; Or, The Whale (1851).

Captain Black: [Chapter 12 onwards] Sir Max Pemberton created the misanthropic pirate Captain Black in The Iron Pirate: A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea (1983) and Captain Black (1911), its sequel.

Captain Jack Sparrow: [Chapter 21 onwards] Captain Jack Sparrow was played by Johnny Depp in 2003's Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl. Depp also plays the queer-but-lovable Sparrow in the upcoming sequel.

Captain Mors: [Chapter 21] His creator was unknown, but Mors appeared in The Pirate of the Air and his Navigable Airship, which was a German dime novel published from 1908-1911. More information can be found on Jess Nevins' comprehensive Captain Mors page.

Cardinal Jinette:
[Chapter 21] Cardinal Jinette is Van Helsing's direct suprieror, from the 2004 movie Van Helsing.

Carfax asylum: [Chapter 4] The Carfax asylum is featured prominently in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897).

Carlotta: [Chapter 18] Carlotta, the Spanish prima donna, is in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical adaption of Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera (1911).

Chauvelin: [Chapter 2 onwards] Created by the Baroness Emmuska Orczy in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1913), Chauvelin is the archrival of The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Cleopatra's Needle: [Chapter 27] Cleopatra’s Needle was presented to the UK in 1819 by the Egyptian viceroy of the time in commemoration of the victories of Horatio Nelson and Ralph Abercromby. It was only moved in 1877, when Sir William James Erasmus Wilson sponsored its transportation to London at a cost of ten thousand pounds. After a rather interesting and long adventure, it finally made its way to London, where it was erected on Victoria Embankment in August 1879. It is one of three needles; the other two are in Paris’ Place de la Concorde and New York’s Central Park. Read more about it here.

Comte Philippe de Chagny: [Chapter 18] Philippe was created for 1911's The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. He is the older brother of Raoul, the Victome de Chagny.

Dr. John Seward: [Chapter 20] (Mispelled "Dr. John Steward") Dr. John Seward, owner of the Carfax asylum, was engaged to Lucy Westernra in Dracula, published 1898.

Dr. Nikola: [Chapter 12 onwards] Dr. Nikola was the creation of Guy Boothby, appearing first in A Bid For Fortune, or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta of 1895, and his pet is a very big and very smart (unnamed) black cat.

Erik: [Chapter 18] Better known to the world as the Opera Ghost or the Phantom of the Opera, Erik is a main character in Gaston Leroux's 1911 novella The Phantom of the Opera.

Fah Lo Suee: [Chapter 12 onwards] Fah Lo Suee was created in The Daughter of Fu Manchu (1931) an is the daughter to the (in)famous Dr. Fu Manchu, a Chinese super-criminal who is also the leader of an international organisation known as the Si-Fan.

Flavia: [Chapter 21] Princess Flavia, the sweetheart of the King of Ruritania, was created for Anthony Hope Hawkins' 1894 novel The Prisoner of Zenda.

Gaspard Redmayne: [Chapter 27] A "notorious forger and coldblooded assassin", villain of a story called Brought to Justice (publication date unknown), which was the second detective story starring Gideon Barr. He was created by Harry Blyth.

General Fang: [Chapter 18] General Fang appears in the 2004 adapatation of Jules Verne's Around the World In Eighty Days starring Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan. Her evil character is played by Karen Mok.

Great Detective: See Sherlock Holmes.

Hélène: [Chapter 18] Hélène, an opium smoker, is the daughter of Fantômas, the Lord of Terror. Fantômas was created by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain for monthly stories that circulated in 1911.

Jammes: [Chapter 21] Little Jammes of the corps de ballet, was in the opening pages of The Phantom of the Opera (1911).

Jimmy Grey: [Chapter 10] Prof. Jimmy Grey is the father of the heroes, of the British comic Beano. He builds two 'Iron Fish' submarines, and his two twin sons go exploring in them. This Jimmy is a younger version of the one in the comics.

John St. Leger: [Chapter 17] T. Mullett Ellis created St. Leger, the brilliant British agent, for Zalma (1895). He falls in love with Zalma, but as he is supposed to capture her, they cannot be together.

Joseph Conrad: [Chapter 23 onwards] Joseph Conrad, writer of novels such as Heart of Darkness (1899) and Alymayer's Folly (1895), was born Józef Teodor Nalecz Konrad Korzeniowski in December 1857. The son of Polish aristocracy, he did not, however, live in luxury. After his father's death and his mother's subsequent death from tuberculosis in exile, he was sent to live with his uncle. At age 17, Conrad abandoned his education to become a sailor in the French merchant navy. He sailed all around the world, setting the background for his future seafaring characters, and in 1884 settled down in England. From then on he wrote a fair number of novels including Lord Jim (1900) and Victory (1915). He died in 1924. To find out more, you can check out this page.

Joseph "Joe" Harper: Joe Harper was created by Mark Twain in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and was a friend of the child Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

Kurtz: [Chapter 18] Kurtz was created by Joseph Conrad and appeared in Heart of Darkness, released in 1899.

Lois Cayley: [Chapter 15 onwards] Grant Allen created Lois Cayley and she debuted in Miss Cayley's Adventures, of 1898.

Lord Robert Walsingham de vere St. Simon: [Chapter 23] Lord St. Simon was once a client of Sherlock Holmes; he hired the detective in The Noble Bachelor. The second son of the Duke of Balmoral, he married the (unwittingly) still-married Hatty Hay Moulton.

Mao Tse-Tung: [Chapter 21] Mao Tse-Tung (also spelt as "Zedong", or known simply as Mao) was the of the Communist Party of China from 1935 until his death in 1976. The Communist Party became the ruling party of mainland China and founded the People's Republic of China in 1949. For more information on him, check out hisWikipedia page.

Marguerite Blakeney: Marguerite Blakeney, nee St. Just, is brother to Armand St. Just and the wife of Percy Blakeney. She was in the The Scarlet Pimpernel (1913) and its sequels.

"Milady de Winter": [Chapter 3] Mina's alias is taken from Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers (1844); the disgraced Milady de Winter -- or simply "Milady" -- is the wily and cunning woman who was once wife to Athos/Comte de la Fere.

Mistoffelees: [Chapter 12 onwards] Mistoffelees is a magical black cat who was the subject of a song in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats. He is 'vague and aloof' and 'quiet and small/He is black/From the ears to the tip of his tail', and the smartest cat amongst the Jellicles.

Mrs. Lovatt: [Chapter 15] Mrs. Lovatt is the lover of Sweeney Todd and his partner in crime. She would take his victims and bake them into meat pies.

Mycroft Holmes: [Chapter 25] Mycroft Holmes is Sherlock Holmes' older brother by seven years. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle first had him debut in The Greek Interpreter, published 1893, and he proceeded to appear in numerous other Sherlock stories.

"Navvies": [Chapter 21] This was the name of the men who built Britian's railways. The name 'navvies' comes from 'navigators' -- these were the men who built canals, so don't get them mixed up. The navvies worked at amazing speeds; they could move up to twenty tonnes of earth in one day. They lived in shantytowns by the railways.

Nick Carter: [Chapter 17 onwards] No, it's not that Nick Carter of the boyband world, or the 'Killmaster'. This is the original Nick Carter, created by John Russell Coryell and Ormond G. Smith in 1886 for The Old Detective's Pupil; or, The Mysterious Crime of Madison Square. The Nick Carter stories were popularised after Russell wrote the first story (and two sequels) and handed Nick Carter over to more than a dozen writers.

Orlando: [Chapter 13] Orlando is the creation of Virginia Woolf. He is the main character of her 1928 novel, Orlando: A Biography. Orlando is an immortal; he was born a man in Queen Elizabeth's era, but over the years he changes sex and watches as time progresses. The novel ends in 1928, the year of its publication.

Percy Blakeney: [Chapter 12 onwards] Better known as the Scarlet Pimpernel, Sir Percy Blakeney, husband of the 'cleverest woman in Europe' -- Marguerite Blakeney (nee St. Just) -- he was created by the Baroness Emmuska Orczy in 1913's The Scarlet Pimpernel and its ten sequels. In the original novel he is pursued by Chauvelin, who is hell-bent on capturing and percescuting him.

Persian daroga: [Chapter 18] The daroga - Persian for 'chief of police' - assisted Raoul de Chagny in searching for Erik in Gaston Leroux's "The Phantom of the Opera", published in 1911. He once saved Erik's life when the Opera Ghost was in Persia.

Phantom of the Opera: See Erik entry.

Phileas Fogg: [Chapter 18] Jules Verne created eccentric inventor Phileas for Around The World in Eighty Days (1873).

Quong Lee: [Chapters 3 onwards] Quong Lee was created by Thomas Burke in 1920's The Song Book of Quong Lee. Quong Lee owns a tea shop in Limehouse.

Raoul de Chagny: [Chapter 18] Raoul was Gaston Leroux's creation, appearing in 1911's "The Phantom of the Opera". Raoul, younger brother of Philippe de Chagny (the Comte de Chagny), is a sailor and patron of the Opera, who falls in love with the Phantom of the Opera's student, Christine.

Robur: [Chapter 12 onwards] The creation of Jule Verne, Robur first appeared in Robur the Conqueror (1887). Robur is the Captain Nemo of the air, the commander of The Albatross, a spectacular flying airship. He has a secret base in the Marquesas Islands.

Roland Napoleon Bonaparte: [Chapter 18] He was a real person, the grand nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. Born in 1858, he died at the age of 66.

Rassendylls: [Chapter 23] The Rassendylls family of nobility in England in Anthony Hope Hawkins’ novel The Prisoner of Zenda (1894). The Rassendylls are related to the Elphsbergs, the Royal Family of Ruritania, through a liasion that happened generations ago. Robert, the older brother, is married to Rose, and Rudolf, the younger brother, fell in love with Flavia. The latter has the Elphsberg red hair and nose.

Roulletabille: [Chapter 21] Everyone knows Gaston Leroux for the Phantom of the Opera, but Roulletabille is also a character of note. Roulletabille, a young journalist-cum-detective, was the creation of Gaston Leroux and first appeared in 1907's The Mystery of the Yellow Room.

Rupert: [Chapter 21] Rupert of Hentzau was one of the villians in The Prisoner of Zenda, Anthony Hope Hawkins' 1894 novella.

Ruritania: [Chapter 18] Ruritania is a central European country that is featured prominently in Anthony Hope Hawkins' two Ruritania novels, The Prisoner of Zenda (1894) and its sequel Rupert of Hentzau.

Sam Pak: [Chapter 12] He was created by Sax Rohmer in 1934's The Hand of Fu Manchu. He is Fu Manchu's lieutenant and an very old man.

Sâr Dubnotal: [Chapter 21] Sâr Dubnotal is known as the "Great Physcagogue" and also as the "Napoleon of the Intangible", among other titles. He first appeared in The Haunted Manor of Creh’har-Vran, which was released in 1909. The series was published anonymously, although Sâr's creation is generally credited to Norbert Sévestre, a profilic adventure writer of the time.

Sexton Blake: [Chapter 15] He was created for The Missing Millionaire in a December 1893 issue of The Halfpenny Marvel. His creator was a 'Hal Meredith', but there is reason to believe that this was a pseudyom.

Sherlock Holmes: Arguably the most famous detective of all time, Sherlock Holmes was originally created for A Study In Scarlet, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sometime in the mid-1800s. Known as the "Great Detective", Holmes was a master of disguise, genius, opium addict and thinker. He was Prof. James Moriarty's arch-nemesis. He has an older brother, Mycroft, and his grandmother was an artist.

Sun Tzu: [Chapter 21] Sun Tzu is most renowned for writing The Art of War, an influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy. Of course, now it's been turned into dozens, if not hundreds, of books on management, but that's not the point. You can find out more about him or read The Art of War.

Sweeney Todd: [Chapter 15] Sweeney Todd was known as the “demon barber of Fleet Street”. He was an urban legend, but he appeared in a penny dreadful (maybe several) pre-dating 1888. He would offer his services as a barber. Those who went in for a shave never came back out again; their necks were broken and they were made into meat pies by Mrs. Lovatt, Todd’s lover, who ran a meat-pie business.

Sir Denis Nayland Smith: [Chapter 12] He is the hero of the Fu Manchu stories, appearing in the original The Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu (publish date unknown) and all of its subsequent sequels.

Star-Spangled Banner, The: [Chapter 26] On September 13 1814 Francis Scott Key visited the British fleet in Chesapeake Bay to secure the release of Dr. William Beanes, who had been captured after the burning of Washington DC. The release was secured, but Key was detained on ship overnight during the shelling of Fort McHenry, a fort that defended Baltimore. In the morning, he was so delighted to see the American flag still flying over the fort that he began a poem to commemorate the occasion. It was first published as Defense of Fort M'Henry, the poem soon gained popularity when sung to the tune of To Anacreon in Heaven, probably written by John Stafford Smith. It was officially made the national anthem in 1931.

Sussex Downs: [Chapter 25] Sherlock Holmes retired to Sussex Downs, a small seaside community in England. The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane (1926) is set there.

The Duke: [Chapter 18] The Duke was in the 2001 movie Moulin Rouge! starring Richard Roxbrough, Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. He is played by Richard Roxbrough.

The Scarlet Pimpernel: See Sir Percy Blakeney.

Van Helsing: [Chapter 21] This Van Helsing isn't from the novel Dracula, but from the 2004 movie called, well, Van Helsing. He's played by Hugh Jackman and works directly under Cardinal Jinette.

Viscount Alanbrooke: [Chapter 18] Alan Francis Brooke, born 1883 in Bagnères de Bigorre, was the 1st Viscount of Alanbrooke. He was born into a prominent North Irish family. During World War I, he served in the Royal Artillery in France. For more information on him, please go here.

Waldorf Hotel, The: The Waldorf Hotel had its beginnings in 1893 when it was built by William Waldorf Astor. In 1929, it moved uptown to its current location and the Empire State Building was built on the site.

Windermere household: [Chapter 5] This is a reference to Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan, a play written in 1893. You can find the text of the play here.

Zalma von der Pahlen: [Chapter 2] She was created by British writer T. Mullett Ellis for Zalma (1895). Zalma is a bio-terrorist who falls in love with John St. Leger.

Zenda:
[Chapter 21] Zenda is a township some ways out of Ruritania's capital, where Black Michael has his seat of power. It's from the 1894 novel by Anthony Hope Hawkins, called The Prisoner of Zenda.

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