Lucie Dumas by Katherine Mezzacappa

Lucie Dumas
By Katherine Mezzacappa

Publication Date: March 30th, 2026

Publisher: Stairwell Books

Pages: 278

Genre: Historical Fiction

London, 1871: Lucie Dumas of Lyon has accepted a stipend from her former lover and his wife, on condition that she never returns to France; she will never see her young son again. As the money proves inadequate, Lucie turns to prostitution to live, joining the ranks of countless girls from continental Europe who'd come to London in the hope of work in domestic service.

Escaping a Covent Garden brothel for a Magdalen penitentiary, Lucie finds only another form of incarceration and thus descends to the streets, where she is picked up by the author Samuel Butler, who sets her up in her own establishment and visits her once a week for the next two decades. But for many years she does not even know his name.

Based on true events.

Excerpt

I shall start by describing this room. It is probably commonplace enough, doubtless similar in its outward appearance to hundreds upon hundreds of comfortable petit bourgeois parlours in this city. I surmise this, as I am not invited into such places. Looking out of the window (for here, unlike that house in Covent Garden, I am free to open the heavy brocade curtains and loop them back to let in the light the same as anyone else), I can see glimpses of other such rooms on the opposite side of Handel Street. My view of those other lives is especially favoured on cold days like this one, when housemaids turn up the gas in order to be sure they can see to feather away every last speck of dust, for mistresses whose principal occupation appears to be checking the work of others rather than doing that work themselves. I see a waxy-leaved plant pressing against the window as though it wished to escape; I have one like it. I see curtains like mine. I glimpse an elaborate mantelpiece on which stand blurred little white objects. They too are Meissen shepherdesses, no doubt, though mine I think are imitations, bought in Seven Dials. 

Today is the feast of the Immaculée. Brigid and I will walk later to Mass in what I have heard the older people call the Sardinian Chapel. 

I have Brigid instead of a parlour-maid. I can hear her clattering away in the kitchen, as I write this. In all the years she has been with me, upwards of fifteen I think – no, it must be longer, though she is not yet thirty - I have never succeeded in persuading her to do anything quietly. She is obliged to work in spurts and invent reasons for frequent forays outside this apartment. This is because my callers would object to the noise, given what they come here to do. There are two exceptions to this. One is Monsieur, who calls punctually on Wednesday afternoons, and for whom Brigid is an original, a character. I expect he intends to put her in a book. I wonder if he has ever done that with me. The other is Mr Jones, who calls the day before Monsieur. I do not like Mr Jones but he calls here because Monsieur wishes him to do so and so I do not care if Brigid brings the house down around his ears. Monsieur sent Mr Jones to me for the good of Mr Jones’s health, he told me. I find Mr Jones’s health tedious in the extreme, for he complains of his indigestion fit to give the same to me. The rest of the time, if he speaks at all, it is to speak of Monsieur. He would be nothing without him, you see. Nor, I believe, would I. No, I would be something, but not anything most of us would want. 

I have about six regular gentlemen who call on me now, though none as predictably as do Monsieur or Mr Jones. Twenty years ago I would have turned my professional smile on six at least in the space of a night. Of the others, I know very little. One I believe is a police sergeant, another a doctor. They have given me names, but I do not believe these are their own. Monsieur was Ernest to me until only a few years ago. I too have gone by different names in the past. I was Lisette in Covent Garden, a young widow left destitute by a husband’s gambling debts. But of late, I have adopted not a new Christian name but a family name. I am Lucie Dewattines, lately of Lyon, born Lucie Dumas. Dewattines is my mother’s name, but she is dead so I cannot shame her. My father sold me so it is he who should feel shame.

Dudley Street, Seven Dials 
Wikimedia Commons – credit, Wellcome Images

Buy Link:

Universal Buy Link

Katherine Mezzacappa

Katherine Mezzacappa is Irish but currently lives in Carrara, between the Apuan Alps and the Tyrrhenian Sea. She wrote The Ballad of Mary Kearney (Histria) and The Maiden of Florence (Fairlight) under her own name, as well as four historical novels (2020-2023) with Zaffre, writing as Katie Hutton. She also has three contemporary novels with Romaunce Books, under the pen name Kate Zarrelli. The Maiden of Florence was shortlisted for the Historical Writers’Association Gold Crown award in 2025 and has also been published in Italian.

Katherine’s short fiction has been published in journals worldwide. She has in addition published academically in the field of 19th century ephemeral illustrated fiction, and in management theory. She has been awarded competitive residencies by the Irish Writers Centre, the Danish Centre for Writers and Translators and (to come) the Latvian Writers House.

Katherine also works as a manuscript assessor and as a reader and judge for an international short story and novel competition. She has in the past been a management consultant, translator, museum curator, library assistant, lecturer in History of Art, sewing machinist and geriatric care assistant. In her spare time she volunteers with a second-hand book charity of which she is a founder member.

She is a member of the Society of Authors, the Historical Novel Society, the Irish Writers Centre, the Irish Writers Union, Irish PEN / PEN na hÉireann and the Romantic Novelists Association, and reviews for the Historical Novel Review. She is lead organiser for the Historical Novel Society 2026 Conference in Maynooth, Co. Kildare.

Katherine has a first degree in History of Art from UEA, an M.Litt. in Eng. Lit. from Durham and a Masters in Creative Writing from Canterbury Christ Church.

Connect with Katherine:

Website • Facebook • Instagram • Bluesky

Amazon Author Page • Goodreads