The (Mildly) Interesting History Of The Publishing Of Amelia Bingham.
The Amelia Bingham stories have a special place in the heart of Aristasia. They weren't as interesting to us outlanders as Children of the Void or other Wildfire Club publications, but they clearly had a special place with Aristasians. And you can see this in the fact that these stories were published over and over again. Some of Aristasia's earliest fiction were Amelia Bingham stories, and they seemed to be repeatedly published up to 2009! As far as I can tell, the quick low down of the Amelia Bingham history is as follows: Amelia Bingham was born before Aristasia, while the earliest girls were still in Tellurian university, if you believe their later story about it. It was something of a lark at first, that spread into stories they would tell at some unnamed club meetings.
Her stories were then published in Artemis magazine mid 1980s, first appearing in Artemis issue 2. It appears, in issue 7, as if they were also released as a standalone booklet entitled "Enter Amelia Bingham", a title that would stick around for quite a while!
Lace Publications was supposed to publish Amelia Bingham in the late 1980s, and the editress of the Madrian Deanic Resources blog recalls even receiving copies of this book, which she illustrated the cover for. However, an Aristasian on the old Miss Martindale Yahoo Group claims that the company went bankrupt right before it could happen. Perhaps that is why there seems to be no proof of this book actually being released, even though several other Lace Publication books can be picked up easily. Perhaps it only ever made it to the advance copy of the book. Interestingly, the Romantia publication The English Magazine serialized several stories as "Shelmerdine" who's main character was a lady criminal named Shelmerdine Bingham. I believe that one of these stories is in the Amelia Bingham book, so perhaps she is a relative. Oddly enough, the Shelmerdine stories were credited to Miss Priscilla Langridge in The English Magazine.
Jump to 2005, and the girls from Aristasia have self-published "Enter Amelia Bingham" via Lulu, under the publishing name "Blonde Bombshell Creations", a call back to their "Blonde Bombshell Comics" that Miss Wonderful was published under. At some point after this they make the pdf version available for free. While I have the more recent physical copy of this book, I have not been able to hunt down this pdf! So if any pettes out there have it, please consider sending it my way, not just because I have misplaced my copy. Of note, the gal on the cover of this edition of "Enter Amelia Bingham" is one of the Aristasian girls at the time. It's quite mysterious who she is. Of further note, this version of the book is claimed to be written by "Silver Vixen" a name used by someone in the Romanita era, as well as a name claimed to be Miss Martindale during the era of writing for The Chap magazine in the even earlier 2000s, as well as the title of their all-girl-world sci-fi novel. Phew! That's a lot of people and things the Silver Vixen might be!
In 2009, they move Amelia Bingham from Lulu to their newly established Sun Daughter Press, an Amazon self publishing endeavor that sees a number of varied releases from the Aristasians. The pdf version is completely gone, free or otherwise, but you can read the full introduction, which is a tantalizing bit of Aristasian history, but who knows how true it is. This version of the book is claimed to be written by both Geneviève Falconer and the Silver Vixen, while the introduction has Miss Martindale herself claim to have placed the initial prank message that inspired the character! Miss Jenny Falconer, Miss Priscilla Langridge, the Silver Vixen, Miss Geneviève Falconer, all names associated with having written the Amelia Bingham stories, were they separate people? The same person under many names? A couple people exchanging names between them? We unfortunately will never know, but, of course, we will speculate and theorize endlessly.
