In London, Where The Vampires Sing

The Foundling

The life of Mrs Catherine C----------

in which all the shocking events of the past 30 years are exposed to the public for the first time together with an account of the events that passed between her and Edmund Champness, Fillipo Gaetano Cremona, Evelina Champness and Benetto Canal. 

Extracted from various pocket books, diary entries and journals. 

Published by W.L. James, Bath 

An appeal to the reader

It is in the nature of man, at least in these modern times and within our philosophy, to take on the mantle of cynic, and to question all that does not appear rational in the world and explain it away as natural and measurable phenomena.

   Man can endeavour to explain these strange events and provide a rationale for this peculiar and perverted behaviour, but the philosophers of our country and those from nations far from these shores, should heed the tale our great author imparts - not all things are easily accounted for. These characters herein portrayed, men and women familiar to the world at large, believed the affliction they suffered was in no small part of their own doing; but I have seen the evidence first hand, I have seen the madness, the evil and only the Almighty can explain it, and I believe a merciful God would not make Man accountable for this horror.

   We must trust our author to recall those events as naturally as they occurred and she has striven to do so by the most objective means; in the end Men must believe what they wish to believe, but as the years may pass, the world will see that this book is only the beginning, the Prologue to an unfolding and bloody epoch. 

David Prothero 

Vol. 1

Friends, I begin my tale after it had begun. 

London, Journal, May 6th 1770

I rarely experience low spirits but events at the Old Bailey this day evoked melancholia. I did not suffer alone, the sombre mood pervaded throughout the gallery and the faces of the seated men and women appeared crumpled with repugnance. We breathed the stale air and watched men of consequence wrangle over matters in law, we gazed upon the defendant who sat stiffly while we all judged upon her, and if she had pined in the gloomy cells of Newgate for weeks, she showed no emotion when sunlight poured through the windows and shone upon her face; instead she remained rigid with determination. I thought I detected a shudder, a moment when a grimace seemed to form upon her lower jaw before the slow crawl up her face, but she was steadfast and beat it back to adopt an expression of innocence. This air of defiance receded into the shadows when a cloud forced a path across the sun and I thought it betrayed her true nature: she is the devil and I believe God will see justice done. The Almighty has placed the means in our hands, not by way of revenge or by hiding behind self-defence, but in front of good, honest and learned men; though some have told me all is not what it seems in a court of law and I should not trust everything I hear. Many have uttered with good intentions, ‘All things are corruptible, Kitty, and bribery and lies will defile the innocent.’

   To this experience I admit I can testify.

   I do not know where I was born, but I was wrapped in an ostentatious green blanket, placed in a basket and left outside the Little Hay Theatre when barely a few hours old; I have no knowledge of my natural parents and because I was discovered by my uncle and placed in the care of his brother, my tender foster-father, I have neither the inclination nor the guile to find them.

   Presently, my foster-father is the landlord of a public house in Lewes and my foster-mother is his boon, he could not have been encumbered with a finer wife than she, always the mistress of his home and of his heart, giving succour to all things with little thought to herself.