Harnessing Peacocks was published by Macmillan in 1985, following the success of The Camomile Lawn and confirming that Wesley’s first success was no fluke. The novel shares with its predecessor a frankness about female sexuality and a refusal to moralize about unconventional choices — but where The Camomile Lawn was ensemble-driven and historically panoramic, Harnessing Peacocks is focused on a single extraordinary woman.
Hebe was expelled from her family at eighteen for becoming pregnant (the father unknown — she refuses to identify him). Rather than be destroyed by this, she builds a life: she is a brilliant cook who caters for wealthy clients in a Cornish coastal town, and she supplements her income by providing sexual services to three regular clients — respectable men whose wives are insufficient to their needs. She is not ashamed of either occupation; both require skill, discretion, and the ability to give people what they want.
Wesley’s treatment of Hebe’s dual career is deliberately provocative: cooking and sex are presented as parallel arts — both involve pleasure, both require technical mastery, both serve bodily needs that polite society prefers to disguise. The novel refuses the expected moral framework (fallen woman, exploitation, shame) and instead presents Hebe as the most rational character in a world of hypocrisy.
The title’s image (harnessing peacocks — attempting to make something decorative and wild perform useful work) applies to Hebe’s relationship with the respectable world: she harnesses its peacock vanity to serve her practical needs.
Collecting Harnessing Peacocks
First edition (Macmillan, London, 1985): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First UK edition in dust jacket: $15–$35
- Signed first edition: $30–$70