Snape Sighting

[Margaret Dean]

No: HPFGUIDX 15977

I was engaged today in my Nth reading of Georgette Heyer's
delightful novel THE FOUNDLING, when I was suddenly brought up
short by . . . the name "Snape"!

Now, how =could= I have forgotten that one of the main characters
in this book has a very disagreeable tutor by that name?  Not
that he is anywhere near as interesting (or as important to the
plot) as Our Severus, but it's an amusing coincidence.  

More than a coincidence?  Well, possibly.  If Jane Austen is one
of Rowling's favorite authors, she may have read Heyer, too.  JKR
has also said that she gets a lot of her names off of the map (of
England, one assumes) and in one interview I read recently
specifically mentioned "Snape" as one of the towns she'd better
not visit.  :)  Heyer is also known to have taken most of her
character surnames from English town names.  So they may simply
have hit upon the same town independently.  OTOH, who knows? 
Rowling may have read THE FOUNDLING years ago, so when she was
looking on the map for a name for a teacher whom the main
character didn't like, "Snape" seemed strangely appropriate . . .


--Margaret Dean
  <margdean at erols.com>