History

Emilie Harley is inspired by a character of the same name who appears in German writer Heinrich Zschokke’s 1811 short story “Das Bein” (“The Leg”), which was translated and reprinted numerous times in British newspapers and magazines from 1827 onwards. In this story, Harley’s lover, Charles Temple (who also appears in this game) forces a surgeon at gun point to amputate his leg as a desperate attempt to be like Harley, who is herself an amputee. Many nineteenth-century writings explored how amputees and prosthesis users aligned with social conventions surrounding marriage. For more on this topic, see chapter 5 of Ryan Sweet’s free 2022 book Prosthetic Body Parts in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture.

Backstory

Born an amputee, a former lover once forced a surgeon to amputate his leg to be with her.
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