The legend of Beatrice Cenci has intrigued writers such as Antonin Artaud, Stendhal, Mary Shelley, Alexandre Dumas, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Browning, and Kathy Acker. In Beatrice Chancy, a verse play set in Nova Scotia in 1819, Clarke boldly reimagines Beatrice as the daughter of a white master and a black slave.