I first came up with the idea for The Watermark in the summer of 2010, and finally finished the book in late 2022, so I have many people to thank …
Thank you to my wonderful agent, Cathryn Summerhayes, for falling for my eccentric novel and working hard to get this deal, and to Anne Meadows at Granta for taking the leap of faith. Thank you, Dan Bird, for taking my book on with such energy and enthusiasm; for your stamina and patience through all the rounds of edits as we grappled with such a big book, and your publishing vision.
Thank you, Anna Wilson, for being such a good friend and introducing me to Cathryn when I had an agenting crisis.
Special thanks to Glen James Brown, who was my first reader. You gave me vital encouragement and feedback during the pandemic, when I lost all faith in the book.
To my dear Mum, who passed away on Christmas Day 2011, and was always so warm and encouraging about my writing from a young age. I was with my mother when I first came up with the idea for The Watermark, and I wrote ‘The Prologue’ not long before I lost her. One of the reasons the book took so long to complete was my broken heart …
Thank you to the team at Granta for taking such good care of my novel: Bella Lacey, Christine Lo, my managing editor, 530Gesche Ipsen, my copy-editor, Kate Shearman, my proofreader, and my publicist, George Stamp.
Thank you to Christiana Spens for designing the artwork and the graphic novel section with beauty and flair.
My research for ‘The First Story’, set in Oxford in 1861, was aided by reading Matthew Sweet’s superb Inventing the Victorians and Ruth Goodman’s How to be a Victorian, which included so many useful details, from daily routines and food eaten to the letters embarrassed fathers would send their sons about onanism when first going off to school.
Thanks for love, support, and friendship: Zakia Uddin, John Ash, Susan Barker, Zoe Pilger, Sam Byers, Tom Conaghan, David and Leesha, Lyra, Catherine Taylor, Marina Benjamin, Jenny Bullen, David Hughes, Stephen Gill, Anna Maconochie, Alex Spears, Venetia Welby, Thom Cuell, Susanna Crossman, Ben Pester, Seraphina Madsen, Tristan R, Will Francis, Lola Jaye, Dylan Evans, Chris Power, Joe Thomas, Lucy Binnersley, Jude Cook, Simon Lewis, Tom Tomaszewski, Neil Griffiths, James Clammer, David Collard, Harold and the Shark and Matthew Turner.
A very special thank you to my dear Andrew Gallix.