That dog pattering into the rue de Valois was of course the spirit of this mongrel book departing on a new adventure. It is difficult to give its genealogy, being part pure-bred biography, part travel, part autobiography, together with a bad dash of Baskerviile Hound. It will be evident that people and places, and my own diaries and reflections, have shaped the creature as much as any literary texts. But the most important printed sources for the lives of my four protagonists can be found in the following works, which provide at least an elementary bibliography—and I hope an encouragement to further reading:
ONE. Robert Louis Stevenson, Journal de route en Cévennes, avec Notes de Jacques Poujol (Editions Privat Club Cévenol, Toulouse, 1978); The Cévennes Journal, edited by Gordon Golding (Mainstream, Edinburgh, 1978); Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879); The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, edited by Sidney Colvin (2 vols., Methuen, 1901); Margaret Mackay, The Violent Friend (Dent, 1968).
TWO. Mary Wollstonecraft: Posthumous Works, edited by William Godwin (4 vols., Johnson, 1798); Collected Letters, edited by Ralph M. Wardle (Cornell University Press, 1979); William Godwin, Memoir of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Johnson, 1798); Claire Tomalin, The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft (Weidenfeld, 1974); John Alger, A History of the English in the French Revolution (London, 1912); State Trials (London, 1794).
THREE. Percy Bysshe Shelley: Poetical Works, edited by Thomas Hutchinson (Oxford University Press, 1968); The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited by F. L. Jones (2 vols, Oxford University Press, 1964); Mary Shelley’s Journal, edited by F. L. Jones (University of Oklahoma Press, 1947); The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, edited by Betty T. Bennett (vol I, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980); Shelley and His Circle, 1773-1822, edited by Donald H. Reiman (vols 5-6, Carl H. Pforzheimer Library, New York, 1973); The Journals of Claire Clairmont, edited by M. K. Stocking (Harvard University Press, 1968).
FOUR.Nadar par Jean Prinet et Antoinette Dilasser (Armand Colin, Paris, 1966); Testi di Nadar con Lamberto Vitali e Jean Prinet (Giulio Einaudi editore, Torino, 1973); Gérard de Nerval, Oeuvres, présenté par Albert Béguin et Jean Richer (2 vols, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, 1960—vol I contains the poetry and correspondence, vol II most of the travel-writing); Théophile Gautier, Portraits et Souvenirs Littéraires (1875) and Histoire du Romanticisme (1874). Alfred Douglas, The Tarot (Gollancz, 1973) supplied much of my cartomancy.
For the use of copyright materials, and kind permission to consult and refer to manuscripts and archives my most grateful acknowledgments are due to the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the British Museum, London; the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; the Keats-Shelley Museum, Rome; The Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Inc., New York; the Bibliothèque Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, Chantilly; Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh; Dent, London; Oxford University Press; Gollancz, London; Cornell University Press; University of Oklahoma Press; Johns Hopkins University Press; Harvard University Press; and the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris.
Other sources which have proved invaluable during my travels, or subsequently helped me clarify my conception of the book, include the fine maps and guides of Michelin; the incomparable Dictionnaire Historique des Rues de Paris by Jacques Hillairet (Editions de Minuit, Paris, 1973); the newspaper files of Le Monde and The Times; The Quest for Corvo, An Experiment in Biography by A. J. A. Symons (1934); The Unquiet Grave by Cyril Connolly (1944); After Babel by George Steiner (Oxford, 1975); A Second Identity by Richard Cobb (Oxford, 1969); and the Symphonie Fantastique, with its thematic Programme Note, by Hector Berlioz. The illustrative maps were drawn by Martin Lubikowski of MJL Cartographies. All translations from the French are mine.
For endless encouragement, expert help and inexplicable good humour my warmest thanks are due to Richard Cohen, a prince among editors; to Catherine Carver, for her sensitive reading and advice; to Elisabeth Sifton, for her patience and enthusiasm; and as ever to my old friend and advisor Peter Janson-Smith.
I have been greatly helped through the generosity of the Society of Authors; Ismena Holland; and Philip Howard of The Times, whose memo, “Dear Richard, where are you?”still travels with me. The Bridge House Factor has never failed.
Finally I should like to greet those friends whose kindness kept me together, in good weather and bad, at home and abroad. Some of them appear lightly disguised in this book, though none under their own names: Peter Jay of the Anvil Press; Sophie Vial of Marie-France; Pierre Voisin of the Librarie Sorbonne; Robert and Laurence de Bosmelet; Damon and Marie-Solange Pollard-Dubois; Françoise Dasques of IBM; and Alan Judd of Rovers International. To them all, the seventh card, the Chariot.
Richard Holmes
London, 26 January 1985