THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851 was a seminal point in British history and industrial predominance. There were exhibits from all over the world, and only a few were highlighted in this book. From the Koh-i-noor diamond to the enormous hydraulic press to Sèvres china to the first public toilets, the Great Exhibition was an unforgettable event. The Crystal Palace was a real building, but it moved from its original location in Hyde Park to Penge Common and unfortunately burned down in 1936.
Sophie Carter is fictional and therefore didn’t invent the alarm clock (or notification clock). That honor belongs to the French inventor Antoine Redier, who was the first to patent an adjustable mechanical alarm clock, in 1847.
Mariah Carter is also fictional, but the Royal Academy of Arts was real, and many Victorian painters debuted their works there. The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square opened in 1838, and you can still visit it today. The Regent’s Zoo, or the London Zoo, was opened to the public in 1847.
Lady Bentley sings the English folk song “I’ve Been Roaming,” lyrics by George Darley.
Sir Thomas Watergate is a fictional character, but the reform movement in art called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood did exist. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a famous painter, was a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. His muse, model, and (later) wife, Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, was a milliner in Cranbourne Alley, London, before being noticed by the painter Walter Deverell. He asked her to be his model and introduced her to the art world. “Lizzie” did more than model; she was also a poet and an artist, producing many sketches and a few paintings. John Ruskin was her patron and paid her a yearly income to support her art.
John Ruskin was a prolific art critic, writer, and lecturer. He taught several ladies drawing by correspondence and eventually published a book in 1857 entitled The Elements of Drawing. I borrowed lines from that book to serve as John Ruskin’s words and his epistolary advice to Mariah. Effie Gray was his wife at the time this novel takes place, but their marriage was later dissolved.