Author’s Notes

London, England in 1816 was in a time of change and historical significance for the nation, as the industrial revolution galvanized the masses. By the 1780s, the British Industrial Revolution, which had been developing for several decades, further accelerated. Workers left the agricultural areas to seek employment in factories. Manufacturing, business, and the number of wage laborers skyrocketed, starting a trend that would continue into the first half of the nineteenth century.

The first Derringer was manufactured in 1825. This author took poetic license and back-dated the idea of the small pistol forty years for the one produced for Lady Minerva.

The gravity flow plumbing was an innovation that took hold in the early eighteenth century.

Gas lighting in the streets of London was first introduced in August 1807, when Golden Lane Brewery and a portion of Beech and Whitecross Streets were illuminated by its means. The authentic Gas, Light & Coke Company obtained their charter in 1810, and lamps outside their offices in Pall Mall so lit, but progress in this direction was slow, and the old oil lamps died hard.

The Gas, Light & Coke Company did supply gas lighting to customers in the Westminster area upon contract in 1813. Lighting was supplied mainly during the hours of dark. At the time of this book, they indeed had a monopoly. By 1817, London theaters were being illuminated by gaslight.

The duke’s Great Britain Gas, Light & Coke Company is a figment of my imagination for the purposes of this novel, although there were competitive gas light companies but not by this particular name.

With the passage of time, there was competition with the advent of gas for stove cooking. In subsequent years, gas was supplied full time.

As for the exotic Star Gazer Lily, it was not a tuber from India. It just sounded more romantic to write it so. The hybridization took place in California, U.S.A. in 1974, and revolutionized the lily and cut-flower industry by producing what has now become the most popular oriental lily in the world. The name was given to this lily because their blooms gaze up at the sky yet prefer their roots planted in the fertile earth.

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