Acknowledgements

IT HAS TAKEN ME TEN years to write this book, during which time I have incurred many debts. I would like to thank the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, and the Bodleian Library, Oxford, for allowing me to consult letters and journals in their collections. I am similarly grateful to the Landeshauptarchiv Schwerin, the Leicestershire Record Office and the Hunterian Collection, University of Glasgow, for making papers and documents available to me. I am also indebted to the London Library, whose extensive holdings of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century diaries and correspondence, together with their generous policy of allowing members to borrow them, made it possible for someone like me, with a full-time job, to access historical sources in my limited free time.

Many publishers might have given up on a book with such a lengthy gestation, but neither of mine did so. I will always be grateful to HarperCollins and Henry Holt for their faith in the project, and their remarkable patience and forbearance. I have benefited more than I can say from the wise advice and stewardship of all my editors, who have guided me through a decade of new learning and experience. I’d like to thank Richard Johnson of HarperCollins who commissioned The Strangest Family and who made a first-time writer feel confident enough to begin upon such an ambitious undertaking. His successor, Martin Redfern, has never wavered in his support for the book, and has been a beacon of encouragement and calming kindness throughout. Stephen Guise’s painstaking care in managing the latter stages of the production process was a model of efficiency and engagement.

My American editor, Barbara Jones, has been equally generous; her trenchant comments and up-beat appreciation of my efforts kept me going when completion sometimes seemed a very long way off. I also owe a great deal to Stephen Rubin, whose personal enthusiasm for the book has been so important to me. Bold, forceful and very sure of what he likes, Steve’s conviction that this was a book worth having inspired and energised me, and I shall always be grateful for his exuberant and powerfully expressed support.

The manuscript was read by two brilliant editors, David Milner and Kate Johnson, whose comments and suggestions were extremely helpful. I am likewise indebted to Professors Amanda Vickery and Jeremy Black, who read the finished manuscript, passing it through the prism of their unrivalled historical scholarship. I have benefitted hugely from their advice and friendly corrections, which are reflected in the final text. I am also grateful to Daniel Mitchell for his help in transcribing correspondence. Any remaining errors or infelicities are, of course, my own.

I should also like to pay tribute to some of those writers whose books so inspired me as a reader and fed my passion for the world I have sought to capture in my own writing. Of course, there are far too many to list here in their entirety, but I have always been stimulated by the work of Stella Tillyard, Amanda Foreman, Flora Fraser and Amanda Vickery. All these writers bring a new understanding to the inner lives of eighteenth-century families, especially the experiences of women and children. I have also learned a great deal from the pioneering work of Clarissa Campbell Orr and Irene Brown.

I am profoundly grateful to Peter Robinson, my agent for many years, without whose belief and fortitude this book would probably never have got off the starting block. Peter was stalwart, loyal and endlessly supportive, always ready with advice and encouragement, often delivered over a large glass of wine whilst he smoked a surreptitious cigarette. His contribution to the book is huge and will always be deeply appreciated. He is a wonderful man and a great friend. I should also like to thank Caroline Michel, who has shepherded the book through the final stages of its journey, and who has been unremitting in both her thoughtful kindness and steely sense of purpose. I have been very lucky to work with two such talented people.

While writing this book, I had a very demanding job as a channel controller at the BBC. I owe a great deal to my television colleagues, who, over the years, have listened politely as I have explained to them exactly what I was attempting to write. They were all very patient and understanding, at least when I was around! My thanks are due to everyone in broadcasting who has had to hear at length my views on the importance of the eighteenth century and all its works, but there are some people who have been more exposed to the full force of my passion than others. Special thanks go to Jana Bennet, Alan Yentob, George Entwistle, Danny Cohen, Michael Jackson, Denys Blakeway, Emma Swain, Ben Stephenson, Charlotte Moore, Claire Powell, Adam Barker, Mark Bell and Kate Mordaunt. None of my colleagues, however, has heard more about the book and its progress than Don Cameron. We worked together for the ten years of this book’s gestation and he was party to all the many ups and downs along the way. He never looked bored while hearing about them, for which I owe him much. Great thanks too are due to Daisy Goodwin, not just for sharing her own experiences of the pleasures and challenges of writing, but also as a sympathetic listener, tough-minded adviser and much-valued friend.

Finally, I’d like to thank my family for all their support and encouragement. No one could have been more generous with his time and expertise than my brother John, who travelled across the country on more than one occasion to rescue me from disastrous computer malfunctions without a word of complaint. His wife, Jane, was just as understanding. My two sons, Alexander and Louis, were small children when I began writing. Now they are strapping teenagers. They have probably heard more about George III and his preoccupations than most boys of their age. Sometimes this has made them laugh – and who can blame them? – but they have borne without complaint the evenings, weekends and school holidays that have been devoted to writing and research. Perhaps one day they will read the book; if so, I hope they will feel it was all worthwhile.

There have been many people to thank here, but no one deserves my heartfelt gratitude more than my husband, Martin Davidson. It is inconceivable that this book would have been written without him. He ushered it into life. No one had a better understanding of what I hoped to achieve than he did, and no one did more to help me get there. An accomplished writer himself, he was tireless in doing all he could to improve my work, suggesting, correcting, editing, making me persevere in tough times and exulting when things went well. His opinion has always been the standard by which I judge everything I write. We have been partners in this enterprise, as in so much else. He is the love of my life and I am very proud to dedicate this book to him.