GREAT VILLAGE is a work based on stories that have come down through the decades from Colchester County, Nova Scotia, along Cobequid Bay, though all have been fictionalized with the exception of Elizabeth Bishop, her family and friends, the Lighthouse Spencers, Hiram Hyde, the Moose River Gold Mine Disaster and, of course, the details of the life of Virginia Woolf. Many surnames used in this novel have been borrowed from those of early families that settled the Colchester region in the eighteenth century but all these characters have been fictionalized as well. There is a thriving Elizabeth Bishop Society that meets annually in Great Village, but its beginnings bear no resemblance to those described in this book.
The methodology used by Dr. Rushton to treat Thomas’s illness is adapted from Treatment of Neurasthenia, by Dr. Paul Hartenberg, 1914 Edinburgh, Glasgow, and London. Henry Frowde and Hodder & Stoughton, translated by Ernest Playfair.
The author wishes to thank Sandra Barry and the other owners of Elizabeth Bishop’s early Great Village home for the use of the house during the final weeks of research. Thanks to those who made suggestions to various drafts of the book: Donalda Nelson, Sandra Barry, Juliet Huntly, Margaret Canning, Jean Orpwood, Sara Street and Marilyn Vivian. Gratitude of a whole other order is due Heather Dau, Sally Harding, Marc Côté and Barry Jowett.