Being fortunate is a theme of this novel, and I am extremely fortunate in the team that supports my work: my agent Julie Gwinn, my editor Deb Werksman, the design, copy, production, and marketing departments of Sourcebooks. Thank you all!
As a former theatre critic who often rejoiced when a production went seventy-five minutes straight through with no interval, I’m not sure how I would have managed during the Regency Era: five-act plays followed by a comic pantomime? It is true that in the absence of cell phones and YouTube, this was a reasonable amount of one’s time to devote to an evening’s entertainment, and back then people were more likely to actively socialize while the play was going on than attend to the performances. I suspect this drove Arthur mad, because despite my partiality for plays of short duration, I love the theater with my entire being and gave him my passion for it.
I express my heartfelt gratitude to Arthur’s favorite playwright, William Shakespeare, for having a line to suit almost every occasion and facial expression. I’ve drawn from As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Othello, referred to Hamlet, and could not resist the opportunity to use theatrical history’s best stage direction from The Winter’s Tale.
A theatrical tidbit I was pleased to learn was that George IV’s first mistress was the actress Mary Robinson, who he first encountered when she played the part of Perdita in (wait for it) The Winter’s Tale; she also blackmailed him as did my Beatrice. Despite their reasons being different—Mary sought her promised annuity after years of mistressing—I am happy to be able to back up that Georgie could be put on the back foot by a determined woman and thus a historical liberty was not taken.
And in case you were wondering, as I was, the Scottish play has been a locus of superstition from its first production in 1606 and the invocation of it in the confines of a theater done only by the very brave.