It is quite impossible to thank all my friends who have encouraged me to write this book. I have given many lectures about Napoleon and Dr O’Meara in many quarters of the globe—including Sydney, London and, most recently, at the University of Lund (Sweden). After every lecture I was urged to write the history of Dr O’Meara. Hence this book.
I must thank my publishers, Tony and Anna Farmar, who were kind, understanding and so tolerant of my written English. (Doctors can’t spell—our formal education stops at the age of seventeen, after that it’s a whole new language we must learn, hence our bad writing is just a cover-up for bad spelling!)
Tony and Anna have had the unenviable task of reducing the original work of 738 pages down to a readable 280 pages. Thanks to my most tolerant secretaries Liz Reythorn and Maria Freeman, who typed and re-typed many pages without a murmur of complaint. A big thank you to Bruce Bradley SJ, who encouraged me back to writing when I had all but given up what I felt was an impossible task. Thanks to John Geary who produced the splendid photographs of Newtown House.
To all these people and many more I am indebted: thank you all.
Hubert O’Connor
September 2008