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Authors: Ciji Ware

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Wicked Company (104 page)

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In addition, I would like to thank Robert Bearman, Senior Archivist, and Eileen Alberti, Archivist, at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon. Ms. Alberti and I shared a wonderful moment when—attempting to determine the precise location of the White Lion Inn in 1769—we discovered we were
standing
in it! That same plot of land now forms part of the library and garden at the rear of Shakespeare’s birthplace on Henley Street. Also in Stratford, actress and B&B hostess Mary Henry kept me fortified with a comfy bed, scones, and strong tea while I researched Garrick’s 1769 Shakespeare Jubilee in that former market town.

At Bath’s Reference Library on Queen’s Square, the librarians and photocopyists were enormously helpful in chasing down the small details I sought regarding the Orchard Street Theater. Thanks, too, to guides at Bath Abbey, the Pump Room, the Assembly Rooms, the Roman Baths, and Museum, Number One Royal Crescent House; to the proprietors of Sally Lunn’s bun shop; and to Andrew Byrne and the staff at the Royal Crescent Hotel where I was pampered to excess in the Sir Percy Blakeney Suite. Also, in regard to the section of the novel dealing with the spa itself, Whittier College Associate Professor of Art History, Paula Radisich generously shared her marvelous lecture “Taking the Body to Bath.”

In London, I owe a great debt of thanks to actress and friend Helen Mirren who provided elegant digs while I prowled Covent Garden from Half Moon Passage to Martlet Court. Archivist and former manager George Hoare at Theatre Royal Drury Lane led me on a tour of the bowels of the building to the catwalk eighty feet above the stage, dispensing wonderful historical notes and information on items of interest.

I enjoyed a similarly happy experience, thanks to Ewen Balfour, Director of Public Affairs, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the location of the original Covent Garden Theater. The Theatre Museum and Library on nearby Tavistock Street provided a wealth of information and engravings. Rare-book expert John Dreyfus was my host at a wonderful luncheon at the venerable Garrick Club and provided entrée to the Garrick Library and the club’s collection of portraiture and Garrick memorabilia. Unlike the Players Club in New York City (which was modeled after its London counterpart and admitted women in 1989), as of this writing, The Garrick still does not allow women on its premises other than as visitors—a fact I find astonishing, given Garrick’s steadfast support of women writers.

I am grateful to internist Dr. Wilbur Schwartz who advised me about the progressive nature of David Garrick’s miserable malady, gallbladder disease.

It is impossible to credit the many admirable scholarly works that provide the historical underpinnings of this novel. However, several books were crucial: first among them is
Curtain Calls: British and American Women and the Theater 1660–1820
edited by Macheski and Schofield (Ohio University Press, 1990). Central to my thesis that modern women writers have inherited a literary tradition from women in the eighteenth century was
Mothers of the Novel
by Dale Spender (Pandora Press, 1986). Other invaluable texts included
A Dictionary of British and American Women Writers 1660–1800
edited by Janet Todd (Rowman & Allanheld, 1985);
The Plays of Frances Sheridan
edited by Hogan and Beasley (University of Delaware Press, 1985);
The Great Shakespeare Jubilee
by Christian Dellman (Michael Joseph Publishers, 1964);
Eros Revived: Erotica of the Enlightenment in England and America
by Peter Wagner (Paladin Press, 1990);
David Garrick: A Critical Biography
by George Winchester Stone, Jr., and George M. Kahrl (Southern Illinois University Press, 1979);
Wits, Wenches and Wantons: London’s Low Life—Covent Garden in the Eighteenth Century
by E. J. Burford (Robert Hall Publisher, 1986);
The Censorship of English Drama 1737–1824
by L. W. Connolly (The Huntington Library, 1976);
Drury Lane Calendar
by Dougald MacMillan (Clarendon Press, 1938);
Catalogue of the Larpent Plays in the Huntington Library
by Dougald MacMillan;
The London Stage: 1660–1800
(Part 4) by George Winchester Stone, Jr. (Southern Illinois University Press, 1962);
A Treatise on Madness
by William Battie, M.D. (1758); and
Remarks on Dr. Battie’s Treatise on Madness
by John Monro, M.D. (1758).

Thanks to Scotland-lover, Ann Skipper, for reading early drafts, and to my fellow historical novelists and friends, Elda Minger and Cynthia Wright. Edmund and Mary Fry, proprietors of the tea emporium Rose Tree Cottage in Pasadena, obtained many British publications for me and allowed me to make their establishment my after-hours “club.”

And finally, my thanks to Bantam editor and dear friend, the late Beverly Lewis, for holding me to her high standards, and to my sister, Joy Ware, whose amazing skills on a fifteen-year-old, electronically-scanned paperback ultimately produced a readable manuscript from which Sourcebooks Landmark and I could fashion this lovely, new edition.

My son, Jamie Ware Billett, deserves enormous credit for getting himself admitted to and educated at Harvard University while his mother’s mind was elsewhere during the writing of this novel. My dearest husband of three decades-plus, journalist, screenwriter, and now Internet marketing executive, Anthony Cook, knows how much he’s contributed to this novel when it was being written, and how very much I appreciate his love and support during the time it’s taken to bring about this “come-back” edition.

Without doubt, some of Sophie and Hunter’s debates about life and literature may sound awfully familiar to him.

Ciji Ware

Sausalito, California

Ciji Ware welcomes hearing from readers at www.cijiware.com

About the Author

Ciji Ware has been an Emmy-award winning television producer, reporter, writer, and radio host. A Harvard graduate, she has written numerous fiction and non-fiction books, including the award-winning
Island of the Swans.
When she’s not writing, Ciji is a Scottish history and dancing aficionado. She and her husband live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

BOOK: Wicked Company
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