I
GIVE ALL MY BOOKS CODE NAMES,
which I usually reveal on my website. This one was called “Chess Champion,” and as the name was a spoiler, I didn’t want to include it there. But now you know.

Every piece of historical fiction alters history in at least some tiny regard. For this book, I had to shift history in several instances, and I wanted to acknowledge those areas upfront.

First, and most obviously, the first international chess tournament—which did take place in London in 1851—was won by Adolf Anderssen rather than Gustav Hernst, and there were no shenanigans involved in the running of the tournament, nor were there twelve-year-old children of any gender involved.

The description about what happened to Minnie when people discovered she was a girl—and her father betrayed her—was taken from a newspaper clipping that I read years ago. It described a man who was discovered to be a woman. A crowd formed, and the woman was beaten up. Gender roles were very strictly policed back then.

My largest departure, and one that would change the world that followed, is the scientific discoveries that Sebastian lectures about here. I wanted Sebastian to be an infamous scientist and a follower of Darwin, but I also wanted him to be able to put forth discoveries of his own that were just as revolutionary. Those who follow the history of science know that in our world the science of genetics was first discovered by Gregor Mendel, in a paper that was presented in 1866, which went absolutely nowhere. Nobody made the connection between Mendel’s discovery and the theory of evolution, even though what Mendel set forth was essentially a theory for the transfer of genes from one generation to the next. It wasn’t until early in the twentieth century that Mendel’s work was rediscovered and given its due.

In my world, I have claimed Mendel’s work for Sebastian. These are discoveries he
could
have made at the time. But the discovery of genetics by someone who had direct contact with Charles Darwin would radically change the pace of scientific advancement. In that sense, the world I have written would have to necessarily diverge from the world we live in after the time of these books.

(Actually, Sebastian’s work started with the color of snapdragons, which, unlike Mendel’s peas, are not incompletely dominant to each other.)

In a fourth departure, the Leicester of 1863 really didn’t need a duke to write handbills and radicalize the populace. It was fairly radical on its own. For instance, by 1863, workers in Leicester had started a food cooperative. Today, the idea of a food co-op seems more commonplace. At the time, it was a huge stride forward. Workers were paid by factory owners, who also owned most of the shops nearby.

A food cooperative—one where workers pooled their money and used it to bring in fruits and vegetables at reasonable prices—was in fact a huge advance in factory towns. It allowed workers to pay less and get more, and Leicester’s food cooperative was one of the first—and one of the most successful—to be put in place. Stevens refers to it as a “radical” item, and in point of fact, it would have seemed so to some factory owners. Anything that reduced the dependence that workers had on their masters was “radical.”

Another subject of civil unrest was the question of vaccination. Vaccinations first became mandatory in England in 1853, and many people absolutely hated it. It was the subject of a great deal of civil disobedience. The reasons given at that time were
very
different from those that are given by those who dislike vaccines today. (For one thing, vaccinating people before the germ theory of disease was understood led to all sorts of complications that we don’t face today. Think of the diseases that are spread today by reusing needles.) and the inclusion of that tiny part of the historical debate is meant only to represent the times, not to say anything about the modern issue.

Whether a duke in 1863 might, in fact, work for the abolition of the peerage is not something I can know. In any event, I don’t know if Robert would have been happy with the pace of improvement in England. Today, British peers are no longer tried by the House of Lords; they no longer have veto power over bills passed by the House of Commons. And hey, it only took a small handful of centuries to get to that point.

Oliver asks for “carbon oil” when he is imprisoned. Referring to the substance he wanted as “carbon oil” is a little bit of a stretch on my part. In the United States, we’d call it “kerosene.” In the UK, it’s referred to as “paraffin.” Using the latter term proved confusing for early readers who associated paraffin with the waxy stuff that’s used in manicures these days. In the early 1860s, paraffin/kerosene/carbon oil was new enough that usage hadn’t been nailed down. “Carbon oil”
was
used to describe the substance. In this instance, I decided to take a little liberty and go with a name that it could have been called by at that time, one that wouldn’t confuse anyone.

Acknowledgments

I
NEVER KNOW WHERE TO START
with acknowledgments, because there are so many people who must be acknowledged. At best, I hope to remember people in large groups, crossing my fingers that I don’t forget anyone important. Invariably, I forget almost everyone. First and foremost, my family—my parents and my many sisters and few brothers—I’m always grateful for you, for understanding things that don’t make sense to anyone else. Mr. Milan, for preferring cantankerousness generally. And I’m especially grateful for Pele and Silver, which makes no sense at all because they do nothing but demand attention and toss mice around.

This book wasn’t easy to write or edit. Tessa, Carey, and Leigh, I don’t know what I would do without you. Peeners—ditto. Sherry and Tessa once again helped me write back cover copy, because seriously, I suck at that. Robin Harders always pushes me to think about things I’d rather not think about; Martha Trachtenberg catches all the many ways I spell people’s names, because seriously, I suck at that, too. Nick Ambrose is fast and reliable, and without Anne Victory, I’d be saying “Oops!” a lot more.

But mostly, I want to thank my readers. Every difficult book reaches a point where I want to kick it and scream and run around in circles. If I didn’t know that you were waiting for this, I might have huddled in a little shivering ball on my bed instead of taking a deep breath and going back to writing. You make it worth it for me, and I hope I returned the favor.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover design © Courtney Milan.

Cover photographs © Anna Furman | istockphoto.com.

Digital Edition 1.0

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