Wilmut, Roger. Kindly Leave the Stage! The Story of Variety, 1919–1960. London: Methuen, 1985.
Wilson, Robert Forrest. Paris on Parade. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1924.
Woodward, Christopher. The London Palladium: The Story of the Theatre and Its Stars. Huddersfield: Jeremy Mills Publishing, 2009.
Ziegler-McPherson, Christina A. Immigrants in Hoboken: One-Way Ticket, 1845–1985. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2011.
JOURNAL AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES
Cobb, Russell. “Why Do So Many People Pretend to Be Native American?” This Land Press, August 2014.
Green, Rayna. “The Tribe Called Wannabee: Playing Indian in America and Europe.” Folklore 99, no. 1 (January 1988): pp. 30–55.
McFeely, William S. “The Black Cats of Amherst.” Amherst Magazine, Spring 2010.
Meyer Zu Erpen, Walter J., and Joy Lowe. “The Canadian Spiritualist Movement and Sources for Its Study.” Archivaria, Summer 1991, p. 4.
Willson, Perry. “The Nation in Uniform? Fascist Italy, 1919–1943,” Past and Present 221, no. 1 (November 2013): pp. 239–72.
THESES
Britten, Thomas A. “American Indians in World War I: Military Service as a Catalyst for Reform.” PhD diss., Texas Tech University, 1994.
Camurat, Diane. “The American Indian and the Great War: Real and Imagined.” Master’s thesis, University of Paris, 1993.
SELECTED DIGITAL ARCHIVES
Archives Départementales des Alpes-Maritimes, Archives Historiques L’Express et L’Impartial, Archives Historiques Le Temps, British Columbia Historical Newspapers, British Newspaper Archive, California Digital Newspaper Collection, Corriere della Sera Digital Archive, Fold3.com (Bureau of Investigation Old German Files), Old Fulton NY Postcards, Gallica, Genealogy Bank, Google News Archive, Hoboken Historical Museum, La Stampa Digital Archive, Library of Congress Digital Collections, Montana Digital Archive, Newspapers.com, Panama-California Exposition Digital Archive, Peel’s Prairie Provinces, Royal Library of Belgium, Trove, Utah Digital Newspapers.
ARCHIVES/LIBRARIES
Archives and Museum of Literature, Brussels; London Metropolitan Archives; Ministry of Justice, Central Law Library, Rome; National Archives, UK; National Library of France, Paris; Rhode Island Historical Society; Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels; Washington State University.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank my agents—Matthew Hamilton at Aitken Alexander Associates in London, and Anna Stein at I.C.M. Partners in New York City—for setting in motion the long process of turning my initial idea into this book. Without their help and encouragement, my book proposal wouldn’t have caught the attention of Domenica Alioto and Claire Potter at Crown Publishing. I’m indebted to them not only for their decision to commission King Con, but also for the unremitting vigor and enthusiasm with which they’ve supported it. On almost every level, each draft of my book was significantly improved by Claire’s editorial skills, wielded with supreme patience, tact, and sensitivity. Those last few epithets apply to her copyediting colleague, Michelle Daniel, too. At risk of sounding grovelingly sycophantic, I count myself fortunate to have ended up being published by a company that devotes such care to every aspect of the publishing process.
My book also benefited from masses of invaluable suggestions, comments, and corrections supplied by my friend the film historian Peter Krämer, who also provided me with various English translations of German newspaper articles. When dealing with the much greater volume of material in Italian, I was fortunate enough to be able to enlist the expertise of an Italian-speaking friend, Doralba Picerno. As well as translating large quantities of Italian text, she undertook research for me in several Italian archives, her fascination with Edgar Laplante and her amusement at his antics sustaining me through periods when I was feeling overwhelmed by the project.
So geographically far-reaching was the Edgar Laplante saga that, in order to keep to my research and writing schedule, I needed to hire other researchers, whose contribution I greatly appreciate. This other research was carried out by my friend Marc Fireman, who investigated some of Edgar’s Californian adventures; by Christine Lamar, who delved round in the Rhode Island Historical Society’s collection; and by Zach Conn, who trawled through Yale University Library’s newspaper collection.
I remember once interviewing the novelist Will Self and commenting upon how surprised I was to find that nonfiction writing expanded my social circle. With deadpan humor, he remarked that fiction writing has a tendency to shrink your social circle. I’m extremely fortunate in having made so many cherished friends through my writing, friends who provided boundless support and practical assistance throughout the composition of this book. Those friends include Marc-Henri Glendening, Cathi Unsworth, Mike Meekin, Virginia Ironside, Keiron Pim, Will Buckley, and Jon Glover. In the case of Max Décharné and Katja Klier, that support extended to lending me their flat while I carried out London-based research.
Thanks are also owed to Keith and Dorothy Holmes, two of the blood relatives of Edgar Laplante’s luckless second wife. I was touched by their generosity in sharing details of their family history. I’m grateful as well to the following archivists and librarians who contributed to my research, many of them going well beyond the call of duty: Cheryl Gunselman, manuscripts librarian at Washington State University Libraries; Alla Roylance, senior librarian at Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Collection; Brian Merlis at the excellent BrooklynPix.com, one of the finest sources of material about that borough; Duncan Ball, information specialist at the Met Office, UK; Lisa Lipshires, reference librarian at Springfield City Library; Julienne Boudreau at the Cinémathèque Québécoise; Gail Loper at Fremont County Pioneer Museum; Christian Bach at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France; Cindy Brown at the Wyoming State Archives; Ian Pittock, assistant librarian, Map Department, Cambridge University Library, UK; Jack Mueller and Mary Hartman at the Laramie branch of the Wyoming Historical Society; Mike Thomason, research librarian at Pueblo Library; Edmund Dunne at the Archives and History Department of Manchester Central Library, UK; Catherine Mills, curator of library and archives at History San José; Michael Maloney, librarian/archivist at Grems-Doolittle Library; Gail and Liz at Libraries Unlimited South West, UK; Laura Hobbs, archivist (digital) at the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle, UK; Lisa Schoblasky, special collections services librarian at the Newberry Library; Adam M. Silva, the assistant curator/photography at the Library of Congress; and Luc Wanlin at the Archives et Musée de la Littérature, Brussels.
Lastly, I’d like to thank my partner, Jo Willingham, and my father, David Willetts, for taking my literary ambitions seriously even when there was more reason for skepticism than belief.
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