by Sarah Perry
The nature of Stella Ransome’s spes pthisica was profoundly influenced by Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, an exquisite meditation on desire and suffering, filtered through a lens of blue.
Strange News Out of Essex, the pamphlet alerting villagers at Henham-on-the-Mount to the presence of the Essex Serpent, is real. You may see both the 1669 original and Miller Christy’s 1885 facsimile at the British Library; a copy of the facsimile is also held in the library at Saffron Walden, Essex, where it was first printed. The titles of each of this book’s four parts are taken from the text of the pamphlet.
Mary Anning’s ‘sea-dragons’ are displayed in London’s Natural History Museum.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and most loving thanks to my dear Rob, whose company is an inexhaustible supply of interest and charm, and who first told me about the legend of the Essex Serpent.
I’m profoundly grateful, as ever, to Hannah Westland and Jenny Hewson for their wisdom and support, and for their uncanny habit of knowing my mind better than I do: to work with them is a privilege and joy. My thanks also to Anna-Marie Fitzgerald, Flora Willis, Ruth Petrie, Emily Berry, Zoe Waldie and Lexie Hamblin, all of whom have done so much for me, and for this book.
Thank you to my family, who’ve been so kind to me, particularly to Ethan and Amelie, dauntless travellers through time and space. Thanks also to my three smallest muses: Dotty, Mary and Alice.
Thank you to Louisa Yates, my first reader and my tutor; to Helen Bynum, who was kind enough to advise me on aspects of TB; and to Helen Macdonald, for her guidance on matters floral and avian. Much of this book was drafted at Gladstone’s Library, where I think a piece of my shadow lives always at the same desk: thank you to all my friends there, particularly Peter Francis.
For their patience, friendship and wisdom, my love and thanks to Michelle Woolfenden, Tom Woolfenden, Sally Roe, Sally Craythorne, Holly O’Neill, Anna Mouser, Jon Windeatt, Ben Johncock, Ellie Eaton, Kate Jones and Stephen Crowe. I am endlessly grateful for the kindness and support shown to me by writers, many of whom I have admired for years: thank you especially to Sarah Waters, John Burnside, Sophie Hannah, Melissa Harrison, Katherine Angel and Vanessa Gebbie. To the women of the FOC, who were the first ever to hear me read from this book: my love.
I could not have written this book without the support of the Arts Council, and am profoundly grateful for their assistance, and for that of Sam Ruddock and Chris Gribble at the Norwich Writers’ Centre.
ALSO FROM SERPENT’S TAIL
After Me Comes The Flood
Sarah Perry
Winner of the East Anglian Book of the Year Award 2014
Elegant, gently sinister and psychologically complex, After Me Comes The Flood is a haunting and hypnotic debut novel by a brilliant new voice.
Winner of the East Anglian Book of the Year Award 2014
ISBN 978 1 78125 364 9
eISBN 978 1 84668 946 8
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Karen Joy Fowler
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014
Rosemary’s young, just at college, and she’s decided not to tell anyone a thing about her family. So we’re not going to tell you too much either: you’ll have to find out for yourselves, round about page 77, what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any other.
ISBN 978 1 84668 966 6
eISBN 978 1 78283 020 7
Saint Mazie
Jami Attenberg
From the bestselling author of The Middlesteins comes this unique novel about a forgotten heroine of the 1930s.
‘A terrific novel: touching, funny and big-hearted’ Monica Ali
ISBN 978 1 84668 992 5
eISBN 978 1 78283 069 6
Under The Visible Life
Kim Echlin
‘This story of motherhood and friendship, anchored by two extraordinary heroines, will stay with me for a long time’ Khaled Hosseini
Two women and a friendship that will change everything. A stunning meditation on how hope can remain alive in the darkest of times, if we have someone to share our burdens with.
ISBN 978 1 78125 579 7
eISBN 978 1 78283 219 5
The Evening Chorus
Helen Humphreys
A story of four lives torn apart by war, about falling in and out of love, and the unlikely moments that come to define a life.
ISBN 978 1 78125 303 8
eISBN 978 1 78283 087 0
Petite Mort
Beatrice Hitchman
Shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize 2014
Scandal, intoxication and lies flourish in the silent film studios of Paris.
‘Sumptuous … part Moulin Rouge, part Alfred Hitchcock’ – Grazia
ISBN 978 1 84668 907 9
eISBN 978 1 84765 868 5
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Dedication
New Year’s Eve
I: Strange News out of Essex
January
1
February
1
2
3
4
5
March
1
2
3
II: To use his Best Endeavour
April
1
2
3
May
1
2
3
4
5
6
III: To Keep a Constant watch
June
1
2
3
4
5
July
1
August
1
2
IV: These Last Times of Rebellion
September
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
November
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements