by Karen Mack
Within the confines of a work of fiction, we have attempted to make this book as historically accurate as possible regarding fin de siècle Vienna, including the political and social environment surrounding the Hapsburg Empire before its eventual collapse.
The following books were particularly useful. Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, by Carl E. Schorske; Schnitzler’s Century, by Peter Gay; A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888–1889, by Frederic Morton; Wittgenstein’s Vienna, by Allan Janik and Stephen Edelston Toulmin; Pleasure Wars: The Bourgeois Experience: From Victoria to Freud, by Peter Gay; The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire, by Andrew Wheatcroft; Austria-Hungary Handbook for Travellers, by Karl Baedeker; Alma Mahler-Werfel: Diaries, 1898–1902; Fräulein Else, by Arthur Schnitzler; and The Radetzky March, by Joseph Roth.
Finally, most helpful in re-creating the details of a bourgeois Viennese doctor’s home were the following: Inside the Victorian Home, by Judith Flanders; English Women’s Clothing in the Nineteenth Century, by C. Willett Cunnington; Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, by Alison Light; Beeton’s Book of Household Management, edited by Mrs. Isabella Beeton; Victorian and Edwardian Fashions from “La Mode Illustrée,” edited by JoAnne Olian; The Writer’s Guide to Everyday Life in Regency and Victorian England from 1811–1901, by Kristine Hughes; and Cooking the Austrian Way, by Ann Knox.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, we would like to thank Molly Friedrich. Without her guidance and tireless efforts on our behalf there would be no book.
To Amy Einhorn, our editor, whose exceptional insights and literary instincts brought this book to life.
Also, for their hours of attention and skill, we’d like to thank Lucy Carson, Molly Schulman, Nichole LeFebvre, and Elizabeth Stein.
To everyone at Putnam—the cover artists, the talented publicity team, and the extraordinarily knowledgeable copy editors—we are grateful for their support and expertise.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Karen Mack, a former attorney, is a Golden Globe Award–winning film and televison producer. Jennifer Kaufman was a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times and a two-time winner of the national Penney-Missouri Journalism Award. Both reside in Los Angeles.