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Acknowledgements
Much of this book is about life’s unexpectedness, its chance meetings and route diversions. What follows is an attempt to capture something of that serendipity. I first began to think about Kate Field when I was writing an article about nineteenth-century journalism. While I vaguely knew of Field’s existence, it was an anonymous reader who pointed out that Trollope’s muse might be worth more than a mention. I am grateful to that reader for illuminating something that was in plain sight, and for starting me thinking. I could not have gone on to imagine, and take liberties with, Kate Field’s life without the outstanding works of biographical scholarship by Gary Scharnhorst and Carolyn J. Moss.
Thanks in abundance to:
My editor Arabella Pike, who got and understood this book from the start, for seeing everything that it might be. I have loved working with you. To Julian Humphries, for the glorious cover, and for making the process of imagining it such a joy. I’m hugely grateful. To Charlotte Webb and Iain Hunt, for copy-editing, wisdom and encouragement. To Katherine Patrick, Matt Clacher and Marianne Tatepo, for your energy, imagination and passion, and for bearing with some of my more leftfield ideas, and to all at William Collins.
To divide up friends and colleagues is invidious, but for those friends first met under the umbrella of academic life, my thanks to Aziz Aboobaker, Michael Allen, Jonathan Bate, Mishtooni Bose, Brian Dillon, Lara Feigel, Tim Gao, Christine Gerrard, Will Ghosh, Lloyd (Meadhbh) Houston, Marie-Chantal Killeen, Steven Parissien, Adrian Poole, Marion Turner and Brian Young. Thanks and love, in particular, to Helen Barr.
For early readings of fragments, cheer, interest, or for simply giving me the courage to carry on, I am immensely grateful to Ros Ballaster, Christopher Butler, Gillian Butler, Charles Chubb, Hermione Lee, Lindsay Mackie, Janet Quinn, Alan Rusbridger, Philippe Sands, Kay Scott, Gerry Simpson, Maggie Snowling, Suzanne Stewart, Kate Womersley – and especially to Bart Van Es. Thanks to Tom Cook, for meticulous comments and insights on draft material, and for generally getting it, and to Edward Mendelson for suggesting, eleven years ago, that I try reading Trollope. For inviting me to Hull – a city I have utterly fallen for – my thanks to Richard Meek and the School of Arts at the university.
For completely vital conversations and friendship along the way, thanks and love to Louise Dalton and Tanya Frankel, Amy Shindler and Claudia Fitzgerald. And sorry about that time I killed off a perfectly good evening with an (uninvited) reading from the manuscript at the dinner table.
At different times and in different ways the following people have also inspired or assisted, supported or cheered me. Thank you – Elsa Booth, Paddy and Rebecca Bullard, Richard Butchins, Rachel Buxton, Edward and Camilla Cazalet, David, Hal and Lara Cazalet, Stephanie Kelley, Nell Freeman-Romilly, Vivienne Gleave, Ali and Nick Goodwin, Zoë Hines, Dotti Irving, Julie Kleeman, Marie Merriman, Frances Neale, Olwen Renownden, Colin Shindler, Alexandra Wilson, and thank you to all the Fotherbys. To David and Jenny Rhymes of the Gardeners Arms, North Parade – for always looking out for me, and for giving me my usual place to write when I’m stuck, my thanks and love.
For advice about the world of things bookish, much gratitude to Xander Cansell, John Mitchinson and Harry Bingham. Also to John Brewer and Joanna Vestey for insights into the process of Victorian photography, and for talking about things Russian, Anna Benn. For train stuff, thanks to Sam Sheppard, Tim Dunn (@MrTimDunn) and David Turner. Gratitude to Nancy Browner and Rachael Willis. Thank you, Jonathan Bowling, and the Dermatology department of the Churchill Hospital. And, for everything, my thanks to Yvonne Leeds – you’ve done more than I could ever say to make this all possible.
In Russia, love and buckets of gratitude to the utterly wonderful Anastasia Tolstoy, who took me to her family home at Yasnaya Polyana, to Moscow in search of modern-day Vronskys, on the night train to St Petersburg to look for the latter-day Anna Kareninas. Work should always be as much fun as that was. Along the way I was welcomed by Vladimir Tolstoy, Ekaterina Tolstaya, Catherine Tolstoy and Sergey Shargunov. Thank you for the enormous amount you all did to make my trip so rich and so unforgettable. Thank you to Tom Blackwell and Fekla Tolstaya for allowing me to crash your Christmas party, interview people about the contents of their bags, and attempt sabrage on a stairwell. Thank you so much, Galina Alexieva and Nadezda Pereverzeva, for your time, intelligence and care. Galina, for illuminating Tolstoy’s reading life. Nadezda, for allowing me to hold Tolstoy’s very own copies of Trollope, for explaining what objects meant to Tolstoy, and for finding, as night fell, Sofia’s precious handbag. Yuri Savinov and Natalia Shudzeyko got up early on a Sunday morning on the last day of my trip to Russia, and made their way through the snow to allow me to visit the railway carriage museum at Yasenki. Natalia, I am indebted to you for sharing your knowledge of Russian train travel. My thanks to the curators of the Tolstoy Estate Museum in Moscow, and to the costume and props department of Mosfilm. Andrei Tolstoy, for the sandwiches – cпасибо.
In London N3, thank you to the owners of my childhood home, for being generous enough to allow me to revisit that space.
To Paula Byrne, who champions the writing of women both past and present, thank you for all your support, friendship, inspiration and for simply being fabulous.
Thank you thank you to the wonderful Miranda Ward, who followed Kate Field with me, and helped to track down secrets, umbrellas, swans, funerals, photography studios, theatre maps, the hidden history of the El-train. For astonishing research, subtle brilliance, imagination, friendship, the list goes on …
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, dear and brilliant friend, thank you for reading early scraps, for cocktails, for helping me to imagine that I could even begin to write this.
To my mother and siblings, thanks beyond words. You were generous enough to let me write about the past without asking to read what I said, knowing that mine is only one perspective, and only one version of what happened. Important things I could have said did not have a home in this book. Particularly, the never-ending story I could have written about the love and support you all give me, how much I love you – and the merits of family kitchen-dancing to Finnish YouTube disco videos.
Ivo (now nine) and Ottilie (now six, but soon to be seven). You have lived with this book for a very long time. People of seven and nine remember much – and think more – than we give them credit for. You are wise beyond, and because of, your years. Thank you for being you. I love you to the moon and back, with added fish fingers.
This book has been tended from its first glimmerings by three agents at Rogers, Coleridge and White. Peter Straus was good enough to feel I might have something wor
th saying when we met fourteen years ago, and good enough to want to read it when it finally turned up – and Zoë Waldie helped me take that saying to the end. Thank you also to Miriam Toibin, Matthew Marland and all at RCW for your warmth, kindness and enthusiasm.
One of the epigraphs of this book is taken from the work of Joseph Conrad. It is placed there in memory of David Miller. All too briefly my agent, David was a man who lit up life. He saw what this book might be and, in doing so, helped me to take my hunch to a book proposal and to a publisher. He died too soon, and too suddenly, in what should have been the middle of his life. I am one of many who miss him still.
Andrew Schuman, my husband named at last – you have done more for this book than I can ever tell you, not least by being its hero. Thank you for the glitter ball. I can only repeat the three words you wrote to me on the back of the taxi receipt in 2011, and I am lucky enough to get to say them every day.
The last word shall never be said, according to Conrad, but here goes. This book is dedicated to anyone who has lost too soon.
About the Author
Sophie Ratcliffe is an academic, writer and literary critic. She teaches English at the University of Oxford, where she is an Associate Professor and Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall. She is the author of On Sympathy and edited the authorised edition of P. G. Wodehouse’s letters. She reviews regularly for the national press, and has served as a judge for the Baillie Gifford and Wellcome Book prizes.
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