Donatien was inspired by the Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), and for the Marquise du Herle I drew on the Marquis de Sade’s mother-in-law, Marie-Madeleine de Plissay, Présidente de Montreuil (1721–1789), said to be his rival in ruthlessness. For Séléné I took details from the life of novelist and salonnière Claudine Alexandrine Guérin de Tencin (1682–1749), though I gave her the unhappy marriage of the brilliant Louise d’Épinay (1726–1783). Clio was loosely based on the painter Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842), while Clio’s friend Tristan took some of his storyline from Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). Ulysse has a few similarities with rival philosopher and firebrand Voltaire (1694–1778), who lived for many years with the woman of his life, the married mathematician and scientist Émilie du Châtelet (1706–1749).
Some of the Abbé’s views are reworded excerpts from the writings of the Savoyard theorist and critic of the Enlightenment, Joseph de Maistre (1754–1821), whom Isaiah Berlin depicted as a proto-fascist in an essay collected in The Crooked Timber of Humanity.
Acknowledgments
I’m grateful to all those who helped shape the book through their reading and critique of various drafts. Thanks to my wonderful writers group, Caroline Bock, Danielle Stonehirsch, Monica Hogan, Cate Bloom, and Garinè Issasi, who have kept me writing and laughing over the years.
Thanks to Valerie Preiss, who in addition to being an early reader and critiquer went the extra mile to organize a reading of the manuscript by her book club, and introduced me to the concept of literary compersion; and thanks to everyone who read part or all of the book and/or discussed it at the book club meeting, including Amanda Jagusiak, Geoff Kabaservice, Suzanne Turner, Blake Stenning, C. Lee Cawley, and David Plummer.
Thanks to Philip Shade Kightlinger, who besides reading and giving feedback on the manuscript was a patient, encouraging, and supportive sounding board as I struggled to work out plot and character ideas, and who helped me visualize the Erl-King with his sketches.
Thanks to my volunteer readers and friends who gave feedback, including Jennifer Ray, Camille Stanberry Myers, Mariah Brothe, Carolina Lopez-Ruiz, Ravena Guron, and Helen Spande.
Thanks to Embark Literary Journal for featuring the first chapter of this book as an excerpt in its April 2019 issue.
Thanks to all those in my broader network of writer friends for your inspiration, advice, and showing me what good writing looks like. Thanks to the Virginia Center for Creative Arts for granting me a creative writing residency back in 2013 that helped forge many of those connections.
Thanks to my family and friends for being there.
Thanks to the scholars I never had the good fortune to meet but whose work helped inform my understanding of the historical background. I particularly enjoyed books by Philipp Blom, Robert Darnton, Dena Goodman, Maurice Lever, Joan DeJean, Anthony Pagden, and Roger Pearson (though my embroideries on the truth and any unintentional inaccuracies are not to be blamed on anyone but me).
About the Author
Therese Doucet writes, parents, and works a day job in Washington, DC, and Knoxville, TN. She studied cultural history in a Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago for four years, and is a former Fulbright fellow, as well as a creative writing residency fellow of the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in literary magazines including Embark, Hotel Amerika, and Bayou, and one of her essays was listed as a Notable Essay of the Year in Best American Essays 2011.
She can be reached via:
Website: https://theresedoucet.wordpress.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therese.doucet.9
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Strviolin
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from D. X. Varos, Ltd.
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The Queen of Egypt
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J. M. Stephen
Into the Fairy Forest
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Where the Allegheny Meets the Monongahela
We Have Met the Enemy
Spooky Action at a Distance (coming March 2020)
Daniel A. Willis
Immortal Betrayal
Immortal Duplicity
Immortal Revelation
Prophecy of the Awakening
The Prisoner of the Castle of Enlightenment Page 27
