The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dominic Smith is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, as well as three other novels: Bright and Distant Shores, The Beautiful Miscellaneous, and The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre. His writing has appeared widely, in such publications as The New York Times, The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, and The Australian. He has received literature grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Australia Council for the Arts. Smith grew up in Sydney, Australia, and now lives in Seattle, Washington. He teaches in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. You can sign up for email updates here.
Sarah Crichton Books
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
175 Varick Street, New York 10014
Copyright © 2019 by Dominic Smith
All rights reserved
First edition, 2019
Owing to limitations of space, illustration credits can be found at the back of the book.
E-book ISBN: 978-0-374-71969-2
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Author’s Note
1. The Knickerbocker
2. The Silver Quickening
3. A Magnificent Outburst
4. The Fiery Splash
5. The Bender Bijoux
6. The Lost Film
7. Across the River
8. The Idea
9. The Feature
10. The Actress Prepares
11. The Widow
12. Filming Begins
13. The Comet
14. The Proposal
15. The Mansion of Happiness
16. The Old Neighborhood
17. Last Day of Shooting
18. The Premiere
19. Edison’s Attack
20. The Monogrammed Suitcase
21. The First Escape
22. War Correspondents
23. The Belgian Woods
24. The Château
25. The Sack of Louvain
26. Antwerp
27. Exile
28. The Blackout
29. The Messenger
30. Faux Paris
31. Andorra
32. Return to the River
Acknowledgments
Illustration Credits
Also by Dominic Smith
A Note About the Author
Copyright
The Electric Hotel: A Novel Page 39
