The Rake (20 page)

Authors: William F. Buckley

BOOK: The Rake

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Acknowledgments

This novel was written in Nassau, our adopted winter home. My Swiss passport, after forty-five years, was stamped
NE PLUS SKIER
âthe dreadful fate that hits all skiers when their time has palpably come to do something else. In Nassau one can swim and sail and play tennis and golf, none of which attracts me any more: so this novel came quickly to fruition, from an idea I had long ago played with, the life of an American rake.

I am enormously indebted to Michael Seringhaus, who took a brief leave from his graduate studies in molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale. We had become friends aboard my boat, on which he had undertaken a summer's chores a couple of years earlier. His schedule permitted him to spend a month with us in Nassau furnishing ideas, corrections, and inspiration.

As is almost always so, the next step was to deposit my manuscript with Samuel S. Vaughan, who has invested literacy and spark and subtlety in more than thirty of my books. His patience and ingenuity keep me alive and, as will be acknowledged by readers of
The Rake
, my writings perdurable. I am ever so grateful to him.

Lois Wallace, my agent, gave the manuscript her usual sharp-eyed reading. Linda Bridges of
National Review
was helpful and
wonderfully informed. Frances Bronson kept us all in order, and I thank her for her talent and patience and affection.

This is my first outing under the patronage of Cal Morgan, the talented executive editor of HarperCollins, who has provided many helpful suggestions.

âWFB
Stamford, Connecticut
January 2007

About the Author

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR.
is the legendary founder of the modern conservative movement. The author of many celebrated nonfiction books, including
God and Man at Yale,
he has also written a series of bestselling novels, among them the Blackford Oakes spy series and
Elvis in the Morning.
The founder of the
National Review
and for many years the host of
Firing Line,
Buckley lives in Connecticut.

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www.AuthorTracker.com
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Also by William F. Buckley Jr.

God and Man at Yale

McCarthy and His Enemies (with L. Brent Bozell)

Up from Liberalism

Rumbles Right and Left

The Unmaking of a Mayor

The Jeweler's Eye

The Governor Listeth

Cruising Speed

Inveighing We Will Go

Four Reforms

United Nations Journal: A Delegate's Odyssey

Execution Eve

Saving the Queen

Airborne

Stained Glass

A Hymnal: The Controversial Arts

Who's on First

Marco Polo,

If You Can

Atlantic High: A Celebration

Overdrive: A Personal Documentary

The Story of Henri Tod

See You Later Alligator

Right Reason

High Jinx

Mongoose, R.I.P.

Racing Through Paradise

On the Firing Line: The Public Life of Public Figures

Gratitude: Reflections on What We Owe to Our Country

Tucker's Last Stand

In Search of Anti-Semitism

Windfall: The End of the Affair

Happy Days Were Here Again: Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist

A Very Private Plot

Brothers No More

The Blackford Oakes Reader

Buckley: The Right Word

Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith

The Redhunter

Let Us Talk of Many Things: The Collected Speeches

Spytime: The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton

Elvis in the Morning

Nuremberg: The Reckoning Getting It Right

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

Miles Gone By: A Literary Autobiography

Last Call for Blackford Oakes

Credits

Cover design by Richard Ljoenes

Front Cover and spine photograph by Getty Images

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE RAKE
. Copyright Â© 2007 by William F. Buckley Jr. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition July 2007 ISBN 9780061751806

Version 03142014

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