Various Flavors of Coffee (57 page)

I have moved around one or two dates in the history of the suffragette movement to suit my story, but the events themselves happened much as I describe. For primary sources I am particularly indebted to
Votes for Women:The Virago Book of Suffragettes,
edited by Joyce Marlow, and
Literature of the Women’s Suffrage Campaign in England,
edited by Carolyn Christensen Nelson.

My descriptions of turn-of-the-century treatments for hysteria are based on
TheTechnology of Orgasm:“Hysteria,” TheVibrator, andWomen’s Sexual Satisfaction
by Rachel P. Maines. What she relates sounds so strange to modern ears that I have taken the liberty of putting directly into the mouths of my fictional doctors some of the contemporary sources quoted by her.

Some of my descriptions of
fin-de-siècle
London, as well as various menus, meals and observations, are also taken from contemporary accounts, including
Scenes of London Life
by Henry Mayhew and John Binney, and
Dinners and Diners
by Lt. Col. Newnham-Davis, both archived on the excellent
www.victor
ianlondon.org
.

Robert Wallis’s letters as he travels to Africa are based on several late-Victorian travelers’ journals, such as those by Gustave Flaubert and Mary Kingsley—both far more enthusiastic explorers of that continent than Robert. I owe a special debt to Charles Nicholl’s
Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa 1880–91,
and in particular to the section in which he re-creates Rimbaud’s journey from Aden to Harar from the notes of Alfred Bardey, coffee merchant and adventurer.

For a description of a Victorian-era slave sale, I drew on
To the Heart of the Nile
by Pat Shipman. This is the biography of Lady Florence Baker, who was spotted at one such sale by the explorer Samuel Baker and who subsequently became his wife.

My heartfelt thanks go to those who read early drafts. In particular to Tim Riley, Judith Evans and Elinor Cooper: passionate advocates, indefatigable rereaders and tough critics; to Peter Souter for his early enthusiasm; and to my agents Caradoc King and Linda Shaughnessy for their help and commitment throughout. And of course Jo Dickinson and Kate Miciak, my editors at Little, Brown and Random House respectively, without whom
The Various Flavors of Coffee
would have been a very different brew.

*

The Various Flavors of Coffee
is dedicated to my sisters: Clare, Carolyn and Jane.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

A
NTHONY
C
APELLA
is a lover of all things culinary who lives in Oxfordshire, England. His previous novels,
The Wedding Officer
and
The Food of Love,
have been translated into twenty-two languages. He is at work on his next novel.