Acknowledgements
THERE ARE TIMES when friends make all the difference. Helen Potts, this book owes you an enormous debt of gratitude. Julie Summers, our writerly walks along the Thames have been invaluable. Thank you both.
Graham Diprose provided helpful pointers relating to the history of photography, and John Brewer talked me very patiently through the wet collodion process of photographic development.
Nick Reynard of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford put me right about flooding in language that proves how close science is to poetry.
Captain Cliff Colborne from the Thames Traditional Boat Society helped figure out how an accident such as Daunt’s might have happened.
Dr Susan Hawkins of Kingston University provided valuable information about nurses and their use of thermometers in the nineteenth century.
Professor Joshua Getzler and Professor Rebecca Probert made useful suggestions relating to legal claims to found children in the nineteenth century.
Simon Steele was illuminating on the subject of distilling.
Nathan Franklin knows everything a man can possibly know about pigs.
A great many people explained aspects of rowing to me; despite their best efforts, I still don’t really understand it. Simon, Will, Julie, Naomi, thank you anyway.
Thank you also to Mary and John Acton, Jo Powell Anson, Mike Anson, Margot Arendse, Jane Bailey, Gaia Banks, Alison Barrow, Toppen Bech, Emily Bestler, Kari Bolin, Valerie Borchardt, Will Bourne Taylor, Maggie Budden, Emma Burton, Erin, Fergus, Paula and Ross Catley, Mark Cocker, Emma Darwin, Jane Darwin, Philip del Nevo, Margaret Denman, Assly Elvins, Lucy Fawcett, Anna Franklin, Vivien Green, Douglas Gurr, Claudia Hammer-Hewstone, Christine Harland-Lang, Ursula Harrison, Peter Hawkins, Philip Hull, Jenny Jacobs, Maggie Ju, Mary and Robert Julier, Håkon Langballe, Eunice Martin, Gary McGibbon, Mary Muir, Kate Samano, Mandy Setterfield, Jeffrey and Pauline Setterfield, Jo Smith, Bernadete Soares de Andrade, Caroline Stüwe Lemarechal, Rachel Phipps of the Woodstock Bookshop, Chris Steele, Greg Thomas, Marianne Velmans, Sarah Whittaker, Anna Withers.
Sources Consulted
Peter Ackroyd, Thames: Sacred River
Graham Diprose and Jeff Robins, The Thames Revisited
Robert Gibbings, Sweet Thames Run Softly
Malcolm Graham, Henry Taunt of Oxford: a Victorian Photographer
Susan Read, The Thames of Henry Taunt
Henry Taunt, A New Map of the Thames
Alfred Williams, Round About the Upper Thames
There is one website I navigated a thousand times while writing this book and which was invaluable to me. It takes you on a journey through space and time, along the river. Where Thames Smooth Waters Glide (www.thames.me.uk) was created by John Eade and he maintains it with dedication. If you can’t get to the Thames itself, this website is the next best thing.
About the Author
Diane Setterfield’s bestselling novel The Thirteenth Tale was published in thirty-eight countries, sold more than three million copies, and was made into a television drama scripted by Christopher Hampton, starring Olivia Colman and Vanessa Redgrave. Her second novel was Bellman & Black, and her new novel is Once Upon a River. Born in rural Berkshire, she now lives near Oxford, by the Thames.
Copyright
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Doubleday
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Diane Setterfield 2018
Cover design and illustration by Sarah Whittaker/TW
Map by Liane Payne/TW
Diane Setterfield has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 97808575256599