Madame Koska and the Imperial Brooch

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I would like to thank all the wonderful people who went beyond the call of duty to help with this book. They are listed in alphabetical order of their last name, since how else could I establish precedence?

Ms. Kathleen Fish

Dr. Penelope Fritzer

Ms. Barbara Houlton

Mr. Gary Morgenstein

Lord David Prosser

Ms. Janet Schmelzer

Mr. Jay Strafford

Ms. Susan Verell

Ms. Louanne M. Wheeler

Mr. Wayne Zurl

In the beginning, Anthony Trollope created Barset and Barchester.[1] And he saw that they were good. Five great tomes had been writ, and he was labouring on the sixth, when a dreadful calamity befell the mighty author. As he sat meditating at the Athenaeum Club, a conversation between two clergymen reached his ears; they were disparaging the beauty of his creations, calling his Barchester characters tired and over-familiar. Great rage seized the literary giant. He rose from his seat and strode toward the offending vicars. “I shall not write another Barchester novel,” he thundered. “And the anger of my readers will follow you unto the seventh generation, since it was your doing and yours alone.” Pale and frightened, the clergymen begged him to reconsider, fearing for their very lives. He refused. “At least finish the novel you are creating now,” said one of them, trembling like a leaf, “Or you will be our death.” Trollope’s kind heart relented a little, and he promised them he would finish that novel, but no more. “You shall not perish,” he added, “but the book will be named The Last Chronicles of Barset.”[2] And so it came to be. The mighty author moved on to the political novels, and never returned to his beloved Barchester, which is a great pity since I would have liked to read more about Signora Neroni and the rest of the Stanhope family.

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