The Fever Tree (37 page)

Thanks to my editors, Venetia Butterfield and Amy Einhorn, and all the staff at Penguin Group, without whose help this novel would be a much less worthy book. Thanks to my brilliant agent Araminta Whitley, who made it all happen, and to Harry Man, Alice Saunders, and the rest of the staff at LAW. Likewise thanks to Stephanie Cabot at The Gernert Company, and to Nicki Kennedy, Sam Edenborough, and their team at ILA.

The Fever Tree
couldn’t have been written without the resources of the British Library, which made available to me countless diaries and firsthand accounts of life on the diamond fields—my gratitude goes out to the men and women who wrote them.

Several historians have written very well on the politics of Kimberley. Particularly useful for my research were Martin Meredith’s
Diamonds, Gold and War
, Robert Vicat Turrell’s
Capital and Labour on the Kimberley Diamond Fields, 1871–1890
, and William H. Worger’s
South Africa’s City of Diamonds
. I have taken liberty with a few dates, and an earnest historian might notice that certain events took place a couple of years before or after they appear in this narrative.

The austere beauty of the Karoo inspired me to write this novel, but I couldn’t have brought its stories to life without the help of three books: Lawrence Green’s
Karoo
, Eve Palmer’s
The Plains of Camdeboo
, and Pauline Smith’s wonderful collection of short stories,
The Little Karoo
. Thanks also to Ailsa Tudhope, who was so generous with her anecdotes of nineteenth-century life in Prince Albert.

I’m indebted to all those of you who were either willing or coerced into reading the book in draft form: William Beinart, Suellen Dainty, Colin Edwards, Kylie Fitzpatrick, Deborah Gaitskell, Kirsty Gordon, Tessa Hadley, Brett Hardman, Richard Kerridge, Angela Lett, Jack Wolf, and Moogie Wood.

I couldn’t have asked for a more committed writing companion than Duke, who heard the novel being read out loud countless times, and steadfastly managed to sleep through every word.

To my father, to Charlie, Whitney, and Dorrie, and most especially to my mother—thank you for setting me on this path.

And to Dave, the greatest thanks of all.

Jennifer McVeigh graduated from Oxford University in 2002 with a First in English literature. She went on to work in film, television, radio, and publishing, before giving up her day job to write fiction.
The Fever Tree
is her first novel.

*
Latin: “what is mine” and “what is yours.”