Salamander (44 page)

This story is a work of fiction. The characters, including the historical figures, have been imagined.

Many books helped write this one. The art of printing was illuminated by Robert Bringhurst’s
The Elements of Typographic Style
(Hartley & Marks, 1996); Elizabeth Eisenstein’s
The Printing Press as an Agent of Change
(Cambridge University Press, 1979); and Kristina Johannsen’s
Cabinets of Wonder: Nicholas Flood and the Magic of Technology
(Porphyry Press, 1968). The China of this novel was inspired by Cao Xueqin’s
The Dream of the Red Chamber
and Wu Ching-Tzu’s
The Scholars
. Details of eighteenth-century Canton and the porcelain trade have been adapted from
Chinese Export Porcelain
, by Jean Mudge (Associated University Presses, 1981). Luciano Canfora’s
The Vanished Library
(University of California Press, 1989. Trans. Martin Ryle) and E.M. Forster’s
Alexandria: A History and Guide
provided threads into that city’s labyrinths. The midwife’s
fairytale on
this page
was adapted from a story in Italo Calvino’s
Italian Folktales
. (Pantheon, 1980. Trans. George Martin). The excerpt on pages 128-29 is from
The Adventures of Eovaii
, by Eliza Haywood. The song on
this page
is by Thomas Arne.

The description of the
alam
owes much to “The Book of Sand,” a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. The novel that he never wrote was also a great inspiration.

An early version of “The Cage of Mirrors” was included in
Threshold: An Anthology of Contemporary Writing from Alberta
, edited by Srdja Pavlovic (University of Alberta Press, 1999). A version of the “Gardener’s Tale” appeared in
Descant
105, Summer 1999.

Many thanks to Richard Harrison and Peter Oliva for their generous advice and encouragement, and to Aritha van Herk, the ideal reader. A special thank you to Ellen Seligman for her invaluable contributions to this book.

I am grateful to the crew of Pages Books in Calgary, for book talk and lore, and to the crew of NeWest Press for helpful suggestions. Thanks to George Bowering, Peter Ehlers, Jon Kertzer, Pamela McCallum, and Richard Wall; to Maria Batalla, Peter Buck, Anita Chong, Sharon Friedman, Carolyn Ives, Yukiko Kagami, Alberto Manguel, Ibrahim Sumrain, Ralph Vicinanza, and Thomas Wharton Sr.

Thank you, David Arthur, for the hour spent in your wondrous library, And finally, to Sharon Avery, descendant of pirates, boundless gratitude.

Thomas Wharton was born in northern Alberta. His acclaimed first novel,
Icefields
(1995), won the regional Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book (Caribbean and Canada), the Writers Guild of Alberta Best First Book Award, and the Banff Mountain Book Festival Grand Prize.
Salamander
(2001) was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. His work has been anthologized in Canada and the U.S.

Wharton lives in Edmonton with his wife, Sharon, and their three children. He is at work on his next novel.