Thanks also go to the Daughters of the American Revolution and their magazine for providing research material of interest for subjects like Sinterklaas and Dutch culture in Eliza’s time. Lars Hedbor for helping to nitpick the historical accuracy of everything from coffee to French uniforms. Alison Morton and Annalori Ferrell for help with French phrases. Lee Moore for suggesting that Hamilton’s references to Aquileia were actually a reference to an old Roman hero famous for being satisfied with his turnips. Donna Thorland, for so many things, but advice on how to remove a period gown especially. Digital and public historian Megan Brett for her knowledge of the time period and help on all things James Madison. Dr. Sarahscott Brett Dietz for help with medical questions. Mary Dieterich and Isobel Carr for help with finding demonstrations of getting dressed in eighteenth-century garb. Joshua Miller for some French help and debates about Hamilton. Ruth Hull Chatlien for help on the Bonapartes. Jason Jorgenson for theological help. Keith Massey for help with the customs. A big thank you to Lea Nolan, Kate Quinn, and Stephanie Thornton for beta reading the manuscript—their questions and comments made the story so much richer. E. Knight, M. D. Waters, Christi Barth, and Liz Berry for reading, plotting, and all other forms of moral support.
Our complete bibliography is too expansive to list here, but we want to acknowledge especially our reliance on the letters of Hamilton, his family, friends, colleagues, contemporaries, and biographers in providing period-appropriate language, descriptions, and viewpoints. Additionally, we reference the New York State Museum’s extensive collection of essays on early Albany and the Schuyler family. We cite the authoritative Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, for most—but not all—of our characterizations and interpretations of Alexander in this novel.
Thanks to Chernow and Lin Manuel-Miranda’s hit musical, the last few years have witnessed a remarkable renewal of general interest in our founding generation and Hamilton in specific. We’re grateful to them and the influence of novelists such as Alice Curtis Desmond, Elizabeth Cobbs, and Juliet Waldron. We were additionally informed in our research for this novel by Allan McLane Hamilton’s The Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton, Georgina Schuyler’s The Schuyler Mansion at Albany, Katharine Schuyler Baxter’s A Godchild of Washington, Mary Gay Humphreys’s Catherine Schuyler, Peter G. Rose’s Food, Drink and Celebrations of the Hudson Valley Dutch, Anne Grant’s Memoirs of an American Lady, Warren Roberts’s A Place in History: Albany in the Age of Revolution, Cornell University’s Bicentennial History of Albany, Gerald Edward Kahler’s Gentlemen of the Family: General George Washington’s Aides-de-Camp and Military Secretaries, Joanne B. Freeman’s Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic, Thomas Fleming’s Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America, Roger G. Kennedy’s Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character, Benson John Lossing’s The Life and Times of Philip Schuyler, George Morgan’s The Life of James Monroe, James Thacher’s Military Journal During the American Revolutionary War, Joseph T. Glatthaar’s Forgotten Allies: The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution, Harlow Giles Unger’s The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness, Karen E. Robbins’s James McHenry: Forgotten Federalist, Francois Furstenberg’s When the United States Spoke French, Robert Tonsetic’s 1781: The Decisive Year of the Revolutionary War, J. H. Powell’s Bring Out Your Dead, David Lefer’s The Founding Conservatives, Joseph J. Ellis’s Founding Brothers, Anthony S. Pitch’s The Burning of Washington, Paul A. Gilje’s New York in the Age of the Constitution, and Edward Countryman’s A People in Revolution. For a more extensive bibliography please visit our website at DrayKamoie.com.
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the Author
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Meet Stephanie Dray
Meet Laura Kamoie
About the Book
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Dicussion Questions
Walking in Eliza Schuyler Hamilton’s Footsteps: A Conversation with the Authors
Telling Her Story: How My Dear Hamilton Differs from Hamilton: An American Musical
About the Author
Meet Stephanie Dray
STEPHANIE DRAY is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of historical women’s fiction. Her award-winning work has been translated into eight languages and tops lists for the most anticipated reads of the year. Before she became a novelist, she was a lawyer and a teacher. Now she lives near the nation’s capital with her husband, cats, and history books.