Chapters (57)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- POPULAR BOOKS FROM THE ERA
- When We Meet Again
- A Conversation with Caroline Beecham about When We Meet Again
- Discussion Guide
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
Some of the books I consulted in writing this novel include: Diana Athill, Stet: An Editor’s Life (London: Granta, 2000); Mary Cadogan and Patricia Craig, Women and Children First: The Fiction of Two World Wars (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1978); Toby Faber, Faber & Faber: The Untold Story (London: Faber & Faber, 2019); John Feather, A History of British Publishing (London: Croom Helm Ltd, 1988); Lara Feigel, The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War (London: Bloomsbury, 2013); Andreas Feininger, New York in the Forties (New York: Dover Publications, 1978); Robert Hewison, Under Siege: Literary Life In London 1939–45 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977); Valerie Holman, Print for Victory: Book Publishing in England 1939–1945 (London: The British Library, 2008); Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War: The Stories That Helped Us Win World War II (New York: Mariner Books, 2015); Marvin Mondlin and Roy Meador, Book Row: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004); Alan Munton, English Fiction of the Second World War (London: Faber & Faber, 1989); Iain Stevenson, Book Makers: British Publishing in the Twentieth Century (London: The British Library, 2010).
Background research and context came from countless newspaper and magazine archives, including The Times (London), The New York Times, The Bookseller and the Daily Mail. The character of Olive Melville Brown was inspired by the Daily Mail journalist who followed the baby-farming stories, and the headlines on this page and this page are borrowed from articles she wrote in 1943. Extracts on this page are adverts or notices from local newspapers of the time, and the report on this page was taken from an actual newspaper article for authenticity, but the names have been changed.
I would also like to acknowledge the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division/Mary Evans Picture Library for the use of the Franklin D. Roosevelt quote in the front of the book. The quote on this page is from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
I am grateful to Gillian Green for recommending the memoirs of Diana Athill, who was an inspiration for Ursula, although not her sexual orientation, and to Kristine Pack for helping with Americanisms. Thanks also to Dr. Rebecca Overton, general practitioner, and Clare Jordan, clinical midwife consultant, for medical information on Alice’s physical and mental well-being following the birth and trauma.
Sincere thanks to Christa Munns for her encouragement and to Kate Goldsworthy for her thoughtful editing, both of whom helped me write the best version of this story. Heartfelt thanks to Annette Barlow for putting her faith in me for a third time. Thanks also to the rest of the team at Allen & Unwin who, like the team at Partridge Press, all play such an important role in creating and selling books. I owe huge thanks to Danielle Dieterich and all those at Putnam who have worked so hard to produce this novel for US readers, as well as for the divine cover.