Author's Notes - Queen’s Gambit by A.J. Hall

While Gondal, Angria and Gaaldine are creations of the Bronte children, this particular version of these countries owes rather more to the Marlows’ reinvention of Gondal and Angria in Antonia Forest’s Peter’s Room.

Genia’s full name is Iphigenia, and should be pronounced Je-NY-ah, not JEAN-eye-ah.

Dove è da notare che queste simili morti, le quali seguando per deliberazione d’uno animo ostinato, sono da’ principi inevitabili, perché ciascuno che non si curi di moriri lo può offendere And here we must note that such-like deaths, which are deliberately inflicted with a resolved and desperate courage, cannot be avoided by princes, because any one who does not fear to die can inflict them. (Machiavelli on suicide bombers, The Prince ch. XIX)

Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate. “Extra explanations shouldn’t be posited unless you have to. ” William of Occam. A rather more reliable way of approaching a logical puzzle than “When you have eliminated the impossible…”