A Spectacle Of Corruption

I attempted to call on Mrs. Melbury to offer her my condolences, but she would not receive me. I could only presume that she held me responsible for the death of her husband, as she returned one of my notes with a quick scrawl indicating that she would never speak to me again.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to Frank O’Groman for helping to demystify the world of eighteenth-century elections. I would also like to thank Jim Jopling and John Pipkin for their insights and suggestions on early drafts of the manuscript.

As always, I am in debt to the people at Random House, particularly De

I must also put on paper my gratitude to my family, my wife, Claudia Stokes, for her help, support, and patient listening; and our daughter Eleanor, for reasons that are too obvious and silly to articulate. And as no book would be complete without thanking at least one animal, I must mention my appreciation for Tiki, who always made sure I was up for breakfast- his, not mine.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DAVID LISS is the author of A Spectacle of Corruption, The Coffee Trader, and A Conspiracy of Paper, wi