Mirror Mirror (36 page)

May I be excused for embroidering upon the history of a dynasty whose career has already entered into legend? Cesare Borgia might have had my head for it, and Alexander VI recommended the eventual disposition of my soul, but I like to hope that Lucrezia Borgia, who commissioned Ariosto's
Orlando Furioso,
would have understood some of the licenses I've been bold enough to take.

And wherever they are, those Borgias, may they rest in peace.

Acknowledgments

With thanks:

to Jane Langton, Jill Paton Walsh, and John Rowe Townsend; roaming about Lucignano, Arezzo, Siena, and Cortona together gave me a golden week to remember;

to Mei-Mei Ellerman for opening Il Vallone to us;

to Mary Norris for her companionship in Spoleto;

to Ann, Sid, and Heather Seamans for company in Castiglione del Lago, and to Anna Tapay for hospitality at Villa Elianna;

to Paolo Chiocchetti for help in Florence;

to Joseph Maguire for helpful conversations about the possible effects on dwarves of having an eighth sibling;

to Andy Newman for tending to the most pertinent matters at home while I traveled to the Concord Public Library and to Tuscany;

to the reliable crew at HarperCollins: Judith Regan, Cassie Jones, Jennifer Suitor, and Carl Raymond;

to William Reiss of John Hawkins and Associates;

to David Groff for literary counsel;

to Douglas Smith for the particular magic of the jacket art and interior decorations.

About the Author

Gregory Maguire
's novels —
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
;
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
;
Lost, a ghost story
; and
Mirror Mirror
have earned him rave reviews and a dedicated literary following and appeared on bestseller lists nationwide. All are published by HarperCollins e-books as special features-loaded e-book editions.

Gregory Maguire received his doctorate at Tufts University and has served as an artist-in-residence at the Blue Mountain Center, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Hambidge Center. He lives near Boston, Massachusetts. Please visit www.gregorymaguire.com.

ALSO BY GREGORY MAGUIRE

Wicked

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Lost

Credits

Jacket illustration by Douglas Smith

MIRROR MIRROR
. Copyright © 2003 by Gregory Maguire.All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub © Edition OCTOBER 2003 ISBN: 9780061748042

FIRST EDITION

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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