Unclaimed (39 page)

I’ve done my best to try to capture a little bit of the feel of Shepton Mallet in this book, but there’s no substitute for the real thing. Visit, if you have the chance. I highly recommend it.

If you’re from Shepton Mallet and you’re wondering why I’ve renamed the River Sheppey, I haven’t—it didn’t get its current name until the Ordinance Survey conducted in the late nineteenth century.

Finally, I did my best to capture the countryside, but the truth is that Shepton Mallet and Somerset today are very different than they were in early Victorian times. This is because modern machinery has obviated the need to use waterpower, and so the millraces and leats that would have been widespread back then have fallen into disuse. Modern agriculture has also drained most of the bogs, the marshes and the wet places; in 1841, drainage techniques were being applied for the first time. I’ve done my best to reconstruct what the countryside would have looked like, but the historical accounts I’ve found are incomplete. I had to use my imagination.

ISBN: 978-1-4592-1386-9

UNCLAIMED

Copyright © 2011 by Courtney Milan

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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