Quote image editor
“MARY: Cat, should you be writing all this? I mean, Irene still lives in Vienna. Her secret room won’t be a secret once this book is published. CATHERINE: She said I could. Granted, she said no one would believe it anyway, the way no one believes Mrs. Shelly’s biography of Victor Frankenstein. Everyone assumes it’s fiction. She says people rarely believe in what they think to be improbable, although they often believe in the impossible. They find it easier to believe in spiritualism than in the platypus. BEATRICE: So she thinks our readers might assume this is a work of fiction? CATHERINE: Bea, you sound upset by that. BEATRICE: And you are not? Do you not care whether readers understand that this is the truth of our lives? CATHERINE: As long as they buy the book, no, not much. As long as they pay their two shillings a volume, and I receive royalties . . .” — Theodora Goss