At Day's Close: Night in Times Past by A. Roger Ekirch

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    “ Y OU JUST GO too slow,” my smiling ten-year-old daughter, Sheldon, teased recently about the pace of my writing. If only the words had come more easily! That I have not taken longer is owing to the help of friends and f amily coupled with the kindness of institutions on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The inspiration for this book came many years ago from André-Philippe Katz, a close friend in graduate school. Despite our plans to collaborate, other responsibilities prevented his participation. The book would have benefited enormously from his remarkable intellect and imagination.
    Financial assistance for research and writing originated from a variety of sources. I am profoundly grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; the American Council of Learned Societies; the American Philosophical Society; the Virginia Center for the Humanities; and the American Historical Association. Virginia Tech generously provided research assistance and leaves from teaching.
    Over the past two decades, I relied upon the staffs and resources of many splendid institutions. I am indebted to the Public Record Office (formerly at Chancery Lane as well as Kew); the British Library; the Guildhall Records Office in London; the British Library of Political & Economic Science at the London School of Economics; the Bodleian Library of Oxford University; the Cambridge University Library; St. John’s College, Cambridge; Chetham’s Library in Manchester; the record offices of Dorset and Hertfordshire; the Hereford City Library; the District Central Library in Rawtensall; the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society; the Bristol Central Library; the Department of Irish Folklore at University College Dublin; the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish Record Office, both in Edinburgh; the University of Wales, Bangor; the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth; and the Archives Geneve. In the United States, I am grateful to the Library of Congress; Alderman Library at the University of Virginia; the Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary; the New York Public Library; the Beinecke Library at Yale University; the Lewis Walpole Library; the North Haven (Connecticut) Historical Society; the Bennington (Vermont) Historical Society; the Harvard University Law School Library; Houghton Library at Harvard; and the Suffolk County Court House in Boston. At the Library of Virginia in Richmond, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Sandra G. Treadway and her colleagues. Still other institutions, identified elsewhere, supplied the book’s artwork. They have my deep appreciation.
    Closer to home, I benefited from the diligence and generosity of the staff of Newman Library at Virginia Tech, including the late Dorothy F. McCombs, Bruce Pencek, and, most of all, Sharon Gotkiewicz, Lucy Cox, Janet R. Bland, Nancy Weaver, Michele Canterbury, Robert Kelley, and others in the interlibrary loan office headed by Harry M. Kriz. They worked tirelessly on my behalf and always with good cheer. Thanks also to Annette Burr for her expertise in art history. Ruth Lipnik Johnson and Becky Woodhouse at the Roanoke County Public Library were tremendous assets. I am grateful to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for the use of their genealogical facilities in Salem. I wish to thank Rabbi Manes Kogan for letting me consult the fine library at Beth Israel Synagogue in Roanoke.
    A small legion of translators enabled me to canvass a broad range of non-English sources, far beyond my own limited command of French and Latin. Of vital help were Cornelia Bade, Trudy Harrington Becker, Maebhe Ní Bhroin, Blanton Brown, Michel Dammron, Doreen Ebert, Christopher J. Eustis, Dinia Fatine, Jennifer Hayek, Christine Huzil, Berwyn Prys Jones, Andy Klatt, Rabbi Manes Kogan, Keun Pal Lee, Francesca Lorusso-Caputi, William L. McKone, Michele McNabb, Annick Mikailoff, Violaine