I’m happy to announce that The Fiddler’s Gun: Letters has finally gone to print. I approved the proof on Friday and the presses are rolling. The book is a collection of sixteen letters and other documents that detail some of the further adventures of Fin Button and her shipmates during the course of events recounted in The Fiddler’s Gun.
If you followed the “Letters to Peter” feature at TheFiddlersGun.com, some of this material will be familiar to you. It has now been edited, organized, expanded, and bound in one volume. Who is Wilberforce Octavian Albemarle III? What is the mystery of the Boot Snuffler? And what is the Baker’s Grail? These letters hold the answers.
Also, included is a sneak peek at an excerpt from Fiddler’s Green that includes the first appearance of an important new character.
This special companion to The Fiddler’s Gun is being printed in a limited run of 100 signed and numbered copies. Each of my Tier 2 Patrons will receive their copy in the mail, free of charge. The remainder will be for sale, exclusively at the Rabbit Room store and when they’re gone, they are gone forever (though I do hope to make a digital version available at a later date.)
Here’s a look at the introduction:
Regarding Letters Found Herein
During my research for The Fiddler’s Gun, I came across countless references to letters alleged to have been written by Fin Button to her childhood companion, Peter LaMee. In my recounting of her flight from colonial Georgia and the subsequent rise to her now legendary station in maritime tradition, I have, regrettably, made only passing mention of her espistolary efforts. Unfortunately, I was unable to do the considerable legwork necessary to unearth the letters themselves during the writing of the book.
In the time since my completion of the manuscript I have taken up the quest of tracking down as many of these letters to Peter as possible. I have scoured the musty old libraries of the eastern seaboard in search of words and papers fallen out of the memory of even the most studious and bespectacled of librarians. I have crept among stacks of papers and boxes of long-forgotten correspondence in small harbor-village archives. I have ventured to the ghost town of Ebenezer in the wilds of eastern Georgia to pry up floorboards and search amid the webs of a thousand scattering spiders. I have braved the dank blackness of cellars dug when whispers of revolution filled the houses above them and have peeled back secret doors that once hid the frail and the young from soldiers fierce to quell murmurs of independence.
And though I often met with disappointment and failure and many times came away from some time-worn repository of documentary gold empty-handed and weary, I have, in the end, spirited away a precious small number of treasures. These hand-written letters have defied the threat of decay and neglect to find themselves in my careful hands and I shall do my best to honor their long-suffering by diligently transcribing their nearly-lost tales.
Though most are letters written by Fin Button and addressed to Peter LaMee, I have found others that bear mention as well. By entering these postal-borne treasures here in one binding I hope they will find their rightful place with Fin and her tale. In the end we shall see what stories they tell of their authors and those age-old days of revolution.
—A. S. Peterson Raider of Postal Antiquities
Note: I thought I was going to be home next week to sign these so they could be shipped out but I’ve just learned that I’ll be stuck in Texas until the 19th of February. I’ll keep the book up in the store and you’ll have to consider the purchase a pre-order. They will ship just as soon as I can get back to Nashville and sign them. If you’d prefer the book to go ahead and ship unsigned, just send an email to orders@rabbitroom.com and I’ll make sure it gets sent right out. I apologize for the delay.