Cynthia Snowden comes from a long line of Anglophiles, a family of readers, and one which throws up, so to speak, the occasional writer. It thus came to pass that eventually she read C. P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers series which, by a long rambling process, led to the creation of Going to Barsetshire.

While reading Snow's twelve-novel series in 1982, she realized that although she was ostensibly reading English, she understood far less than she ought to. There and then she began a concentrated study of British culture and language. In the process, she read British authors almost to the exclusion of all else. She has especially enjoyed such serial novels as Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin series, Waugh's Sword of Honor trilogy, J. I. M. Stewart's Staircase in Surrey, E. J. Howard's Cazalet Chronicle, E. F. Benson's Lucia series, Isabel Colegate's Orlando Trilogy, Trollope's Barsetshire and Parliamentary series, Olivia Manning's Fortunes of War sextet, and, of course, Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire series. One universe was not enough; parallel universes were called in whenever possible.

It is Thirkell's Barsetshire series that has engaged Ms. Snowden's attention and imagination for the past five years. The series is a parallel universe which, while beguiling, can nevertheless be confusing, and it seemed to her that there was a lot of explaining to do. Retired from a career in educating others, she has had time to devote to educating herself, to resurrecting an essential element of the British cultural world six thousand miles distant and sixty years ago, and in so doing, making Barsetshire a delightful (and comprehensible) place for all to visit.

Cynthia Snowden lives with her husband and editor, Jim Rogers, at The Sea Ranch in northern California. She feels extraordinarily lucky to be alive at such a time, and in such a place, where the beauty of the natural landscape is in piquant juxtaposition to Going to Barsetshire as a part of her mental landscape. She will never stop reading. What, never? Well, hardly ever.*

*An allusion that will be perfectly clear to lovers of Gilbert and Sullivan's H. M. S. Pinafore.