The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (Watchmaker of Filigree Street, #1)

by Natasha Pulley

LONDON, NOVEMBER 1883

OXFORD, MAY 1884

Like museum curators, the librarians were loath to allow anyone to touch anything. It was pretty clear that they felt the whole university would be better off it weren’t full of students.

Steepleton. Nathaniel, but Thaniel if you like.

the word for forest was three trees together.

森 . This is pronounced Mori, like the watchmaker's name. But apparently he uses different kanji for his name. It's explained later, but I didn't recognize it.

Arinori Mori, is he a relation of yours?’ ‘I don’t think so. His Mori means woods. Three trees.’ He sketched the character on a scrap of paper. ‘I’m Mo-u -ri, which is the same in English spelling but different for us. Like this.’ ‘Featherworth.’ Thaniel looked up. ‘You’re the Japanese equivalent of Fanshaw.’ ‘It probably used to be woods, with a pretentious drawl. Must you go?’

毛利, pronounced Mōri = Mouri.

‘You must have known that she would hop if you put up a sign that said don’t walk.’

‘People say marriage first and love later. Is it true?’ ‘In this case yes.’

TOKYO, 1882

Kiyotaka Kuroda. Always vain of his name, the man was wearing all black.

Kuroda =黒田, which is black followed by rice field.

Rokumeikan

鹿鳴館 = deer call mansion. 鳴 is a generic kanji for a sound made by an animal and can be translated bark, chirp, roar, ....

LONDON, OCTOBER 1884

Natasha Pulley studied English Literature at Oxford University. After stints working at Waterstones as a bookseller, then at Cambridge University Press as a publishing assistant in the astronomy and maths departments, she did the Creative Writing MA at UEA. She has recently returned from Tokyo, where she lived for nineteen months on a scholarship from the Daiwa Anglo–Japanese Foundation. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street is her first novel.