Chapter 3, Finders Keepers Summary

Biographies contain a lot of information but a lot is also missing from them. Geoffrey first meets Ed Winterton at a bookseller's fair as they both reach for a copy of Turgenev's Literary Reminiscences. Over tea, they talk about what led them to that book. Ed is interested in Gosse and English literary society at the turn of the century. Ed is an American academic and he likes to present himself as a failure.

Geoffrey doesn't expect to hear from Ed again. Ed writes Geoffrey to ask if Geoffrey is interested in Juliet Herbert and that he'll be in London in August, if Geoffrey wants to meet. Juliet Herbert is a hole in Flaubert's life. She was the governess to Flaubert's niece Caroline. Although Juliet and Flaubert wrote to each other no letters have survived. Almost nothing is known...