The novel also explores and pastiches different types of historical writing. In his research, Grant starts with children's history books, then moves on to general popular histories and the very scholarly but dull "Tanner's Constitutional History of England". He also reads Thomas More's "History of King Richard III" and a historical novel called "The Rose of Raby" by "Evelyn Payne-Ellis", about the life of Richard's mother Cecily Neville. Both Tanner's history and the novel are non-existent; it has been suggested that the title of the latter is derived from Guy Paget's 1937 biography of the same name.