- To Sir Phillip, With Love begins mere hours after Romancing Mr. Bridgerton ends. Which means that Eloise doesn’t know RMB’s big secret! Her family could have told her halfway through the book, but I decided they wouldn’t, just to be cruel. (Not to mention that the logistics for me, as the author, were too daunting…)
- Many of my books have a working title which never sees the light of day, but To Sir Phillip, With Love had two: The first was For Eloise, Wherever I May Find Her, inspired by the Simon & Garfunkel song “For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her,” which I think is one of the most romantic songs ever written. The second working title was The Importance of Being Eloise.
- Eloise’s letters (which serve as epigraphs for chapter #2 and on) were written well after I’d finished the book. I wanted to do something fun, along the lines of the Lady Whistledown entries in my previous books, but the muse didn’t strike until To Sir Phillip, With Love was well into the editorial process.
- Willow bark contains the same active ingredient as aspirin and is indeed quite useful in reducing a fever.
- In 2019 Javaria Farooqui (of COMSATS University of Information Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan) and Rabia Ashraf (of Lahore College for Women University, Lahore, Pakistan) published a 10-page pager entitled Reconnaissance of ‘Difference’ in Cognitive Maps: Authenticating Happily Ever After in Julia Quinn’s To Sir Philip with Love in the Khazar Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences.
- Sometimes I get to see a copy of cover art before the type is added, and this time I’m glad I did! I loved the art—the pack of letters bundled by a ribbon is perfect for the book— but the postage stamp was a huge anachronism.
- To Sir Phillip, With Love is set in 1824, and postage stamps weren’t introduced in the UK until 1840.
