 The book's primary inspiration is the true story of turn-of-the-century French pioneer filmmaker Georges Méliès, his surviving films, and his collection of mechanical, wind-up figures called Automata.Selznick decided to add an Automaton to the storyline after reading Gaby Wood's 2007 book "Edison's Eve", which tells the story of Edison's attempt to create a talking wind-up doll.Méliès owned a set of automata, which were sold to a museum but lay forgotten in an attic for decades.