At A. P. Watt: Natasha Fairweather, who has been, and who continues to be, everything an agent should be; Derek Johns; Linda Shaughnessy; Teresa Nicholls; Madeleine Buston; Philippa Donovan; and Rob Kraitt.
At John Murray: my editor, Anya Serota, who has lived in Glyver’s world as intensely as I have, and who has steered the book through to publication with consummate professionalism; Roland Philipps; James Spackman; Nikki Barrow; Sara Marafini; Amanda Jones; Caro Westmore; Ed Faulkner; Maisie Sather; and all the other people at John Murray and in the wider Hachette group, both in the UK and overseas, who have contributed so much.
Both my North American editors – Jill Bialosky at W. W. Norton in New York, and Ellen Seligman at McClelland & Stewart in Toronto – have been wonderfully supportive throughout the final stages of writing and publication. Grateful thanks also go to Louise Brockett, Bill Rusin, Erin Sinesky, and Evan Carver at Norton; Doug Pepper and Ruta Liormonas at McClelland & Stewart; and to everyone in both companies – again too numerous to name individually – who has been involved in publishing The Meaning of Night. I would also like to thank my foreign-language publishers for their enthusiastic commitment to making Glyver’s story available to readers in Europe, Japan, and South America, as well as acknowledging the not inconsiderable labours of the individual translators.
Amongst those who so generously responded to my requests for information, I must acknowledge first of all the advice supplied by Clive Cheesman, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, at the College of Arms, on various matters relating to the (fictitious) Tansor Barony, and to the legal intricacies of Baronies by Writ. I cannot thank him enough for the care and courtesy with which he responded to all my enquiries. Any remaining legal or genealogical howlers that may have escaped scrutiny are, of course, most definitely my responsibility, not his.
Michael Meredith, Librarian of Eton College, and Penny Hatfield, the Eton Archivist, supplied help on several details concerning Glyver’s and Daunt’s time at the school, in particular the Ralph Roister Doister incident, although they should in no way be held responsible for the fictional results.
Gordon Biddle helped to establish how Glyver travelled by train from Stamford to London via Cambridge; whilst for advice on the technical aspects of Glyver’s passion for photography I am grateful to Dr Robin Lenman. Further advice on early photography was kindly provided by Peter Marshall.
I tender particular and admiring thanks to Celia Levett, for her miraculously meticulous copy-editing, and to Nick de Somogyi, for his equally rigorous proofreading. Both have saved me from much embarrassment.
I am indebted to David Young, for his enthusiastic and confidence-boosting verdict on a draft of Part 1, and to another old and valued friend, Owen Dudley Edwards, who gallantly undertook to read and comment on a proof copy over the course of a weekend.
To [Achilles] James Daunt, proprietor of Daunt’s Bookshop in London, may I also record my appreciation for not objecting to the fact that I unknowingly appropriated his name for the Rector of Evenwood.
I would like to express here, without elaboration, my gratitude, and that of my family, to a group of people who have – literally – helped give me the chance to finish what has been in my mind for so long: Professor Christer Lindquist, together with Beth McLaughlin, and all the other members of the Gamma Knife team at the Cromwell Hospital, London; Mr Christopher Adams; Dr Adrian Jones; Dr Diana Brown; and Professor John Wass.
Finally, like all authors who depend on those close to them for daily support and understanding, what is undeniably real about this novel is the debt I owe to my family: to my darling wife Dizzy, without whom I would have no reason to write; our daughter Emily (whose name, I must emphasize, is the only link with my main female character); my stepchildren Miranda and Barnaby; my grandchildren, Eleanor, Harry, and Dizzy Junior; and my daughter-in-law Becky; my mother-in-law, Joan Crockett, in whose house large chunks of the novel were written, and the other members of the Crockett clan in Dorset. It is a sadness to us all that my late father-in-law, Gee Crockett, is not here to see the novel published. Last, but never least, my thanks and love go to my wonderful parents, Gordon and Eileen Cox, who have supported me through thick and thin.
Michael Cox
Michael Cox was born in 1948. After graduating from Cambridge, he avoided working for a living by becoming a singer-songwriter. In 1989, he joined Oxford University Press as a senior commissioning editor. His highly praised biography of the ghost-story writer M.R. James was followed by a critical edition of James’s stories and several successful Oxford anthologies of supernatural and detective fiction. Michael Cox’s first novel, The Meaning of Night, was published to wide critical acclaim and shortlisted for the 2007 Costa First Novel Award. His second novel, The Glass of Time, is a sequel to his debut and has garnered rave reviews worldwide since its publication in 2008. Cox was nominated for Waterstone’s Newcomer of the Year award at the 2006 Galaxy British Book Awards. He lives in rural Northamptonshire with his wife, Dizzy.
Copyright © 2006 by Michael Cox
Cloth edition published 2006
Trade paperback edition published 2007
Emblem edition published 2009
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Cox, Michael, 1948-
The meaning of night / Michael Cox.
eISBN: 978-1-55199-385-0
I. Title.
PR6103.O975M42 2009 823.92 C2008-907502-1
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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