Pendergast. They are, by date of publication, Mount Dragon, Riptide, Thunderhead, and The Ice Limit.
Thunderhead introduces the archaeologist Nora Kelly, who appears in all the later Pendergast novels. The Ice Limit introduces Eli Glinn, who appears in Dance of Death and The Book of the Dead.
In closing, we want to assure our readers that this note is not intended as some kind of onerous syllabus, but rather as an answer to the question In what order should I read your novels? We feel extraordinarily fortunate that there are people like you who enjoy reading our novels as much as we enjoy writing them.
With our best wishes,
Douglas Preston
Lincoln Child
References
Page numbers here refer to the print edition.
Original Russian poetry on page 169 is from “Heart’s Memory of Sun” by Anna Akhmatova, 1911. Translation by Stanley Kunitz © 1967-1973.
Original poetry on page 173 is from “She” by Theodore Roethke © 1958.
Original Italian poetry on pages 243, 406, and 414 is from “ La Leggenda di Teodorico” (The Legend of Theodoric) by Giosue Carducci, 1896. Translations on pages 406 and 414 by Douglas J. Preston © 2006.
Original lyrics on page 266 are from Aida. Opera written by Giuseppe Verdi from Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni; first performed 1871. Translation by Douglas J. Preston © 2006.
Original poetry on page 385 is from “Metamorphoses” by Ovid, 43 BC to circa AD 17. Translation under the direction of Sir Samuel Garth, 1717.
Original poetry on page 386 is from “Metamorphoses” by Ovid, 43 BC to circa AD 17. Translation by Horace Gregory © 1958.
Original French poetry on page 391 is from “Les Fleurs du Mal” by Charles Baudelaire, 1857.
Original Italian poetry on page 393 is from “Inferno” from The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, 1308- 1320.
Original poetry on page 394 and page 402 is from “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot © 1925.
Original Greek quote on page 400 is from “Agamemnon,” part one of The Oresteia by Aeschylus. First performed 458 BC.
Original quote on page 409 is from Hamlet by William Shakespeare, 1600-1602.
Original poetry on page 417 is from “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell, 1649-1660.
