The Meaning of Night

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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