Banquet for the Damned

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the advice and support I received at the University of St Andrews on the Creative Writing Masters programme in 1997 and 1998. Professor Douglas Dunn, Brian McCabe, Jenny Itzenson and Brian St John made it a rewarding, stimulating and memorable year for me. Dave Addison and Adam Berger from Anthropology were also instrumental in helping me to create the character of Doctor Hart Miller.

In one respect this novel is as much about the actual town of St Andrews as anything else, a place with a timeless and curious magic all of its own. Throughout, I've tried to do justice to its graces and remain faithful to its topography, though creative licence has been used to alter the locations of some of the schools. And I can assure the reader that neither the cottage of Professor Eliot Coldwell nor the bewitched village of Knoxville exists (at least not at the locations given in the story).

Witchcraft and Sorcery by John A Rush, Appearances of the Dead by Ronald C Finucane, Witchcraft and Black Magic by the Reverend Montague Summers, The Terror that Comes in the Night by David Hufford, Witchcraft and Magic in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-century Europe by Geoffrey Scarre, Witchcraft in Europe 1100–1700: A Documentary History by Alan C. Kors, The European Witch-craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth-centuries by H.R. Trevor-Roper, Transition and Revolution by Robert M. Kingdon were essential in my research, but I admit taking great liberties with both European and Scottish history and folklore to suit my own malign purposes. The verse quoted in chapter four is from Aleister Crowley's King Ghost, the lyrics sung by Elaine in Chapter Forty-One are from 'Give Him A Great Big Kiss' by the Shangri-Las, and the quotation in Chapter Twenty-Five is from An Elizabethan Devil-Worshipper's Prayer Book.

Without the encouragement of the Nevill clan — mother, father, my brother Simon and sister Melissa — I might easily have spent three years doing something else, far less satisfying, than cooking up this Banquet for the Damned. And without the interest, the wit and the wisdom of James Marriott, John Coulthart, Ramsey Campbell, Peter Crowther of PS Publishing, and Nick Gevers, this night terror may never have been shared.

Penultimately, I'd like to acknowledge the Outsider books and ideas of Colin Wilson not only for the comfort and confirmation they still give me today, but for being the inspiration behind Professor Eliot Coldwell. And, finally, it would be most unwise of me — lest I'm visited by something unpleasant in the night — not to own up to the considerable debt I owe those great masters of terror, Walter de la Mare, M R James and Algernon Blackwood.

Adam L G Nevill was born in Birmingham, England, in 1969 and grew up in England and New Zealand. A graduate of the University of St Andrews Creative Writing Masters programme, he is the author of nine novels under a pseudonym for Virgin Books. His most recent short story appearance was featured in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2006, edited by Ellen Datlow, and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 17, edited by Stephen Jones. Besides eight years spent as a librarian and researcher for several British television companies, he has endured a variety of occupations, including temporary office worker, night-club doorman, night watchman and porter. He currently lives in London and works in publishing.