Riddley Walker

Acknowledgments

On March 14th, 1974 I visited Canterbury Cathedral for the first time and saw Dr E. W. Tristram’s reconstruction of the fifteenth-century wall painting, The Legend of Saint Eustace. This book was begun on May 14th, 1974 and completed on November 5th, 1979.

Thanks are due to Dennis, Pamela, and Clare Saunders of Canterbury; to Percy Press, Percy Press junior, Fred Tickner, and Bob Wade of the British Puppet and Model Theatre Guild; to Stuart McRae and Paul Burnham of Wye College (the map is based on one sketched for me by Paul Burnham); and to Hans Kruuk of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology in Banchory.

For much encouragement and many useful talks I am indebted to Leon Redler, Jonathan Lewis, Richard Holt, John Gordon, and my wife, Gundula. I thank my sons Jake and Ben for being good company during many working hours. I am particularly grateful to Leon Garfield, who put aside his own work to read new drafts whenever I asked him to; his responses invariably put me in better touch with what I was doing and his comments were always of practical value.

And to Tom Maschler, my publisher, who’s game for anything and always generates a sympathetic electricity that helps the work along, my thanks.