“Well, congratulations again to the two of you; I must be off. Time waits for no man, as we say.”

  He smiled, wished us every happiness for the future, and departed.

  “Can you explain just what is going on?” asked Landen, thoroughly confused, not so much by the events themselves as by the order in which they were happening.

  “Not really.”

  “Have I gone, Sweetpea?” asked my father, who had returned from his hiding place behind the shed.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Well, I found out what you wanted to know. I went to London in 1610 and found that Shakespeare was only an actor with a potentially embarrassing sideline as a purveyor of bagged commodities in Stratford. No wonder he kept it quiet— wouldn’t you?”

  This was interesting indeed.

  “So who wrote them? Marlowe? Bacon?”

  “No; there was a bit of a problem. You see, no one had even heard of the plays, much less written them.”

  I didn’t understand.

  “What are you saying? There aren’t any?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. They don’t exist. They were never written. Not by him, not by anyone.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Landen, unwilling to take much more of this, “but we saw Richard III only six weeks ago.”

  “Of course,” said my father. “Time is out of joint big time. Obviously something had to be done. I took a copy of the complete works back with me and gave them to the actor Shakespeare in 1592 to distribute on a given timetable. Does that answer your question?”

  I was still confused.

  “So it wasn’t Shakespeare who wrote the plays.”

  “Decidedly not!” he agreed. “Nor Marlowe, Oxford, De Vere, Bacon or any of the others.”

  “But that’s not possible!” exclaimed Landen.

  “On the contrary,” replied my father. “Given the huge timescale of the cosmos, impossible things are commonplace. When you’ve lived as long as I have you’ll know that absolutely anything is possible. Time is out of joint; O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!”

  “You put that in?” I asked, always assuming he was quoting from Hamlet and not the other way round.

  He smiled.

  “A small personal vanity that I’m sure will be forgiven, Thursday. Besides: Who’s to know?”

  My father stared at his empty glass, looked around in vain for a waiter, then said:

  “Lavoisier will have locked onto me by now. He swore he’d catch me and he’s good. He should be; we were partners for almost seven centuries. Just one more thing: how did the Duke of Wellington die?”

  I remembered he had asked me this once before.

  “As I said, Dad, he died in his bed in 1852.”

  Father smiled and rubbed his hands.

  “That’s excellent news indeed! How about Nelson?”

  “Shot by a French sniper at Trafalgar.”

  “Really? Well, some you win. Listen: good luck, the pair of you. A boy or a girl would be fine; one of each would be better.”

  He leaned closer and lowered his voice.

  “I don’t know when I am going to be back, so listen carefully. Never buy a blue car or a paddling pool, stay away from oysters and circular saws, and don’t be near Oxford in June 2016. Got it?”

  “Yes, but!—”

  “Well, pip pip, time waits for no man!”

  He hugged me again, shook Landen’s hand and then disappeared into the crowd before we could ask him anything more.

  “Don’t even try to figure it out,” I said to Landen, placing a finger to his lips. “This is one area of SpecOps that it’s really better not to think about.”

  “But if!—”

  “Landen!—” I said more severely. “No!—”

  Bowden and Victor were at the party too. Bowden was happy for me and had come easily to the realization that I wouldn’t be joining him in Ohio, as either wife or assistant. He had been offered the job officially but had turned it down; he said there was too much fun to be had at the Swindon Litera Tecs and he would reconsider it in the spring; Finisterre had taken his place. But at present, something else was preying on his mind. Helping himself to a stiff drink, he approached Victor, who was talking animatedly to an elderly woman he had befriended.

  “What ho, Cable!” Victor murmured, introducing his newfound friend before agreeing to have a quiet word with him.

  “Good result, eh? Balls to the Brontë Federation; I’m with Thursday. I think the new ending is a wiz!” He paused and looked at Bowden. “You’ve got a face longer than a Dickens novel. What’s the problem? Worried about Felix8?”

  “No, sir; I know they’ll find him eventually. It’s just that I accidentally mixed up the dust covers on the book that Jack Schitt went into.”

  “You mean he’s not with his beloved rifles?”

  “No, sir. I took the liberty of slipping this book into the dust cover of The Plasma Rifle in War.”

  He handed over the book that had made its way into the Prose Portal. Victor looked at the spine and laughed. It was a copy of The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.

  “Have a look at page twenty-six,” said Bowden. “There’s something funny going on in ‘The Raven.’ ”

  Victor opened the book and scanned the page. He read the first verse out loud:

  Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

  o’er a plan to venge myself upon that cursed Thursday Next—

  This Eyre affair, so surprising, gives my soul such loath despising,

  Here I plot my temper rising, rising from my jail of text.

  “Get me out!” I said, advising, “Pluck me from this jail of text—

  or I swear I’ll wring your neck!”

  Victor shut the book with a snap.

  “The last line doesn’t rhyme very well, does it?”

  “What do you expect?” replied Bowden. “He’s Goliath, not a poet.”

  “But I read ‘The Raven’ only yesterday,” added Victor in a confused tone. “It wasn’t like this then!”

  “No, no,” explained Bowden. “Jack Schitt is only in this copy—if we had put him in an original manuscript then who knows what he might have done.”

  “Con-g’rat-ula’tions!” exclaimed Mycroft as he walked up to us. Polly was with him and looked radiant in a new hat.

  “We’re Bo’th Very Hap-py For You!” added Polly.

  “Have you been working on the bookworms again?” I asked.

  “Doe’s It Sh’ow?” asked Mycroft. “Mu’st Dash!”

  And they were off.

  “Bookworms?” asked Landen.

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Mademoiselle Next?”

  There were two of them. They were dressed in sharp suits and displayed SpecOps-12 badges that I hadn’t seen before.

  “Yes?”

  “Préfet Lavoisier, ChronoGendarmerie. Oé¹ est votre pé¨re?”

  “You’ve just missed him.”

  He cursed out loud.

  “Colonel Next est un homme tré¨s dangereux, mademoiselle. Il est important de lui parler concernant ses activités de trafic de temps.”

  “He’s my father, Lavoisier.”

  Lavoisier stared at me, trying to figure out whether anything he could say or do would make me help him. He sighed and gave up.

  “Si vous changez votre avis, contactez-moi par les petites annonces du Grenouille. Je lis toujours les archives.”

  “I shouldn’t count on it, Lavoisier.”

  He mulled this over for a moment, thought of something to say, decided against it and smiled instead. He saluted briskly, told me in perfect English to enjoy my day, and walked away. But his younger partner also had something to say:

  “A piece of advice to you,” he muttered slightly self-consciously. “If you ever have a son who wants to be in the ChronoGuard, try and dissuade him.”

  He smiled and followed his partner in their quest for my father.

  “What was that son thing about?” asked Landen.

  “I don’t know. He looked kind of familiar, though, didn’t he?”

  “Kinda.”

  “Where were we?”

  “Mrs. Parke-Laine?” asked a very stocky individual, who stared at me earnestly from two deep-set brown eyes.

  “SO-12?” I asked, wondering quite where the little beetle-browed man had sprung from.

  “No, ma’am,” he replied, seizing a plum from a passing waiter and sniffing at it carefully before eating it, stone and all. “My name Bartholomew Stiggins; with SO-13.”

  “What do they do?”

  “Not at liberty to discuss,” he replied shortly, “but we may have need your skills and talents.”

  “What kind of—”

  But Mr. Stiggins was no longer listening to me. Instead, he was staring at a small beetle he had found on a flowerpot. With great care and a dexterity that belied his large and clumsy-looking hands, he picked the small bug up and popped it in his mouth. I looked at Landen, who winced.

  “Sorry,” said Stiggins, as though he had just been caught picking his nose in public. “What the expression? Old habits die hard?”

  “There’s more in the compost heap,” said Landen helpfully.

  The little man grinned very softly through his eyes; I didn’t suppose he showed much emotion.

  “If interested, I’ll be in touch.”

  “Be in touch,” I told him.

  He grunted, replaced his hat, bid us both a happy day, inquired about the whereabouts of the compost heap and was gone.

  “I’ve never seen a Neanderthal in a suit before,” observed Landen.

  “Never mind about Mr. Stiggins,” I said, reaching up to kiss him.

  “I thought you’d finished with SpecOps?”

  “No,” I replied with a smile. “In fact, I think I’m only just beginning! . . .”

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Lost in a Good Book

  A Penguin Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2002 by Jasper Fforde

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-1011-5811-1

  A PENGUIN BOOK®

  Penguin Books first published by The Penguin Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  PENGUIN and the “Penguin” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: July, 2004

  This Book

  is dedicated to assistants everywhere.

  You make it happen for them.

  They couldn’t do it without you.

  Your contribution is everything.

  Contents

  1. The Adrian Lush Show

  2. The Special Operations Network

  3. Cardenio Unbound

  4. Five Coincidences, Seven Irma Cohens and One Confused Neanderthal

  5. Vanishing Hitchhikers

  4a. Five Coincidences, Seven Irma Cohens and One Confused Thursday Next

  6. Family

  7. White Horse, Uffington, Picnics, for the Use of

  8. Mr. Stiggins and SO-1

  9. The More Things Stay the Same

  10. A Lack of Differences

  11. Granny Next

  12. At Home with My Memories

  14. The Gravitube

  15. Curiouser & Curiouser in Osaka

  16. Interview with the Cat

  17. Miss Havisham

  18. The Trial of Fräulein N

  19. Bargain Books

  20. Yorrick Kaine

  21. Les Artes Modernes de Swindon ’85

  22. Travels with My Father

  23. Fun with Spike

  24. Performance-Related Pay, Miles Hawke & Norland Park

  25. Roll Call at Jurisfiction

  26. Assignment One: Bloophole Filled in Great Expectations

  27. Landen and Joffy Again

  28. “The Raven”

  29. Rescued

  30. CardenioRebound

  31. Dream Topping

  32. The End of Life as We Know It

  33. The Dawn of Life as We Know It

  34. The Well of Lost Plots

  1.

  The Adrian Lush Show

  Sample viewing figures for major TV networks in England, September 1985

  NETWORK TOAD

  The Adrian Lush Show (Wednesday) (Chat show) 16,428,316

  The Adrian Lush Show (Monday) (Chat show) 16,034,921

  Bonzo the Wonder Hound (Canine thriller) 15,975,462

  MOLETV

  Name That Fruit! (Answer questions for cash prizes) 15,320,340

  65 Walrus Street (Soap opera; Episode 3,352) 14,315,902

  Dangerously Dysfunctional People Argue Live on TV (Chat show) 11,065,611

  OWLVISION

  Will Marlowe or Kit Shakespeare? (Literary quiz show) 13,591,203

  One More Chance to See! (Reverse extinction show) 2,321,820

  GOLIATH CABLE CHANNEL (1 TO 32)

  Whose Lie Is It Anyway? (Corporate comedy quiz show) 428

  Cots to Coffins: Goliath. All you'll ever need. (Docuganda) 9 (disputed)

  NEANDERTHAL CABLE NETWORK 4

  Powertool Club Live (Routers and power planers edition) 9,032

  Jackanory Gold ( Jane Eyre edition) 7,219

  WARWICK FRIDGE,

  The Ratings War

  IDIDN’T ASK to be a celebrity. I never wanted to appear on The Adrian Lush Show. And let’s get one thing straight right now—the world would have to be hurtling toward imminent destruction before I’d agree to anything as dopey as The Thursday Next Workout Video.

  The publicity surrounding the successful rebookment of Jane Eyre was fun to begin with but rapidly grew wearisome. I happily posed for photocalls, agreed to newspaper interviews, hesitantly appeared on Desert Island Smells and was thankfully excused the embarrassment of Celebrity Name That Fruit. The public, ever fascinated by celebrity, had wanted to know everything about me following my excursion within the pages of Jane Eyre, and since the Special Operations Network have a PR record on par with that of Vlad the Impaler, the Top Brass thought it would be a good wheeze to use me to boost their flagging popularity. I dutifully toured all points of the globe doing signings, library openings, talks and interviews. The same questions, the same SpecOps-approved answers. Supermarket openings, literary dinners, offers of book deals. I even met the actress Lola Vavoom, who said that she would simply adore to play me if there was a film. It was tiring, but more than that—itwas dull. For the first time in my career at the Literary Detectives I actually missed authenticating Milton.

  I’d taken a week’s leave as soon my tour ended so Landen and I could devote some time to married life. I moved all my stuff to his house, rearranged his furniture, added my books to his and introduced my dodo, Pickwick, to his new home. Landen and I ceremoniously partitioned the bedroom closet space, decided to share the sock drawer, then had an argument over who was to sleep on the wall side of the bed. We had long and wonderfully pointless conversations about nothing in particular, walked Pickwick in the park, went out to dinner, stayed in for dinner, stared at each other a lot and slept in late every morning. It was wonderful.

  On the fourth day of my leave, just between lunch with Landen’s mum and Pickwick’s notable first fight with the neighbor’s cat, I got a call from Cordelia Flakk. She was the senior SpecOps PR agent here in Swindon and she told me that Adrian Lush wanted me on his show. I wasn’t mad keen on the idea—or the show. But there was an upside. The Adrian Lush Show went out live, and Flakk assured me that this would be a “no holds barred” interview, something that held a great deal of appeal. Despite my many appearances, the true story about JaneEyre was yet to be told—and I had been wanting to drop the Goliath Corporation in it for quite a while. Flakk’s assurance that this would finally be the end of the press junket clinched my decision. Adrian Lush it would be.

  I traveled up to the Network Toad studios a few days later on my own; Landen had a deadline looming and needed to get his head down. But I wasn’t alone for long. As soon as I stepped into the large entrance lobby a milk-curdling shade of green strode purposefully towards me.

  “Thursday, darling!” cried Cordelia, beads rattling. “So glad you could make it!”

  The SpecOps dress code stated that our apparel should be “dignified,” but in Cordelia’s case they had obviously stretched a point. She looked about as far from a serving officer as one could get. Looks, in her case, were highly deceptive. She was SpecOps all the way from her high heels to the pink-and-yellow scarf tied in her hair.

  She air-kissed me affectionately. “How’s married life treating you?”

  “Very well.”

  “Excellent, my dear, I wish you and . . . er . . .”

  “Landen?”

  “Yes; I wish you and Landen both the best. Love what you’ve done with your hair!”

  “My hair? I haven’t done anything with my hair!”

  “Exactly!” replied Flakk quickly. “It’s so incredibly you. What do you think of the outfit?”

  “One’s attention is drawn straight to it,” I replied ambiguously.

  “This is 1985,” she explained. “Bright colors are the future. See this top? Half price in the sales. I’ll let you loose in my wardrobe one day.”