Authors: Kim Wilkins
Angel of Ruin (51 page)
Anne, Mary and Deborah Milton were real people. When I found out that John Milton dictated his epic to his daughters, I immediately started to speculate on whether they could have changed his work without his knowledge, because of his blindness. The thought amused me enough to look up some biographical information about them. To my absolute joy I found out they didn’t get along with their father, that Mary actually said the words spoken in Chapter One (“that was no news to hear of his wedding, but if she could hear of his death that was something”), and that in his will he left the girls a family debt and called them his “unkind children”. Various accounts list Anne as subnormal, retarded, and in one biographer’s words “dippy,” though not much evidence exists beyond the fact that she had a limp and some difficulty speaking. In fact, the biographers seem to have it in for all the girls, one implying that they must have really tried poor Milton’s patience, and another suggesting that they were very irritating to live with; but I’m sure living with an egotistical genius who has a sharp tongue and a cruel sense of humour would be no picnic. Milton’s earliest biographer, Edward Phillips, summed up the situation in this way: “It had been happy indeed if the Daughters of such a Person had been made in some measure Inheritrixes of their Father’s Learning; but since Fate otherwise decreed, the greatest Honour that can be ascribed … is to be Daughter to a man of his extraordinary Character.”
Hmm. So consider this book a kind of redress, a speculative account which, I hope, requires no previous knowledge of Milton or his great poem. I had long wanted to write about the loyalties of sisters to sisters, of daughters to fathers, and this provided me the perfect opportunity.
One important caveat: even though this book has its inception in fact, it is a work of fiction, and the astute will no doubt spot the bent truths. As far as possible, however, I have adhered to recorded dates and facts. But no, there are no records which suggest that a fallen angel lived in the attic of Milton’s house on Artillery Walk. Which I think is a very great pity.
My heartfelt thanks are due to a number of people. Philip Birger at the Milton’s Cottage Trust in Chalfont St Giles was kind enough to open the cottage for me in the dead of the winter tourist slump. Without his support this book would have been impossible for me to imagine. Thank you, too, to the Eleanor Dark Foundation and Peter Bishop at Varuna Writers’ Retreat, a magical place in the Blue Mountains where I finished the story on a misty morning while the maple leaves quivered in the breeze outside my window. My support team at HarperCollins are due the greatest thanks for their passion and commitment, especially Stephanie Smith who humours my hysteria with good grace. A little dog named Max, who was murdered in winter last year, has kindly provided his name for my purposes. I know he is still sorely missed. For some small but crucial details I owe debts to Ian Mond and Julia Morton. A close circle of truly great friends always exercises its patience and understanding with me when I am in “the zone,” and I count among that number Drew Whitehead, who once loaned me a book on Milton even though it meant he had nothing to read on the train that day; Lynnie and Vinnie — everybody
needs good neighbours; and my beloved Mirko, who provides live music while I write and somehow lives through my mood swings. Thanks also to my family, especially Frank Wilkins. I am eternally sorry that I do not write cowboy books, Grandad. Finally, and most crucially, thanks to super-agent Selwa Anthony. She is an unstoppable force, and her faith in the power of the word can move mountains.
Kim Wilkins was born in London and grew up at the seaside in Queensland. She has degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing, and has won four Aurealis awards for fantasy and horror. Her books are also published in the UK and Europe. Kim lives in Brisbane with her partner, her baby son, and two spoiled black cats. You can write to her at [email protected], or find more information at www.kimwilkins.com
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KIM WILKINS
On the wild Yorkshire coast, Maisie hopes to uncover the secret of the long-running feud between her mother and her recently deceased grandmother, Sybill. But the locals in the tiny village of Solgreve are hardly welcoming. It seems the only person interested in talking to her is the dark-eyed gypsy, Sacha.
In one of Sybill’s old trunks, Maisie finds a diary written by a young woman in the eighteenth century. Georgette eloped with her poet lover from London to Solgreve — and entered a gothic world of grave robbing and diabolical science.
Then Maisie starts seeing a figure that exudes unearthly evil outside her tiny cottage. Gradually she uncovers the terrifying dark secrets of Solgreve, secrets that contain an evil that threatens to claim her …
Winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel.
ISBN 0 7322 6812 5
KIM WILKINS
From the dazzling author of
The Resurrectionists
and
Angel of Ruin
comes the first of a stunning suite of novels inspired by the ancient myths of northern Europe.
Berlin in autumn: Christine Starlight is living in an artist’s colony in the crumbling urban shadows of the old east. Her lover Jude is a painter whose patience and beauty have eased her long battle with chronic pain, but Christine begins to be haunted by recollections of her childhood, of a little girls’ disappearance and the flapping of a blackbird’s wings.
Then her life is rocked by the return of her childhood friend — a crimson-haired beauty who presides over a land where a witch lives in a well, a wolf is the queen’s counsellor, and fate turns on the fall of an autumn leaf. As Christine grows addicted to Mayfridh’s faery world, where mortals feel no pain, so Mayfridh grows addicted to Christine’s, and falls deeply and dangerously in love with Jude.
But while jealousies, betrayals and secrets begin to unpick the threads of their lives, they are unaware of the ghastly threat which stalks them: the cruel and brilliant billionair Immanuel Z, who is hunting faery bones for a grand sculpture …
ISBN 0 7322 7394 3
HarperCollins
Publishers
First published in Australia in 2001
This edition published in 2010
by HarperCollins
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Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
Copyright © Kim Wilkins 2001
The right of Kim Wilkins to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Wilkins, Kim.
Angel of ruin / Wilkins, Kim..
ISBN: 978-0-7322-7883-0 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978-0-7304-9238-2 (ePub)
I. Title.
A823.3
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