Praise for The Bookman''s Tale PENGUIN BOOKS Charlie Lovett is a writer, teacher, and playwright whose plays for children have been seen in more than three thousand productions worldwide. He served for more than a decade as writer in residence at Summit School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He is a former antiquarian bookseller, and he has collected rare books and other materials related to Lewis Carroll for more than twenty-five years. He and his wife, Janice, split their time between Winston-Salem and Kingham, Oxfordshire. Praise for ''The Bookman''s Tale'' About the Author Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Hay-on-Wye, Wales, Wednesday, February 15, 1995 Ridgefield, North Carolina, 1983 Southwark, London, 1592 Kingham, Friday, February 17, 1995 Ridgefield, 1984 Southwark, London, 1609 London, Friday, February 17, 1995 Ridgefield, 1985 Kingham, Saturday, February 18, 1995 Westminster, London, 1612 Ridgefield, 1985 Kingham, Saturday, February 18, 1995 Ridgefield, 1985 Kingham, Saturday, February 18, 1995 Wakefield, Yorkshire, Northern England, 1720 Ridgefield, 1985 Kingham, Sunday, February 19, 1995 London, 1856 Hay-on-Wye, Wales, Sunday, February 19, 1995 Ridgefield, 1985 London, 1875 Hounslow, England, Monday, February 20, 1995 London, 1875 Ridgefield, 1985 Cornwall, Southwestern England, Monday, February 20, 1995 Ridgefield, 1985 London, 1875 Cornwall, Southwestern England, Tuesday, February 21, 1995 Ridgefield, 1986 London, 1876 London, Tuesday, February 21, 1995 Ridgefield, 1986 Kingham, 1876 London, Tuesday, February 21, 1995 Ridgefield, 1986 Kingham, 1876 Ridgefield, 1986 London, Tuesday, February 21, 1995 London, 1877 Ridgefield, 1987 Oxfordshire, England, Tuesday, February 21, 1995 Cambridgeshire, England, 1878 Ridgefield, 1988 Kingham, Tuesday, February 21, 1995 Kingham, 1878 Ridgefield, 1988 Kingham, Tuesday, February 21, 1995 Kingham, 1879 Ridgefield, 1994 Kingham, Tuesday, February 21, 1995 Kingham, 1879 Ridgefield, 1994 Kingham, 1879 Kingham, Wednesday, February 22, 1995 Kingham, Friday, June 23, 1995 Acknowledgments Author''s Note An Excerpt from ''First Impressions'' Hay-on-Wye, Wales, Wednesday, February 15, 1995 Wales could be cold in February. Even without snow or wind the damp winter air permeated Peter''s topcoat and settled in his bones as he stood outside one of the dozens of bookshops that crowded the narrow streets of Hay. Despite the warm glow in the window that illuminated a tantalizing display of Victorian novels, Peter was in no hurry to open the door. It had been nine months since he had entered a bookshop; another few minutes wouldn''t make a difference.

There had been a time when this was all so familiar, so safe; when stepping into a rare bookshop had been a moment of excitement, meeting a fellow book lover a part of a grand adventure. Peter Byerly was, after all, a bookseller. It was the profession that had brought him to England again and again, and the profession that brought him to Hay-on-Wye, the famous town of books just over the border in Wales, on this dreary afternoon. He had visited Hay many times before, but today was the first time he had ever come alone. Now, as the cold ache in his extremities crept toward his core, he saw not a grand adventure but only an uncomfortable setting, a stranger, and the potential for shyness and unease to descend into anxiety and panic. Anticipation brought cold sweat to the back of his neck. Why had he come? He could be safe in his sitting room with a cup of tea right now instead of standing on a cold street corner with a sense of dread settling into the pit of his stomach. Before he could change his mind, he forced himself to grasp the door handle and in another second he was stepping into what should have been welcoming warmth.

"Afternoon," said a crisp voice through a haze of pipe smoke that hovered over a wide desk. Peter mumbled a few syllables, then slipped through an open doorway into the back room, where books lined every wall. He closed his eyes for a moment, imagining the cocoon of books shielding him from all danger, inhaling deeply that familiar scent of cloth and leather and dust and words. His rushing pulse began to slow, and when he opened his eyes he scanned the shelves for something familiar--a title, an author, a well-remembered dust jacket design--anything that might ground him in the world of the known. Just above eye level, he spotted a binding of beautiful blue leather that reminded him of the calf he had used to bind another book--could it have been nearly ten years ago? He pulled the book from the shelf, reveling in the smooth, luxurious feel of the leather. Taking a closer look at the gold stamping on the spine, Peter smiled. He knew this book. If not an old friend, it was certainly an acquaintance, and the prospect of spending a few minutes between its covers calmed his nerves.

An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Certain Miscellaneous Papers, by Edmond Malone, was a monument of analysis that unmasked one of the great forgers of all time, William Henry Ireland. Ireland had forged documents and letters purporting to be written by William Shakespeare, and even the "original manuscripts" of Hamlet and King Lear . Peter turned past the marbled endpapers to the title page: it was a copy of the first edition of 1796. He loved the feel of heavy eighteenth-century paper between his fingers, the texture of the indentations made on the page by the letterpress. He flipped a few pages and read: It has been said that every individual of this country, whose mind has been at all cultivated, feels a pride in being able to boast of our own great dramatick poet, Shakespeare, as his countryman: and proportionate to our respect and veneration for that extraordinary man ought to be our care of his fame, and of those valuable writings he left us. Peter smiled as he recalled reading "those valuable writings" from an actual copy of the First Folio, that weighty 1623 volume of Shakespeare''s works in which many of his plays were printed for the first time. He was calm now--all sense of dread and panic banished by the simple act of losing himself in an old book. Remembering how that First Folio, given the opportunity, always fell open to the third act of Hamlet , he spread the covers of the Malone and let the pages fall where they would.

The book opened to page 289, revealing a piece of paper about four inches square. The brown foxing on the pages between which the paper had been pressed told Peter it had been there for at least a century. Out of habit more than curiosity he turned the paper over. The sharp pain that stabbed his chest almost made him drop the book onto the dusty floor. He thought he had outrun that pain, that he could escape it with distance and distraction, but even in the corner of a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye it had found him. Knees suddenly weak, he slumped against a bookcase and watched, as if in a dream, as the paper fluttered to the floor. The face was still there; he closed his eyes, willing the face and all that went with it to retreat, willing his pulse to slow once more and his hands to stop shaking. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

She lay there calmly, serenely, looking up at him, waiting. It was his wife. It was Amanda. But Amanda was dead--buried nine months ago in the red earth of North Carolina, an ocean away. A heartbeat away. And this painting, so much older than Amanda or her mother or her grandmother, could not possibly portray her. But it did. Peter leaned over to retrieve the paper from the floor and examine it more closely.

It was an expert watercolor, almost imperceptibly signed with the initials "B.B." He looked again at the book from which it had fallen, hoping for a clue to the watercolor''s origin. On the front endpaper was a penciled interlocking "EH," the monogram of some long-forgotten owner. The description printed on a card inside the cover made no mention of a watercolor, only the price: £400. He had seen copies cataloged for half that. Copies that didn''t hide a century-old painting of his dead wife. On the shelf in front of him was a shabby copy of Dickens''s unfinished final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood .

The original cloth binding was worn at the corners and spine, the hinges were broken, and a few pages were loose, but nothing was missing. He could easily restore it to be worth two or three times the asking price. Glancing around, he found himself still alone in the room. His hand trembling, Peter slipped the watercolor into Edwin Drood . He could not leave Amanda here, so far from home. He reshelved the Malone and tucked Drood under his arm. Twenty minutes later he had purchased a stack of books, including the Dickens, and was walking toward the car park on the outskirts of town, two heavy bags hanging at his sides. -- The drive from the Welsh border to Peter''s cottage in the Oxfordshire village of Kingham took just over two hours.

Peter''s cottage was down a narrow lane from the village green and, like the rest of the village, built of golden Cotswold limestone. It was in the middle of a row of terraced cottages, but in five months of residence, Peter had yet to meet either of the neighbors with whom.