The Glass of Time: A Novel [Paperback]

Michael Cox (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2009

“Entirely wonderful . . . chock-full of revenge, romance, duplicity, concealed identities and murder most frequent.”—Washington Post

Building on his haunting, superbly written debut, The Meaning of Night, Michael Cox returns to a story of murder, love, and revenge in Victorian England. The Glass of Time is a vividly imagined study of seduction, betrayal, and friendship between two powerful women bound together by the past.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Set in 1876, Cox's gripping second gothic thriller (after The Meaning of Night) follows the fortunes of 19-year-old orphan Esperanza Gorst, whose guardian charges her to go undercover as a lady's maid. Without knowing precisely why she's doing so, Gorst insinuates herself into the inner circle of Baroness Tansor, the fiancée of the preceding volume's villain, Phoebus Daunt. The fake maid soon learns that her mistress has many secrets, and may, in fact, have been complicit in the death of a former servant. Cox excels at conveying his heroine's conflict over deceiving her employer, especially after learning the role the lady played in her own difficult personal history. While readers unfamiliar with the first book will find themselves deeply engaged by the elegant descriptive prose, those with the benefit of the full context and nuances of The Meaning of Night will better appreciate this sequel. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The author’s first novel, The Meaning of Night (2006), set in London in 1854, was told from the viewpoint of a scholar turned murderer, but this sequel, set some 20 years later, is narrated by an innocent, 19-year-old Esperanza Gorst. Orphaned as a child, she has been raised in relative luxury in Paris by her guardian and given an excellent education by her tutor. However, her world is upended when they inform her that she is to leave for England in two months, where she will be employed as a lady’s maid by the widowed Baroness Tansor on the vast estate of Evenwood. It is to be the first step in what they call the Great Task, but Esperanza’s ultimate goal will only be revealed to her in phases. Although she appears far too refined for her occupation, Esperanza is immediately embraced by the family, but Lady Tansor proves to be a difficult employer, given to hysterics due to her tragic past—the love of her life, the pretentious poet Phoebus Daunt, was murdered by an old friend. Cox so cleverly incorporates the plot of his first novel that his new one can be read by both those who are familiar with The Meaning of Night and those who have never read it. Great period atmosphere, a cunning plot, and an intelligent narrator make this one a special treat for those who like some history with their mystery. --Joanne Wilkinson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1St Edition edition (October 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393337162
• ISBN-13: 978-0393337167
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #619,267 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Cox is the biographer of the ghost-story writer and scholar M. R. James. His first novel, The Meaning of Night, was shortlisted for the 2007 Costa First Novel Award. He lives in rural Northamptonshire, England.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A sequel that lives up to its predecessor October 1, 2008

By K. Huff VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

The Glass of Time is a sequel of sorts to The Meaning of Night: A Confession. Set in 1876, twenty-two years after Meaning of Night ends, the book begins when Esperanza "Alice" Gorst goes to Evenwood to (ostensibly) become Lady Tansor's lady's maid. In reality, she's been sent by The Powers That Be to spy on her employer, for reasons that Esperanza will not be told until later.

We first met Lady Tansor when she was Emily Carteret, engaged to Phoebus Daunt, the poet who was murdered twenty years before The Glass of Time opens. She still harbors feelings for her former fiancee, however, and one of the tasks she has Esperanza do is read out loud from Daunt's work. She also has Esperanza run mysterious errands into town, much to the suspicions of Evenwood's housekeeper, Mrs. Battersby. What unfolds is a web of deception, lies, and, yes murder--not much more than that about the plot I'll say, only because I don't want to give anything away.

The Glass of Time has been one of the books I've been anticipating the most this year, and it didn't disappoint. Cox's long-winded, Dickensian style won't be to everyone's taste, but I really like his mode of writing--it sucked me right in from start to finish. His prose is descriptive, and his characters unusual and interesting. In Esperanza, Cox finds a bright, fresh, and new way to tell the story of the Tansor family. Cox's depiction of Victorian England is never contrived, like so many books set in that period and written lately are--another thing I loved about The Glass of Time.

Another thing I thought was excellent was that Cox (for the most part) got rid of the fiction that this is a "confession" edited and annotated by someone else for publication, using the convention of using footnotes to explain various passages. The Glass of Time is therefore that much more readable, making it only about 580 pages (the same length its predecessor might have been without footnotes). The reader figures out a long time before Esperanza does what's really going on; but the fun of the book is following Esperanza's journey. "I couldn't put it down" is such a clichéd sentence, but in this case... I really and truly couldn't put this book down. My only problem with this book, and maybe this will be fixed before it's published, is that the narrative switches back and forth from past to present tense, sometimes within the same paragraph. I don't know if this is intentional or not, but it's a bit distracting.

Although Cox mentions events that took place in The Meaning of Night in this book, it's not entirely necessary to read it beforehand; a newspaper "clipping" about 130 pages in recaps the bare-bones storyline of The Meaning of Night. However, if you haven't already, I would strongly suggest reading that book at some point--aside from its footnote problem, it's just as good as its sequel.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars a recent read (or reread) of "the meaning of night" will help October 12, 2008

By David W. Straight

Format:Hardcover

If you read the author's dark and complex The Meaning of Night when it came out two years ago, you'll get a sense of deja vu--except that it will seem uncertain. There'll be a certain familiarity to the book, but you may not be sure just why. The Meaning of Night was convoluted, effective, and definitely odd--there were a great many twisted threads, a tangle of paths and characters. So shortly after starting The Glass of Time I found that I had to pause and dig out the earlier novel to remind myself of what had happened there, and who the characters were. A very recent reading of The Meaning of Night would help give a smooth seque to The Glass of Time. If you read the latter novel without having read the former, I think you'll be missing a lot.

The overall flavor to the two books is very similar. Much goes on that some of the characters understand, but which is not communicated to the reader, In that regard, someone who is more comfortable with the more modern let-it-all-hang-out, lay-everything-bare novel in which the reader knows everything the characters do may have a difficult time here. You do know what the central character--Esperanza Gorst--does, but almost everyone else has secrets, secrets which greatly impact the story. Very little is as it seems. Lady Tansor, Esperanza' employer, is Emily Carteret from The Meaning of Night. Madame de l'Orme, who arranges Esperanza's employment seems to be an enemy of Lady Tansor, and the employment is, shall we say, not intended to be helpful to Lady Tansor. Madame's motives slowly and piecemeal become clearer as the novel winds along.

This is not a book you can read if you have distractions. It's as convoluted and twisty as the earlier work, and there are a lot of threads and characters to follow. I found that even when I picked up the book again after having put it down for several hours I had to look back over a previous several pages to remind myself what had just occurred. At close to 600 pages, it's not a book you can finish quickly, and so the length and style may present some problems unless you have a very sharp memory. It's well-written, and if you have sufficient patience, you'll find the novel rewarding.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars All of the appeal of the first with none of the mistakes February 1, 2009

By Lilly Flora VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

In spite of the issues it had Michael Cox's "The Meaning of Night" had a strange hypnotic quality in the writing that kept me reading through the slow spots and once I finished the book had me going strait to the sequel to see how the twisted tale of an inheritance stolen would work out.

"The Glass of Time" is the tale of Esperanza "Alice" Gorst, an orphan from France who has been sent by her guardian and tutor to England to serve as the lady's maid for Emily Duport, Lady Tansor. But she is to be more than just a maid. She is under instructions to note everything in her book of secrets and told that she will receive three letters which will alert her to the "great task" that she is to accomplish.

Though Alice knows she's at Evenwood for a purpose it's hard to resists falling under the spell of the beautiful, charming and tragic Lady Tansor and her two handsome sons. But the closer she comes to Lady Tansor the more secrets she begins to uncover-finally leading to the truth behind her own destiny...

It's really clear that the author learned from the mistakes he made in "The Meaning of Night" and corrected them. Unlike its predecessor this book has no real slow spots and while it does have some footnotes (as both books are supposedly documents found in the Duport library and edited by a scholar) there're much less of them and they are much more relevant to the story.

All in all this was a good book. The mixture of crime, mystery, family secrets and gloomy atmosphere give it the same hypnotic quality that the first book had, making this not exactly impossible to put down, but easy to loose yourself in. All in all the two books together make a great read for a rainy week.

Four stars.