The Meaning of Night: A Confession by Michael Cox

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"When a passionate nature is thwarted in its desires, the consequences can be extreme."

Edward Glyver has a confession to make: He's responsible for an unsolved, entirely random murder in Victorian London. But there are untold confessions to come, starting with the fact that Glyver is not his real name, and that his true identity, as heir to one of England's wealthiest and most influential peerages, is slowly being usurped by his childhood archrival, Phoebus Daunt.

Unwilling to accept the middle-class fate chosen for him by his mother, Edward plumbs the truth of his heritage. Deftly navigating the murky confines of London in his quest to find his mark -- an unscrupulous con man who has charmed Edward's father into making him heir to the estate -- Edward succumbs to a vice that has precipitated the downfall of many before him: revenge.

What makes The Meaning of Night so utterly fascinating is the way in which Edward's obsession slowly, insidiously corrodes his own conscience. As he slides, almost too effortlessly and without real regret, from the position of wronged victim into that of victimizer, Cox suggests that the ultimate face-off between Edward and Daunt is not so much a struggle between right and wrong as a precursor to the loss of principles that characterizes the post-Victorian age. A bravura performance. (Holiday 2006 Selection)

From the Publisher

"After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn's for an oyster supper." So begins the "enthralling" (Booklist, starred review) and "ingenious" (Boston Globe) story of Edward Glyver, booklover, scholar, and murderer. A chance discovery convinces Glyver that greatness awaits him. His path to win back what is rightfully his leads him to Evenwood, one of England's most enchanting country houses, and a woman who will become his obsession.

The Washington Post - Maureen Corrigan

Cox knows his stuff -- and some of his characters and plot elements faintly recall the books he's learned from, such as Sheridan Le Fanu's Uncle Silas. The Meaning of Night even comes replete with footnotes, Latin chapter titles and quotations, as well as a sprinkling of contemporary argot and slang. The editor's pseudo-scholarly preface cautiously describes the manuscript as "one of the lost curiosities of nineteenth-century literature."

Publishers Weekly

Resonant with echoes of Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens, Cox's richly imagined thriller features an unreliable narrator, Edward Glyver, who opens his chilling "confession" with a cold-blooded account of an anonymous murder that he commits one night on the streets of 1854 London. That killing is mere training for his planned assassination of Phoebus Daunt, an acquaintance Glyver blames for virtually every downturn in his life. Glyver feels Daunt's insidious influence in everything from his humiliating expulsion from school to his dismal career as a law firm factotum. The narrative ultimately centers on the monomaniacal Glyver's discovery of a usurped inheritance that should have been his birthright, the byzantine particulars of which are drawing him into a final, fatal confrontation with Daunt. Cox's tale abounds with startling surprises that are made credible by its scrupulously researched background and details of everyday Victorian life. Its exemplary blend of intrigue, history and romance mark a stand-out literary debut. Cox is also the author of M.R. James, a biography of the classic ghost-story writer. 10-city author tour. (Sept.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

This stunning first novel by Cox (editor, The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories) opens with a murder on a misty night in 1854 London. The perpetrator, Edward Glyver, is an erudite bibliophile and resourceful detective who assumes different names and personas with disquieting ease. He stabs a total stranger as a precursor to murdering his cunning adversary, Phoebus Daunt, a literary genius who expects to be adopted as heir by the wealthy Lord Tansor. When Glyver discovers that Daunt has destroyed the only evidence that Glyver, in fact, is Tansor's real son, he becomes obsessed with seeking revenge and claiming his rightful inheritance. From the whorehouses, pubs, and opium dens of Victorian London to the ancient beauty of Tansor's ancestral estate, Cox creates a strong sense of place, a complex narrative full of unexpectedly wicked twists, and a well-drawn cast of supporting characters. His language is mesmerizing, and his themes of betrayal, revenge, social stratification, sexual repression, and moral hypocrisy echo those of the great 19th-century novelists. Written in the tradition of Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White and Sarah Waters's Fingersmith, Cox's masterpiece is highly recommended for all fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/06.]-Joseph M. Eagan, Enoch Pratt Free Lib., Baltimore Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A bibliophilic, cozy, murderous confection out of foggy old England. Mystery writers who have taken up residence in the Victorian era have concentrated mostly on the later years, when Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper haunted the streets of London. Cox, biographer of M.R. James and anthologist of other Victorian scary storytellers, plants his pleasantly meandering story early in Victoria and Albert's rule, a time when the old class system was fraying at the edges while hungry country folk and proletarians began to push for a bigger piece of the butterpie. Our dark hero, Edward Glyver, aka Edward Glapthorn, has many a grievance to lodge: He is, or at least believes himself to be, or at least professes to be-he's a most complex fellow, and we can never be sure-a bastard in the classic sense, sired by a booming war hero whom only Aubrey Smith could play. He has also been sorely wronged by the deeply class-conscious, deeply disagreeable Phoebus Daunt, who survives boarding school and all its buggeries and betrayals only to spill out Swinburnesque verse. Annoyed, jealous, downright irritated, E.G. does the natural thing: A bookish sort with a criminal streak a league wide, he slaughters an apparently innocent fellow in the wrong place at the wrong time. "You must understand," he intones, "that I am not a murderer by nature, only by temporary design." Ah, but someone has seen, and now neatly nibbed notes are arriving under his door and that of his intended, warning her that she had better steer clear and that he had better watch his back. Who is writing these notes? Who would want to harm our blameless E.G.? Whom should E.G. massacre next to protect his assets?Cox has a fine time putting allthese questions into play in this long, learned and remarkably entertaining treat, which begs comparison with the work of Patricia Highsmith.

Product Details

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Reading Group Guide

1. Do you find Edward Glyver (Glapthorn) an appealing main character? Why, or why not?

2. What is the importance of fate in The Meaning of Night? How does it change over the course of the book?

3. How do the footnotes provided by the “editor” change your impressions of The Meaning of Night?

4. What does the inclusion of Glyver’s poetic (sometimes opium-fuelled) dreams add to the novel?

5. What are the meanings of the title, The Meaning of Night?

6. Do you think The Meaning of Night would make an entertaining film? Why so–or why not? Who would you cast as the protagonists of your film version, and who would you have direct?

7. In an interview, Michael Cox wondered whether Edward Glyver might suffer from a certain weakness:

“He’s so sure of himself. He describes himself as resourceful, street-wise, physically strong, intellectually strong. He thinks that pretty much anything that is thrown at him, whether it’s physical or mental, he can deal with. But in fact he gets it wrong all the time. Miscomprehension is one of his major flaws, and that is a kind of blindness.”

What does Glyver get wrong in the novel? Is he a reliable narrator?

8. How does London differ from Evenwood in The Meaning of Night? How are they described? Is there a sense in which these settings might be considered “characters” in the novel?

9. If you were to meet Michael Cox, what would you ask him about his book or his characters?

10. What other books would you compare The Meaning of Night to? Do you find the book more similar to works bycontemporary authors or Victorian ones?

11. Who do you find the most compelling secondary character in the book, and why?

12. What are your criticisms of The Meaning of Night? What would you have liked to see more, or less of, if anything?

13. Does reading The Meaning of Night change your sense of the Victorian era? How?

14. Do you find the conclusion of the novel satisfying?

15. Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why, or why not?

Read an Excerpt