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Description edit
Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job and a pretty but demanding fiancée. Then one night he stumbles across a girl bleeding on the sidewalk. He stops to help her—and the life he knows vanishes like smoke. Several hours later, the girl is gone too.... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Summary edit
Richard Mayhew is a young man with a good heart and an ordinary life, which is changed forever when he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. His small act of kindness propels him into a world he never dreamed existed. There are people who fall through the cracks, and... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)
Characters edit
- Richard Mayhew: An ordinary man with an ordinary life from London Above.
- M. Croup: Assassin. Verbose and officious. Likes to eat expensive statuary.
- M. Vandemar: Assassin. Slow and uncompromisingly violent.
- Door: A young woman that Richard Mayhew meets who is the entire reason he falls through to 'London Below' and his life is never the same again.
- Marquis de Carabas: A powerful and mysterious denizen of the underworld.
- Hunter: Door's bodyguard who is unable to go to London above.
- Anesthésie: Add a description of this character.
- Jessica: Richard's very pretty, and very self centered fiancee of London above.
- Gary: Richard's friend and co-worker
- Old Bailey: Man that lives on roofs and sells birds and information
- Mister Stockton: Jessica's boss
- Brother Fuliginous: Head of the Black Friars
- Lamia: One of the Velvet Children
- Lear: Street performer who is able to see both London above and below people.
- Angel Islington: The guardian angel of London and, previously, Atlantis
Quotes edit
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“I already killed you once. What does it take to teach some people?”
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“That was tonight?" Richard paused for a moment. If ever, he decided, they made disorganisation an Olympic sport, he could be disorganised for England”
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“And Jessica saw in Richard an enormous amount of potential, which, properly harnessed by the right woman, would have made him the perfect matrimonial accessory.”
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“'Is there anything, really, to be scared of?' 'Only the night on the bridge,' she said. 'The kind in armor?' 'The kind that comes when day is over.'”
Richard and the leather woman -
“The marquis felt, then, that much of what he had gone through in the previous week was made up for by the expression on Hunter's face.”
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“He wondered how long the corpses had been there, and whether they had been killed by the Beasr or by the mosquitoes.”
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“So the day became one of waiting, which was, he knew, a sin: moments were to be experienced; waiting was a sin against both the time that was still to come and the moments one was currently disregarding.”
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“"I'm not scared of fallng," he told himself. "The part I'm scared of is where you finish falling."”
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“"When angels go bad, they go worse than anyone. Remember, Lucifer was an angel once."”
Marquis de Carabas -
“He opened his mouth and tasted the wine once more. It made him feel happy. It made him think of skies bigger and bluer than any he had ever seen, a golden sun hanging huge in the sky.Everything simpler, everything younger than the world he knew.”
Setting & Locations edit
- Islington
- Hammersmith
- Ruislip
- London, England: Present day (London Above)
- Harrods
- London Underground: The London most people didn't know existed (London Below)
- Floating Market: The floating market is a place where all of London Below meet. It is always moving
- Down Street
- London Wall
- H. M. S. Belfast
Organizations edit
First Sentence edit
The night before he went to London, Richard Mayhew was not enjoying himself.
Table of Contents edit
Prologue
Chapters 1-20
Acknowledgments
Themes & Symbolism edit
- homelessness: Describe this theme.
- Ignorance: Richard was ignorant to the people around him, just floating through his life but not truly enjoying any of it. He was exposed to a whole new world when he "fell through the crack" which caused him to open his eyes to the world around him
Series & Lists edit
This is book 48 of 100 in National Public Radio's Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy. (authoritative list)
Preceded by The Sword in the Stone, and followed by Childhood's End.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Neil Gaiman (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: BBC Books
Country: United Kingdom
Publication Date: 1996
ISBN: 0-7472-6668-9
Page Count: 370
Publisher: BBC Books
Country: United Kingdom
Publication Date: 1996
ISBN: 0-7472-6668-9
Page Count: 370
Awards edit
- Mythopoeic Fantasy Award (Finalist, 1998: Adult Literature, Finalist)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: PR6057.A319 N48 1997
- Dewey: 741.5973
Subjects edit
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Links to Supplemental Material edit
Movie Connections edit
- Neverwhere (IMDb): 1996. The book was actually based on the miniseries, rather than the other way around.
More Books Like This edit
Books Influenced by This Book edit
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