Crossing To Paradise (32 page)
Always rigorous in his thinking, always generous in his latitude to novelists and poets who make use of history, Richard Barber put a dose of wind in Gatty's sails, and lent me marvelous books on the medieval Muslim
world. Jennifer Hamilton gave me inspiring tutorials on the singing voice and the teaching of singing. And Ann Jones has again generously helped me with matters WelshâGatty's cob is named after the beautiful animal that belonged to her family. To this list, already long, let me add the children and adults who wrote to me about Gatty after meeting her in my Arthur trilogy. Their curiosity fired and fed my own.
For me, a first draft is just that. In deciphering my manuscript, taking aboard wave upon wave of corrections and making shrewd editorial interventionsâall with great good humor, accuracy and speedâTwiggy Bigwood has been a wonderful ally. I'm so grateful to her.
In Judith Elliott, I have a remarkable editor with an unfailing grasp of sweep and intention, and an eagle-eye for minutiae. We have worked together for thirty-three years, and her incisive, warm guidance has helped me to shape this story. I'm indebted to her, and to my spirited publisher Fiona Kennedy, as well as to Jane Hughes and so many of her colleagues at Orion, all of whom have given this book their most attentive and lively support.
This book bears my name but, truly, my wife Linda and I have undertaken Gatty's pilgrimage together. Often provocative, always persistent, she first suggested many of its twists and turns, and has made a quite exceptional contribution to its planning, psychology and revision. And more even than all this, she has empowered its author with her belief and love.
Chalk Hill, Burnham Market, England, May 2006
While revising my text for this American edition, I have had the benefit of an incomparable publisher and a wonderful editor. Both Arthur Levine and Cheryl Klein have made a host of perceptive suggestions, some of them substantive, many warm and wise, and in addressing them I have learned that it may be possible to arrive at two separate texts of equal artistic integrity. I am so grateful to them both.
January 2008
The Seeing Stone
At the Crossing-Places
King of the Middle March
How Many Miles to Bethlehem?
Text copyright © 2006 by Kevin Crossley-Holland
Map illustration © 2006 by Hemesh Alles
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
CrossleyâHolland, Kevin. [Gatty's tale]
Crossing to Paradise / by Kevin CrossleyâHolland. â 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: When fifteen-year-old Gatty, an illiterate field-girl who sings beautifully, is selected for a pilgrimage, she travels from her home on an English estate to London, Venice, and eventually Jerusalem, and experiences great changes in her circumstances and in herself.
ISBN 978-0-545-05866-7
[1. Pilgrims and pilgrimagesâFiction. 2. Christian LifeâFiction. 3. LiteracyâFiction. 4. SingingâFiction. 5. Self-actualization (Psychology) âFiction. 6. Middle AgesâFiction. 7. Arthur, KingâFiction. 8. Great BritainâHistoryâRichard I, 1189â1199âFiction. 9. Great BritainâHistoryâJohn, 1199â1216âFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C88284Cro 2008
[Fic]âdc22
2007051853
Jacket Photo © 2008 by Juliana Kolesova
Jacket Design by Kristina Albertson
First edition, September 2008
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E-ISBN: 978-0-545-23002-5