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The Dead of Winter

Page 14

by Chris Priestley


  Do you see Uncle Montague as a creepy character? Did you have fun creating him and is he based on anyone you know?

  Uncle Montague gets his name from M. R. James – Montague Rhodes James – but as I wrote about him I had those greats of horror movies in mind: people like Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, John Carradine and Boris Karloff. Roald Dahl was in there too, I suppose, with his introductions to his Tales of the Unexpected television programmes.

  Some people think that horror writers must be a little weird to come up with their stories. Would you agree with them?

  Yes. It is weird. But writing is a weird occupation whatever you write. One of the strongest impulses for me to try to get published was that I kept thinking how weird it was to be keeping notebooks full of stories when I was not (then) a published writer.

  Your next book, Mister Creecher, is a twist on the Frankenstein story. Could you tell us a little bit more about it and the inspiration behind it?

  Ever since I read the book in my teens, I was fascinated by the fact that Frankenstein, his friend Clerval and the creature all come to Britain, going on a tour through London and Oxford, up into the Lakes and eventually to Scotland and the Orkney Islands (where Frankenstein will build – and then destroy – a mate for his creation). Mary Shelley whizzes through this journey in a few paragraphs, but I wanted to zoom in on the potential of having that huge, angry, vengeful monster loose in the England of 1818. Mister Creecher imagines a meeting between Frankenstein’s creature and a young street thief in Regency London and charts the strange and dangerous bond that develops between them as they leave London and head north.

  Also by Chris Priestley

  The Tales of Terror Collection

  Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror

  Tales of Terror from the Black Ship

  Tales of Terror from the Tunnel’s Mouth

  * * *

  Mister Creecher

  More Spine-Chilling Stories from Chris Priestley

  ‘Wonderfully macabre and beautifully crafted horror stories’

  Chris Riddell

  ‘Guaranteed to give you nightmares’

  Observer

  Haunting Bookshops Now

  New from the Master of the Macabre

  Can a monster and a boy ever really be friends?

  Find out in this fantastically frightening gothic novel

  Out Now

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin, New York and Sydney

  First published in Great Britain in October 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 49–51 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP

  This electronic edition published in October 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Text copyright © Chris Priestley 2010

  Decorative illustration copyright © Chris Priestley 2010

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

  A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

  eISBN 9781 4088 2546 4

  www.bloomsbury.com

  www.chrispriestley.blogspot.com

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