One of the reasons why I love Neil Gaiman’s stories is that he can take the seemingly boring, mundane aspects of our everyday world and turn them on their heads. In Neverwhere, we follow Richard Mayhew who after helping a strange young woman found dying on the sidewalk, soon finds himself magically expelled from his very own existence in the city of London to the subterranean world of “London Below.” Accompanied by Door, who has the strange ability to open a doorway to any place imaginable, and “the Marquis de Carabas,” a mysterious man whose name is just as ridiculous as himself, Richard must traverse the many twisting tunnels and hidden areas of London Below to find a way back to the life that left him behind. Populated with the likes of supernatural assassins, rat talkers, vampire-like beings called “Velvets,” and a guardian angel, Neverwhere is an imaginative journey through the unseen and discarded places and stories of London.
— Nicholas“Neil Gaiman is undoubtedly one of the modern masters of fantasy writing....For those who have not read Neverwhere, the new edition is the one to read, and is a fitting introduction to Gaiman’s adult fiction....American readers can experience this spellbinding, magical world the way that Neil Gaiman wanted us to all along.” —Huffington Post
The #1 New York Times bestselling author’s ultimate edition of his wildly successful first novel featuring his “preferred text”—and including his special Neverwhere tale, “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back”.
Published in 1997, Neil Gaiman’s darkly hypnotic first novel, Neverwhere, heralded the arrival of a major talent and became a touchstone of urban fantasy.
It is the story of Richard Mayhew, a young London businessman with a good heart and an ordinary life, which is changed forever when he discovers a girl bleeding on the sidewalk. He stops to help her—an act of kindness that plunges him into a world he never dreamed existed. Slipping through the cracks of reality, Richard lands in Neverwhere—a London of shadows and darkness, monsters and saints, murderers and angels that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth. Neverwhere is home to Door, the mysterious girl Richard helped in the London Above. Here in Neverwhere, Door is a powerful noblewoman who has vowed to find the evil agent of her family’s slaughter and thwart the destruction of this strange underworld kingdom. If Richard is ever to return to his former life and home, he must join Lady Door’s quest to save her world—and may well die trying.
Neil Gaiman is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of books for children and adults whose award-winning titles include Norse Mythology, American Gods, The Graveyard Book, Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett), Coraline, and The Sandman graphic novels. Neil Gaiman is a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR and Professor in the Arts at Bard College.
