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Matt Haig is the number one bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and five highly acclaimed novels for adults, including The Radleys and The Humans. As a writer for children and young adults he has won the Blue Peter Book Award, the Smarties Book Prize and been nominated three times for the Carnegie Medal. His work has been translated into over 30 languages. @matthaig1 matthaig.com
Chris Ridell is a Costa prize-winning illustrator, author and former Children's Laureate. He has worked as a political cartoonist for the Economist, the Independent and the Observer and has enjoyed great acclaim for his books for children. He has illustrated an exceptional range of books and has won a number of major prizes, including the UNESCO Prize and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal and also writes and creates his own books, such as the highly-acclaimed Ottoline series and the Costa prize-winning Goth Girl series. @chrisriddell50 chrisriddell.co.uk
Also by Matt Haig
The Last Family in England
The Dead Fathers Club
The Possession of Mr Cave
The Radleys
The Humans
Humans: An A–Z
Reasons to Stay Alive
For Children
The Runaway Troll
Shadow Forest
To Be A Cat
Echo Boy
A Boy Called Christmas
The Girl Who Saved Christmas
Father Christmas and Me
This illustrated edition published in Great Britain in 2017 by
Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2017 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Matt Haig, 2017
Illustrations © Chris Riddell, 2017
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
Extract from Huis Clos by Jean-Paul Sartre
reprinted by permission of Éditions Gallimard,
5 rue Gaston-Gallimard, 75007 Paris
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library
Standard edition ISBN 978 1 78689 316 1
Limited edition ISBN 978 1 78689 317 8
eISBN 978 1 78689 318 5
For Andrea
CONTENTS
Part One: Life Among the Mayflies
London and St Albans, 1860–1891
