She gave a cheery wave and walked off up the dusty track. I looked across the lake at the faraway dinghies, then watched a pair of swans beating their wings furiously and pedaling the water to take off. I sat down on a rickety wooden seat and let Pickwick out of the bag. It wasn’t home but it looked pleasant enough. Landen’s reactualization was in the uncharted future, along with Aornis’s and Goliath’s comeuppance—but all in good time. I would miss Mum, Dad, Joffy, Bowden, Victor and maybe even Cordelia. But it wasn’t all bad news—at least this way I wouldn’t have to do The Thursday Next Workout Video.

As my father said, it’s funny the way things turn out.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Well of Lost Plots

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Well of Lost Plots

A Viking Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2003 by Jasper Fforde

This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

For information address:

The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ISBN: 1-101-15862-X

A VIKING BOOK®

Viking Books first published by The Viking Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

VIKING and the “VIKING” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

Electronic edition: June, 2004

For Mari
who makes the torches burn brighter

Contents

Thursday Next: The Story So Far . . .

Author’s Note

1. The Absence of Breakfast

2. Inside Caversham Heights

3. Three Witches, Multiple Choice and Sarcasm

4. Landen Parke-Laine

5. The Well of Lost Plots

6. Night of the Grammasites

7. Feeding the Minotaur

8. Ton-Sixty on the A419

9. Apples Benedict, a Hedgehog and Commander Bradshaw

10. Jurisfiction Session No. 40319

11. Introducing UltraWord™

12. Wuthering Heights

14. Educating the Generics

15. Landen Parke-Somebody

16. Captain Nemo

17. Minotaur Trouble

18. Snell Rest in Peece and Lucy Deane

19. Shadow the Sheepdog

20. Ibb and Obb Named and Heights Again

21. Who Stole the Tarts?

22. Crimean Nightmares

23. Jurisfiction Session No. 40320

24. Pledges, the Council of Genres and Searching for Deane

25. Havisham—the Final Bow

26. Post-Havisham Blues

27. The Lighthouse at the Edge of My Mind

28. Lola Departs and Heights Again

29. Mrs. Bradshaw and Solomon (Judgments) Inc.

30. Revelations

31. Tables Turned

32. The 923rd Annual BookWorld Awards

33. Ultra Word™

34. Loose Ends

34a. Heavy Weather
(Bonus chapter exclusive to the U.S. edition)

Credits

Thursday Next: The Story So Far . . .