Endymion Spring

In 448 pages Skelton weaves a story of a book with no words unless opened by certain young people, made of dragon skin which was discovered by Endymion Spring, a printer who worked with Gutenberg in Mainz. In Oxford in the 21st century, a young American boy, Blake, discovers the book in the library of St Jerome College where Endymion had hidden it. Having found it he cannot retrieve it again and discovers that someone else is after it. Written in a flowery, sometimes careless prose, Blake’s quest is described, interspersed with episodes from the Mainz of 1455. There are implausible moments in the story – would children be allowed to eat in Hall even if their mother was a visiting academic, or go to cocktail parties in the college? As a librarian, I baulked at the thought of the college librarian being used as a babysitter in her own library! Ruthless editing would have improved this convoluted story written by the winner of the Richard and Judy short story competition of 2002.