The House of Dead Maids (14 page)

Warmest thanks to Patrick Arrasmith for creating the wonderfully atmospheric illustrations in this book. He has caught the dark heart of this story.

My deepest gratitude to my mother, Dr. Mary Buckalew, Professor Emerita in the Department of English at the University of North Texas, for inspiring me with a love of
Wuthering Heights
before I could even read. My mother wrote her master’s thesis,
Heathcliff: A Satanic Hero,
four years before my birth, and when I was a little girl, she regaled me with thrilling stories from Emily Brontë’s life and masterpiece.

Sincere thanks to Dr. Ronald Hutton of Bristol University, England. His scholarly works on paganism in the British Isles allowed me to interpret some of
Wuthering Heights
’s most perplexing passages in ways I would not otherwise have dared to do.

Special thanks to Don Shelton, collector and researcher in the field of portrait miniatures, for graciously sharing his singular knowledge.