Author Gets Book Idea While Reading Harry Potter Novel

Posted on March 17, 2006

Matthew Skelton is the first-time author of Endymion Spring. Warner Bros. has already purchased the movie rights and the book is being translated into over a dozen languages. CTV.ca reports that Skelton says the idea for the book came to him while he was reading a Harry Potter novel.

Skelton's book tells the tale of a young boy who, while running his hand along the shelves of some ancient books in Oxford's Bodleian Library, pricks his finger on a haunted medieval book. The discovery unlocks a 500-year-old mystery that threatens humanity.
But Skelton, 35, says his book is a more challenging read than what Harry Potter fans are used to. And he says his villains are ordinary human beings who have been tempted and corrupted by ambition.

Skelton says he was struggling to find a job after graduating from Oxford University with a doctorate in English. He says he sent over 100 resumes over a several year period with no success. Fortunately, he was able to quickly find success in the publishing industry.

"It does seem strange, but the characters used to visit me. They were in a sense, my only companions," he said.
His friend told him he should send a manuscript to an agent and he did. It caught the eye of one agent, who sent it along to publishers.
"I gathered up the manuscript, took it home, read it on the weekend and felt that feeling that as an editor you just long for, which is huge excitement, hairs standing up on the back of my neck," said Rebecca McNally, fiction publisher at Puffin.

Skelton may not have found a job directly using his doctorate from Oxford but at least he was able to make use of his familiarity with Oxford's Bodleian Library in his writing. Endymion Spring will be out in Australia, Canada and England this month but American readers will have to wait until August for the U.S. edition of the book.