Lost was published by ReganBooks/HarperCollins in 2001, and it represents Maguire’s departure from fairy-tale revision into contemporary literary fiction — though it retains his characteristic interest in how inherited stories shape our understanding of the world.
Winifred Rudge is an American writer who arrives in London to visit her cousin John and to research a novel about the ghost of Jack the Ripper. She finds John’s flat empty — he has vanished without explanation — and the flat itself seems to be haunted: there are sounds behind the walls, disturbances in the plaster, and a growing sense of malevolent presence. The flat is in a building that local tradition connects to the original of Ebenezer Scrooge — a connection that Winifred, a professional storyteller, cannot help investigating.
The novel operates on multiple levels: it is a ghost story (is the flat genuinely haunted?), a mystery (where is John?), a literary-critical exercise (what is the relationship between Dickens’s stories and the real people who inspired them?), and a psychological study (is Winifred hallucinating, grieving, or both?). Maguire leaves most of these questions unresolved, which is either the novel’s strength or its weakness depending on the reader’s tolerance for ambiguity.
Collecting Lost
First edition (ReganBooks/HarperCollins, New York, 2001): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $10–$25
- Without jacket: $3–$8