Coraline’s timeless atmosphere and vague geographical setting nonetheless suggest the present day, while the souls of the lost children she encounters in the house of the other mother-or the beldam, as the children call her-seem to all be from different time periods throughout British history. He also took inspiration from an “oak-paneled door that opened onto a brick wall” in the drawing room in the large, old house in which he himself grew up.

In 1987, he, his wife, and their three small children moved into a house similar to the one Coraline and her parents share. While Coraline isn’t tied to any specific town or time, Gaiman writes in the novella’s foreword that much of the book’s spooky setting-a large manor house divided up into several smaller flats, or apartments, bricked off from one another and rented out-is inspired by a mixture of several real-life places from Gaiman’s life. Gaiman’s work has been widely adapted for film, radio, and television, garnering nominations at the Academy Awards, the BAFTAs, the Primetime Emmy Awards, and the Saturn Awards. American Gods and Coraline have been recognized by the Hugo Awards, the Nebula Awards, and the Bram Stoker Awards, while 2008’s The Graveyard Book earned Gaiman the British Carnegie Medal and the American Newbery Medal for excellence in children’s literature. Gaiman’s most famous titles include Stardust, Good Omens (cowritten with Terry Pratchett,) American Gods, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane. After his breakout series Sandman, published by DC Comics, gained worldwide renown in the early 1990s, Gaiman’s literary career took off in earnest. Gaiman began his writing career in the 1980s as a journalist and biographer, penning books about the band Duran Duran and Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Because Gaiman’s father David, the head of the UK branch of the Church of Scientology, was often embroiled in public relations scandals tied to the church’s controversial practices, Gaiman bounced from school to school as a child and has described himself as interviews as a “feral child who was raised in libraries.” He has also noted that he himself is not a Scientologist. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia and J.R.R. Born in Portsmouth to Jewish parents who, shortly after Neil’s birth, converted to Scientology, Gaiman’s early influences included C.S. Neil Gaiman is renowned the world over for his darkly fanciful fantasy and sci-fi works, which range from graphic novels to children’s books to literature for adults.

Coraline by P. Craig Russell