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In Rendell's own words:
"This is the only book I have ever written in which I became myself upset at the prospect of the fate that awaited these people. I knew that they must die but I liked them. Usually I am quite detached from this but I was not, and I was quite distressed at the thought that they must die without my altering the whole plot structure, and I wasn't prepared to do that." (BBC World Service, August 28 2003)
Notes:
Rendell discussed this book extensively in a BBC World Service broadcast in 2003; read the transcript here. According to that interview, A Judgement In Stone is the only novel she has written which she did not name herself. Despite that, it remains one of her best-known works: partly because of its stunning revelation of the basic plot in the very first line, partly because of the multiple adaptations, but mostly because it is such a fine novel.
Dedicatee Gerald Austin was Rendell's first fiction editor. In a 1991 interview with Dale Salwak, she commented: "My first editor (now, alas, dead) taught me to be a professional writer. From him I learned to sit down each day and write, to check and verify, to write economically and at not too great a length. He taught me the importance of delivering a manuscript when I said I would, reading proofs on time, and not to be slipshod; and when I had first achieved some success he kept me from being swollen-headed by praising me only sparingly and then with great restraint. His name was Gerald Austin and I shall mourn him always." (She also dedicated No More Dying Then to him.)
Rendell allegedly described the 1986 movie adaptation as "perhaps the worst film I've ever seen".
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Publication date: 1977
Dedication: For Gerald Austin, with love
Foreign editions: TBC
Omnibus editions: Included in The Ruth Rendell Omnibus (1992)
Audio editions: Chivers Audio Books, April 1987, narrated by Carole Hayman (ISBN 0745162312)
Adapatations: Film: La Ceremonie, 1995 (IMDB)
Film: A Judgement In Stone, 1986 (IMDB)
Reviews: Amazon UK, Amazon
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