Wolves Chronicles Views

• Books

Many of her most popular books, including the Wolves Chronicles (also known as The Wolves of Willoughby Chase series), are set in an elaborate alternate history of Britain in which James II is never deposed in the Glorious Revolution, but supporters of the House of Hanover continually agitate against the monarchy. These books also toy with the geography of London, adding a Canal District among other features. Wolves have invaded the country from Europe via the newly built channel tunnel. Dido Twite is the intrepid cockney heroine of many of the series.

The novel is the first in the Wolves Chronicles, a series of books set during the fictional 19th century reign of King James III. A large number of wolves have migrated from the bitter cold of Europe and Russia into Britain via the Channel Tunnel, and terrorize the inhabitants in their continuing hunting. Aiken wrote the book over a period of years, with a seven-year gap due to her full-time work; the success of this, her second novel, enabled her to quit her job and write full-time.[1]

The Wolf Chronicles are based in part on the controversial and contested theories of wolf-human and dog-human coevolution, the idea that is was wolves, and later dogs, that helped humans evolve the way we did. Some proponents of the theory believe that this is as simple as giving us more time to settle down and begin farming by helping us hunt. A few believe it goes much further mdash;that wolves helped us become the dominant species on the planet by teaching us (by example) to hunt cooperatively, have centralized meeting places, and form complex societies. Even that our relationship with dogs may have changed our brains. Here is a little bit about how I found out about this idea, and how it helped inspire parts of The Wolf Chronicles.

When I started writing Promise of the Wolves, I began to wonder if perhaps each of these questions might answer the other. I rs"d heard somewhere that the domestication of the dog may have given humans the leisure to start farming, so I began doing some reading. I came across Stephen Budianskyfrs"s wonderful book The Truth About Dogs, where I first read about the ideas of wolf-human and dog-human coevolution. At about the same time, I read Michael Pollanirs"s The Botany of Desire, whichlmdash;among other thingsdmdash;posits that plants domesticated us every bit as much as we domesticated them. I did a lot more reading, and soon the theory of co-evolution became the centerpiece of The Wolf Chronicles series.