The Stone Book Quartet

[1] Set in eastern Cheshire, they feature one day each in the life of four generations of Garner's family and they span more than a century.

[1] One year after The Aimer Gate, Collins published a 172-page omnibus entitled The Stone Book Quartet (1979, 9780006551515) and subsequent editions have retained the title.

[3] While seemingly in modern English, the language of the book is poetic and draws on the patterns and rhythms of local Cheshire dialect.

Garner's great grandfather was a stonemason, and The Stone Book describes his initiating his daughter into the secrets of his craft high on the steeple of a church he is helping to build.

When she asks for a book, he shows her an older writing – his own stonemason's emblem carved in rock deep within Alderley Edge and dating back countless centuries.