Michael Cox is suffering from cancer and going blind, yet this popular writer has just completed the second part of a trilogy, writes HELEN PEACOCKE

Writing a trilogy of historical novels which takes the reader on a journey that embraces two centuries is a daunting task that calls for perseverance, focus and hard work.

When that writer is battling with cancer and the onset of blindness while embarking on this, he needs to add tenacity, which is exactly what Michael Cox, one time book editor for Oxford University Press, has done.

Michael brought out his first epic Victorian murder mystery The Meaning of Night in 2006 to critical acclaim. It was short listed for the Costa First Novel Award and nominated for Waterstone Newcomer of the Year at the British Book Awards.

Now the second book in this trilogy, The Glass of Time, is in the bookshops and is already being hailed as even better than the first, despite the fact it was written in the most difficult and painful of circumstances.

Michael is suffering from haemangiopericytoma, an uncommon type of vascular tumour which has now rendered him all almost blind. When he wrote his first novel he still had enough residual sight to use his computer and write down his thoughts by hand. Now, with sight in the second eye deteriorating rapidly, he has to find new ways of getting his words on to paper.

He explained that when it became obvious that he was going to need help he went for a low-tech solution.

“I have found a wonderful assistant who is taking dictation and is ready to edit things for me. This is quite a sea change as writing is such a personal thing. I have had to adjust to speaking my words rather than writing them down — that’s all I can do now my health curve is deteriorating.”

This situation was made worse recently when he fell from the top to the bottom of the staircase in his home, dislocating his elbow and breaking his wrist. Yet throughout all this he remains stoically resolved to continue writing. After all, he has still one more book to write.

Although The Glass of Time continues the theme he developed in The Meaning of Night, he says it will stand alone for those readers who come to his work for the first time, while satisfying those who already know the characters.

Michael’s main challenge this time was to write it in the voice of 19-year-old orphan Esperanza Gorst who arrives at a great country house in 1876 to be interviewed for the position of lady’s maid. Esperanza is no ordinary servant. She had been sent by her guardian, the mysterious Madame de L’Orme, to uncover the dark and mysterious secrets that her new mistress sought to conceal. It is a gripping study of identity, the nature of secrets and the things that can happen when past obsessions impose themselves on an unwilling present.

His second challenge was to write it without overloading the readers with fruits of his research.

“Physical descriptions of street scenes, costumes and house interiors are a way of showing off. I rely on language, rather than physical things to describe the period.

"Because I have read a great deal that’s been written in this period, I instinctively know when a word is wrong, but I still check certain words in a contemporary dictionary, as words can subtly change their meanings over the years. "Take the word computer, for example. In Victorian times this meant someone computing figures,” said Michael, who sees himself as someone who tells stories rather than a novelist with a capital N.

Because his sight has deteriorated so much since the onset of his illness, he couldn’t check the proofs and is unable to see just what his publishers have done with the cover of The Glass of Time. He also doubts he will be able to attend signings, as he did before.

“It’s been two or three medical emergencies a year. The horrendous nose bleeds, for example. One happened during an arduous book tour of America, bringing an 11-city tour in 12 days to a frustrating halt when we arrived in Oregon.

“It’s all very frustrating — so many things I want to do, like read, tend to the garden and just sign my name in a book. All I have is enough residual sight to stagger round the house like a big baby.

“However, there are ways of working things out — it’s just a matter of thinking positive. Things could be worse. On balance, it’s been a fantastic experience. I may never have written anything if I hadn’t been taken ill,” he admitted.

The Glass of Time by Michael Cox is published by John Murray at £17.99.