Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett

Origins and authorship

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett had known each other since 1985. Gaiman, inspired by his success in writing a biography of Douglas Adams (Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), and in observing Adams work at close quarters decided to try his hand at novel writing, and sent a piece of work to a number of friends, including Terry Pratchett for feedback. Pratchett responded positively eight months later.[4] According to Gaiman, he originally began the book as a parody of Richmal Crompton's William books, named William the Antichrist, but it gradually outgrew the original idea.[5] It was their own idea, not that of their publisher, to collaborate on a novel.[6]

Gaiman has said:

We were both living in England when we wrote it. At an educated guess, although neither of us ever counted, Terry probably wrote around 60,000 "raw" and I wrote 45,000 "raw" words of Good Omens, with, on the whole, Terry taking more of the plot with Adam and the Them in, and me doing more of the stuff that was slightly more tangential to the story, except that broke down pretty quickly and when we got towards the end we swapped characters so that we'd both written everyone by the time it was done, but then we also rewrote and footnoted each other's bits as we went along, and rolled up our sleeves to take the first draft to the second (quite a lot of words), and, by the end of it, neither of us was entirely certain who had written what. It was indeed plotted in long daily phone calls, and we would post floppy disks (and this was back in 1988 when floppy disks really were pretty darn floppy) back and forth.[7]

Pratchett said:

I think this is an honest account of the process of writing Good Omens. It was fairly easy to keep track of because of the way we sent disks to one another, and because I was Keeper of the Official Master Copy I can say that I wrote a bit over two thirds of Good Omens. However, we were on the phone to each other every day, at least once. If you have an idea during a brainstorming session with another guy, whose idea is it? One guy goes and writes 2,000 words after thirty minutes on the phone, what exactly is the process that's happening? I did most of the physical writing because:

1. I had to. Neil had to keep Sandman going – I could take time off from the DW;
2. One person has to be overall editor, and do all the stitching and filling and slicing and, as I've said before, it was me by agreement – if it had been a graphic novel, it would have been Neil taking the chair for exactly the same reasons it was me for a novel;
3. I'm a selfish bastard and tried to write ahead to get to the good bits before Neil.

Initially, I did most of Adam and the Them and Neil did most of the Four Horsemen, and everything else kind of got done by whoever – by the end, large sections were being done by a composite creature called Terryandneil, whoever was actually hitting the keys. By agreement, I am allowed to say that Agnes Nutter, her life and death, was completely and utterly mine. And Neil proudly claims responsibility for the maggots. Neil's had a major influence on the opening scenes, me on the ending. In the end, it was this book done by two guys, who shared the money equally and did it for fun and wouldn't do it again for a big clock.[6]

International editions

The United States edition of Good Omens had numerous alterations to the text. The most significant alteration to the main text is the addition of an extra 700-word section just before the end, dealing with what happened to the character of Warlock, the American diplomat's son, who was swapped with Adam.[8] The American edition also adds numerous footnotes not found in British editions.

The Dutch translation of Good Omens contains a preface by the translator wherein he asserts that no extra footnotes were added to clarify matters that might be unclear to a modern audience – annotated with footnotes explaining omen and Crowley.

In the French version, some characters were given French-sounding names. Agnes Nutter became Agnès Barge (barge is French for nutter), Anathema Device became Anathème Bidule (Bidule being French for Device). Crowley became Rampa (as 'Crawly' became 'Crowley', 'Rampant' became 'Rampa'), after the infamous author of The Third Eye, T. L. Rampa. The French publisher of Good Omens (J'ai Lu) was also the French publisher of the T. L. Rampa books.

In the Czech version of the book, the names of Agnes, Anathema, the Satanist nuns, Pepper and some minor characters were translated too. The book contains many extra footnotes as an explanation to some of the phrases that were translated more literally than usual and to add new jokes (for example the part where Anathema meets Adam and tells him she is an occultist, noting: "You were thinking 'Nothin' wrong with my eyes, they don't need examining,' weren't you?" was accompanied by a footnote: To those who understood what was the point, congratulations. For those whom it took as long as it took me: The Dictionary's definition: Oculist – rather an old-fashioned word for an ophthalmologist.).

Historical and literary inspirations

The names of Agnes Nutter and her descendant Anathema Device were inspired by two of the victims of the 1612 Pendle witch trials, Alice Nutter and Elizabeth Device. Gaiman confirmed the homage in a 2016 tweet.[9][10]