The Crimson Petal and The White by Michel Faber

Description

Bibliographic Details

• Author: Michel Faber
• Title: The Crimson Petal and the White
• Publisher: ‎ Harcourt Books; First U.S. Edition (September 16, 2002)
• Language: ‎ English
• Format: Hardcover – 833 pages
• ISBN-10: ‎ 015100692X
• ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0151006922
• Item Weight: ‎ 2.95 pounds
• Dimensions: ‎ 6.25 x 1.75 x 9.25 inches
• Book Condition: Used – Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Excellent
• Edition: First U.S. Edition

Synopsis:

A teenage prostitute ascends through the many layers of Victorian London society in this highly acclaimed “big, sexy, bravura novel” (New York Times).

London, 1870s. At the heart of this panoramic narrative is a young woman’s struggle to lift her body and soul out of the gutter. Sugar, a nineteen-year-old whore in the brothel of the terrifying Mrs. Castaway, yearns for a better life. Her ascent through the strata of Victorian society begins with the egotistical perfume magnate William Rackham. Infatuated with Sugar, William’s patronage brings her into the circles of his family and milieu: his wife who barely overcomes chronic hysteria to make her appearances during “the Season”; his mysteriously hidden-away daughter, left to the care of minions; his pious brother, foiled in his devotional calling by his lust for the Widow Fox; as well as preening socialites, drunken journalists, untrustworthy servants, vile guttersnipes, and whores of all stripes and persuasions.

Twenty years in its conception, research, and writing, The Crimson Petal and the White is teeming with life, rich in texture and incident, with breathtakingly real characters.

"Cocky and brilliant, amused and angry, [Faber] is rightfully earning comparisons to observer extraordinaire Charles Dickens. . . . It's hopeless to resist" (Entertainment Weekly).

About the Author:

Michel Faber (born 13 April 1960) is a Dutch writer of English-language fiction.

Faber was born in The Hague, The Netherlands. He and his parents emigrated to Australia in 1967. He attended primary and secondary school in the Melbourne suburbs of Boronia and Bayswater, then attended the University of Melbourne, studying Dutch, philosophy, rhetoric, English language (a course involving translation and criticism of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English texts) and English literature. He graduated in 1980.

He worked as a cleaner and at various other casual jobs, before training as a nurse at Marrickville and Western Suburbs hospitals in Sydney. He nursed until the mid-1990s. In 1993 he, his second wife and family emigrated to Scotland, where they still reside.