Sarah Perry

“Masterful…scary and smart, working as a horror story but also a philosophical inquiry into the nature of will and love. Perry did as much in her richly praised novel The Essex Serpent, but this is a deeper, more complex novel and more rewarding.” —Washington Post For centuries, the mysterious dark-robed figure has roamed the globe, searching for those whose complicity and cowardice have fed into the rapids of history’s darkest waters—and now, in Sarah Perry’s breathtaking follow-up to The Essex Serpent, it is heading in our direction. It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts—or, at least, refuge. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore. As such superstition has it, Melmoth travels through the ages, dooming those she persuades to join her to a damnation of timeless, itinerant solitude. To Helen it all seems the stuff of unenlightened fantasy. But, unaware, as she wanders the cobblestone streets Helen is being watched. And then Karel disappears. . . .

A Novel

Melmoth

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER Overall Book of the Year and Fiction Book of the Year at the British Book Awards 2017 (Nibbies) Longlisted for the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction The Waterstones Book of the Year 2016 Shortlisted for the 2016 Costa Novel Award London, 1893. When Cora Seaborne's controlling husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness. Along with her son Francis - a curious, obsessive boy - she leaves town for Essex, in the hope that fresh air and open space will provide refuge. On arrival, rumours reach them that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming lives, has returned to the coastal parish of Aldwinter. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist with no patience for superstition, is enthralled, convinced that what the local people think is a magical beast may be a yet-undiscovered species. As she sets out on its trail, she is introduced to William Ransome, Aldwinter's vicar, who is also deeply suspicious of the rumours, but thinks they are a distraction from true faith. As he tries to calm his parishioners, Will and Cora strike up an intense relationship, and although they agree on absolutely nothing, they find themselves at once drawn together and torn apart, affecting each other in ways that surprise them both. The Essex Serpent is a celebration of love, and the many different shapes it can take.

The number one bestseller and British Book Awards Book of the Year

The Essex Serpent

A fierce memoir of a mother's murder, a daughter's coming-of-age in the wake of immense loss, and her mission to know the woman who gave her life

A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Search

After the Eclipse

Elegant, sinister, and psychologically complex, After Me Comes the Flood is the haunting debut novel by the bestselling author of The Essex Serpent and Melmoth. On a hot summer's day, John Cole decides to shut his bookshop early, and possibly forever, and drives out of London to see his brother. When his car breaks down on an isolated road, he goes looking for help and finds a dilapidated house. As he approaches, a laughing woman he's never seen before walks out, addresses him by name and explains she's been waiting for him. Entering the home, John discovers an enigmatic clan of residents all of whom seem to know who he is and claim they have been waiting for him to arrive. They seem to be waiting for something else, too--something final... Written before Sarah Perry's ascension to an internationally bestselling author, After Me Comes the Flood is a spectacular novel of obsession, conviction and providence--a startling investigation of the nature of determination in all senses of the word. Wrote Katherine Angel, author of Unmastered, Perry's novel "made me think of Fowles's The Magus, Maxwell's The Chateau, and Woolf's To the Lighthouse." Indeed.

After Me Comes the Flood

SOON TO BE AN APPLE TV SERIES STARRING CLAIRE DANES AND TOM HIDDLESTON A Kirkus Review Best Book of 2017 * A Washington Post Notable Work of Fiction * Winner of the British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year and overall Book of the Year * Waterstones Book of the Year * Costa Book Award Finalist "A novel of almost insolent ambition--lush and fantastical, a wild Eden behind a garden gate...it's part ghost story and part natural history lesson, part romance and part feminist parable. I found it so transporting that 48 hours after completing it, I was still resentful to be back home." -New York Times London, 1893. When Cora Seaborne's brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was an unhappy one, and she never suited the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space, she leaves the metropolis for coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive eleven-year-old son, Francis, and the boy's nanny, Martha, her fiercely protective friend. Once there, they hear rumors that after nearly three hundred years, the mythical Essex Serpent, a fearsome creature that once roamed the marshes, has returned. When a young man is mysteriously killed on New Year's Eve, the community's dread transforms to terror. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist with no patience for religion or superstition, is immediately enthralled, certain that what locals think is a magical sea beast may be a previously undiscovered species. Eager to investigate, she is introduced to parish vicar William Ransome, who is equally suspicious of the rumors but for different reasons: a man of faith, he is convinced the alarming reports are caused by moral panic, a flight from the correct and righteous path. As Cora and William attempt to discover the truth about the Essex Serpent's existence, these seeming opposites find themselves inexorably drawn together in an intense relationship that will change both of them in ways entirely unexpected. And as they search for answers, Cora's London past follows her to the coast, with striking consequences. Told with exquisite grace and intelligence, The Essex Serpent masterfully explores questions of science and religion, skepticism and faith, but it is most of all a celebration of love, and the many different--and surprising--guises it can take.

The Essex Serpent [TV Tie-In]

Enlightenment

Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide

Every Cradle is a Grave

Il serpente dell'Essex

Set in Victorian London and an Essex village in the 1890's, and enlivened by the debates on scientific and medical discovery which defined the era, The Essex Serpent has at its heart the story of two extraordinary people who fall for each other, but not in the usual way. They are Cora Seaborne and Will Ransome. Cora is a well-to-do London widow who moves to the Essex parish of Aldwinter, and Will is the local vicar. They meet as their village is engulfed by rumours that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming human lives, has returned. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist is enthralled, convinced the beast may be a real undiscovered species. But Will sees his parishioners' agitation as a moral panic, a deviation from true faith. Although they can agree on absolutely nothing, as the seasons turn around them in this quiet corner of England, they find themselves inexorably drawn together and torn apart. Told with exquisite grace and intelligence, this novel is most of all a celebration of love, and the many different guises it can take.

An unforgettable story of love, faith and science, Enlightenment is Sarah Perry’s finest novel to date Thomas Hart and Grace Macauley are fellow worshippers at the Bethesda Baptist chapel in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits – torn between their commitment to religion and their desire for more. But their friendship is threatened by the arrival of love. Thomas falls for James Bower, who runs the local museum. Together they develop an obsession with the vanished nineteenth-century female astronomer Maria Veduva, said to haunt a nearby manor, and whose startling astronomical discoveries may never have been acknowledged. Inspired by Maria, and the dawning realisation James may not reciprocate his feelings, Thomas finds solace studying the night skies. Could astronomy offer as much wonder as divine or earthly love? Meanwhile Grace meets Nathan, a fellow sixth former who represents a different, wilder kind of life. They are drawn passionately together, but quickly pulled apart, casting Grace into the wider world and far away from Thomas. In time, the mysteries of Aldleigh are revealed, bringing Thomas and Grace back to each other and to a richer understanding of love, of the nature of the world, and the sheer miracle of being alive.

from the author of The Essex Serpent

Illustrations present such imaginative possibilities as worms with wheels, caterpillar toothpaste, and whales in outer space.

If--

A defence and celebration of the Essex Girl by the best-selling author of The Essex Serpent Essex Girls are disreputable, disrespectful and disobedient. They speak out of turn, too loudly and too often, in an accent irritating to the ruling classes. Their bodies are hyper-sexualised and irredeemably vulgar. They are given to intricate and voluble squabbling. They do not apologise for any of this. And why should they? In this exhilarating feminist defence of the Essex girl, Sarah Perry re-examines her relationship with her much maligned home county. She summons its most unquiet spirits, from Protestant martyr Rose Allin to the indomitable Abolitionist Anne Knight, sitting them alongside Audre Lorde, Kim Kardashian and Harriet Martineau, and showing us that the Essex girl is not bound by geography. She is a type, representing a very particular kind of female agency, and a very particular kind of disdain: she contains a multitude of women, and it is time to celebrate them.

For Profane and Opinionated Women Everywhere

Essex Girls

A Quaint and Curious Volume

O noapte si o zi din iarna anului 1917. Cinci soldati azvarliti in Picardia inzapezita in transeele inamicului se zbat sa supravietuiasca. Cel mai mic nu are nici douazeci de ani. In cealalta parte a Frantei dupa ce se instaureaza pacea Mathilde care il iubeste vrea sa descopere adevarul. Se lupta sa-l gaseasca mort sau viu in labirintul in care s-a pierdut. Cautarea ii este o logodna lunga in „les années folles” si ea va continua pana la capatul sperantei intr-un roman care te pune pe ganduri. Fermitate si fragilitate actiune si asteptare in destinul unei eroine greu de uitat si intr-un roman care coboara in adancimile sufletului.

Șarpele din Essex - Editura Nemira

Het monster van Essex

È inverno a Praga, e la notte sta calando sulla città dalle mille guglie. Helen Franklin cammina con lo sguardo fisso sul selciato consumato dal tempo, mentre la neve le cade sulle spalle. Quarantadue anni, al polso l’orologio d’acciaio di sua madre, nella borsa una mela verde e la traduzione dal tedesco cui sta lavorando, Helen ha lasciato l’Inghilterra vent’anni prima. È a Praga, ma non perché abbia ceduto agli incantesimi della splendida città sulla Moldava, ma per una macchia scura, un fantasma mai sopito del suo lontano passato. All’improvviso, fra il trambusto dei coreani diretti verso i battelli, ode qualcuno gridare il suo nome. Solleva lo sguardo e, benché sia seminascosto dalla folla, riconosce subito Karel Pražan, una delle uniche due persone che frequenta in città. È in maniche di camicia, ha gli occhi infossati degli insonni, le labbra cianotiche per il freddo. Scosso da brividi, stringe al petto una cartellina di cuoio nero chiusa con tre giri di spago. In un caffè lontano dalla strada gremita di turisti, a un tavolo appartato, protetto da tende di velluto e vetrine appannate, Karel le porge l’involucro che fino a quel momento stringeva a sé con attaccamento misto a disgusto: un manoscritto in tedesco che ha ricevuto dalle mani di un uomo anziano conosciuto in Biblioteca e ora deceduto. Ha l’aria di un antico palinsesto proveniente dagli archivi di un museo, ma è datato 2016 e parla di Melmoth la Testimone, l’Errante, colei al cui cospetto si manifesta il male del mondo, colei che è pronta ad apparire dove regnano desolazione e morte. Helen ritiene che la storia di Melmoth non sia altro che una sciocca leggenda, ma quando Karel svanisce nel nulla, capisce che il male ha molti volti e che, per lei, il tuono non sarà più soltanto un tuono, e un’ombra non sarà più soltanto una macchia scura sulla parete... Dopo il grande successo de Il serpente dell’Essex, Sarah Perry ritorna con un romanzo audace e sorprendente, che «suggella il suo ruolo di precorritrice della rinascita gotica della letteratura» (Melissa Harrison).

La maledizione di Melmoth

Sarah Perry’s father-in-law David died in the autumn of 2022, only nine days after a cancer diagnosis. He was in some ways a very ordinary man: he loved stamp collecting, fish and chips, comic novels and his local church. Yet as Sarah and her husband Robert nursed David through his final days, they realised how extraordinary he really was.

This loving, clear-eyed and unforgettable book shows how death may be met and understood as a part of life – a universal experience that is terrible and beautiful, intimate and real, sometimes all at once.

Death of an Ordinary Man

Essex Serpent

Essex Yilani

Mark Haddon

Andrew Michael Hurley

Max Porter

Kate Clanchy

Kamila Shamsie

Jeanette Winterson

Stuart Evers

Ocho destacados escritores contemporáneos reinterpretan las clásicas historias de fantasmas en esta inquietante colección de relatos ambientados en las localizaciones más misteriosas de las islas británicas. Inglaterra es por excelencia la tierra de las apariciones y los lugares encantados. Para este libro, ocho prominentes novelistas británicos tuvieron la oportunidad de elegir un edificio perteneciente al English Heritage ;una institución pública que protege y promueve el patrimonio histórico inglés; y permanecer en él después del horario de visita habitual. Inmersos en la historia, la atmósfera y las leyendas sobre esos emplazamientos, canalizaron la parte más oscura de su fantasía para crear las extraordinarias historias de fantasmas contemporáneas recogidas en este volumen. La mansión jacobea de Audley, el fuerte romano de Housesteads, los castillos de Dover, Kenilworth, Pendennis y Carlisle, el palacio de Eltham y un búnker de la Guerra Fría situado en York. Entre los muros de estos famosos lugares encantados, cada autor encontró la inspiración necesaria para reinterpretar a su manera las clásicas ghost stories, que llevan aterrorizando desde hace generaciones a cuantos lectores se acercan a ellas.

Sarah Perry

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