'ANDREW MILLER'S WRITING IS A SOURCE OF WONDER AND DELIGHT' Hilary Mantel

'ONE OF OUR MOST SKILFUL CHRONICLERS OF THE HUMAN HEART AND MIND' Sunday Times

Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award

'Astoundingly good'
The Times

'Dazzling'
Observer

'Timeless'
Spectator

The extraordinary prize-winning debut from Andrew Miller - a highly imaginative, atmospheric first novel

At the dawn of the Enlightenment, a man is born unable to feel pain. A source of wonder and scientific curiosity as a child, he rises through the ranks of Georgian society to become a brilliant surgeon. Yet as a human being he fails, for he can no more feel love and compassion than pain. Until, en route to St Petersburg to inoculate the Empress Catherine, he meets his nemesis and saviour.


PRAISE FOR ANDREW MILLER

'Unique, visionary, a master at unmasking humanity'
Sarah Hall

'A writer of very rare and outstanding gifts'
Independent on Sunday

'A highly intelligent writer, both exciting and contemplative'
The Times

'A wonderful storyteller'
Spectator

Andrew Miller's extraordinarily acclaimed and prizewinning debut, featuring an 18th-century surgeon who is unable to feel pain

About the Author

Andrew Miller's first novel, Ingenious Pain, was published by Sceptre in 1997. It won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Grinzane Cavour Prize for the best foreign novel published in Italy. It has been followed by Casanova, Oxygen, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award in 2001, The Optimists, One Morning Like a Bird, Pure, which won the Costa Book of the Year Award 2011, The Crossing, Now We Shall Be Entirely Free and The Slowworm's Song.


Andrew Miller's novels have been published in translation in twenty countries. Born in Bristol in 1960, he currently lives in Somerset.

Reviews
A wild adventure through 18th-century England and Russia, medicine, madness, landscape and weather, rendered in prose of consummate beauty -- Books of the Year * Independent *
A really remarkable first novel, original, powerfully written . . . Miller's narrative is gripping and his imagination extraordinary * Sunday Telegraph *
Astoundingly good . . . it shines like a beacon * The Times *
Timeless and thought-provoking . . . it is something very rare in modern fiction, a true work of art * Spectator *
Gripping . . . a dazzling debut * Observer *
Dazzling . . . Miller tackles notions of mortality and humanity to brilliant effect . . . truly wonderful * Evening Standard *
An extraordinary first novel . . . one is constantly delighted with strange and vivid imagery, fresh and startling metaphors, flashes of insight, deft twists of plot and resonant variations on dominant themes . . . a mature novel of ideas soaked in the sensory detail of its turbulent times * New York Times Book Review *
Exceptionally intelligent and elegant . . . remarkable for its feeling and its humane sensibility * Sunday Times *
A true rarity: a debut novel which is original, memorable, engrossing and subtle * Guardian *
Strange, unsettling, sad, beautiful and profound . . . the sense of period is brilliantly handled * Literary Review *
More than merits comparison with the likes of Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus and Patrick Suskind's Perfume . . . a blistering debut * Time Out *
The novel's evocation of the period, down to the finest detail, is thoroughly confident . . . a startling novel * Independent on Sunday *
A finely wrought and provocative novel * Daily Telegraph *
Impressive * Mail on Sunday *


Awards
Winner of International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 1999.



Book Information
ISBN 9780340682081
Author Andrew Miller
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint Sceptre
Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
Weight(grams) 252g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 128mm * 28mm