With an introduction by award-winning novelist Tessa Hadley

In January 1895 Henry James anticipates the opening of his first play, Guy Domville, in London. The production fails, and he returns, chastened and humiliated, to his writing desk. The result is a string of masterpieces, but they are produced at a high personal cost.

In The Master Colm Toibin captures the exquisite anguish of a man who circulated in the grand parlours and palazzos of Europe, who was astonishingly vibrant and alive in his art, and yet whose attempts at intimacy inevitably failed him and those he tried to love. It is a powerful account of the hazards of putting the life of the mind before affairs of the heart.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2004, a remarkable novel about Henry James, the American-born novelist and a connoisseur of exile.

About the Author
Colm Toibin was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of several novels, including Brooklyn, the 2009 Costa Novel of the Year, The Master, which was shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize and winner of the LA Times Book Prize and the IMPAC Book Award, and The Blackwater Lightship, which was shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize and the 2001 IMPAC Award. His non-fiction includes Bad Blood, Homage to Barcelona, The Sign of the Cross and Love in a Dark Time. His work has been translated into seventeen languages. He lives in Dublin.

Reviews
An audacious, profound, and wonderfully intelligent book. -- Hermione Lee * Guardian *
A marvel of lightly worn research and modulated tone. -- John Updike * New Yorker *
A must read. Colm Toibin has not only written a spectacular novel he has found a way to pay tribute to Henry James. We should all be so gifted and so lucky. -- Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones and Lucky


Awards
Short-listed for Man Booker Prize 2004 (UK).



Book Information
ISBN 9781509870530
Author Colm Toibin
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Picador
Publisher Pan Macmillan
Weight(grams) 272g
Dimensions(mm) 197mm * 130mm * 25mm