Tracy Chevalier – författare

'Spellbinding' ELIF SHAFAK'Ingenious' THE TIMES, Book of the Year'Sparkling'OBSERVER'A triumph' PHILIP PULLMAN'As finely wrought as a dazzling Murano bead' INDEPENDENT'Meticulously researched and evoking the beauty of the Venice lagoon’ PHILIPPA GREGORY‘A spectacular feat, crafted by a maestra at the top of her game’ SPECTATOR FROM THE GLOBALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING Venice, 1486. Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives perfecting.In secret, Orsola Rosso learns to craft glass. As a woman, she must flout convention to save her family from ruin. We follow her through hundreds of years of war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.Skipping like a stone across the centuries, The Glassmaker is a virtuoso portrait of a woman, a family and a city that are as everlasting as glass.

Shakespeare's Othello is ingeniously transplanted into a high school setting in this taut story about teenage friendship and racial tension. Arriving at his fourth school in six years, diplomat’s son Osei knows he needs an ally. Luckily he hits it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can’t stand to witness this budding relationship: Ian decides to destroy the friendship between the black boy and the golden girl. By the end of the day, the school and its key players – teachers and pupils alike – will never be the same again.The tragedy of Othello is transposed to a 1970s suburban Washington schoolyard in this powerful drama of alienation, adolescence and friends torn apart.‘A compact and intense read full of twists, turns and intrigue’ Daily Express'New Boy, with its angsty teenagers, racial frictions and a magnificently fleshed out antagonist, is a tense and tight read... A heady rollercoaster of emotions' ObserverSHAKESPEARE RETOLD: Time travel. Zombies. Power-hungry media moguls. This is Shakespeare as you’ve never seen him before: nine iconic plays transformed by the best novelists of our time, with covers by Michael Craig-Martin.

‘Enormously enjoyable’ Evening Standard ‘Charming’ The Times ‘What would you have me paint instead of a battle, Madame?’Geneviève de Nanterre’s eyes gleamed.‘A unicorn.’Keen to demonstrate his new-found favour with the King, rising nobleman Jean le Viste commissions six tapestries to adorn the walls of his château. He expects soldiers and bloody battlefields. But artist Nicolas des Innocents instead designs a seductive world of women, unicorns and flowers, using as his muses Le Viste’s wife Geneviève and ripe young daughter Claude.In Belgium, as his designs spring to life under the weavers’ fingers, Nicolas is inspired once more – by the master weaver’s daughter Aliénor and her mother Christine. They too will be captured by his threads.

‘A visual delight’ The Times‘A splendidly vital recreation of Georgian London’ Sunday Times‘Tell me, then: would you say you are innocent or experienced?’1792. Uprooted from their quiet Dorset village to the riotous streets of London, young Jem Kellaway and his family feel very far from home. They struggle to find their place in this tumultuous city, still alive with the repercussions of the blood-splattered French Revolution.Luckily, streetwise Maggie Butterfield is on hand to show Jem the ropes. Together they encounter the neighbour they’ve been warned about: radical poet and artist William Blake. Jem and Maggie’s passage from innocence to experience becomes the very stuff of poetic inspiration…

‘It is a stunning story, compassionately reimagined’ Guardian Tracy Chevalier’s stunning novel of how one woman’s gift transcends class and gender to lead to some of the most important discoveries of the nineteenth century. A revealing portrait of the intricate and resilient nature of female friendship. In the early nineteenth century, a windswept beach along the English coast brims with fossils for those with the eye…From the moment she’s struck by lightning as a baby, it is clear Mary Anning is marked for greatness. When she uncovers unknown dinosaur fossils in the cliffs near her home, she sets the scientific world alight, challenging ideas about the world’s creation and stimulating debate over our origins. In an arena dominated by men, however, Mary is soon reduced to a serving role, facing prejudice from the academic community, vicious gossip from neighbours, and the heartbreak of forbidden love. Even nature is a threat, throwing bitter cold, storms, and landslips at her.Luckily Mary finds an unlikely champion in prickly, intelligent Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster who is also fossil-obsessed. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty and barely suppressed envy. Despite their differences in age and background, Mary and Elizabeth discover that, in struggling for recognition, friendship is their strongest weapon.

‘Vividly imagined’ Sunday Telegraph‘Sex and death meet again in [a] marvellous evocation of Edwardian England’ Daily MailThe girl reminded me of my favourite chocolates, whipped hazelnut creams, and I knew just from looking at her that I wanted her for my best friend.Queen Victoria is dead. In January 1901, the day after her passing, two very different families visit neighbouring graves in a London cemetery. The traditional Waterhouses revere the late Queen where the Colemans have a more modern outlook, but both families are appalled by the friendship that springs up between their respective daughters.As the girls grow up, their world changes almost beyond measure: cars are replacing horses, electric lighting is taking over from gas, and emancipation is fast approaching, to the delight of some and the dismay of others…

OVER FIVE MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE ‘A phenomenon’ Jessie Burton ‘Dazzling’ Daily Mail ‘Truly magical' Guardian Those eyes are fixed on someone. But who? What is she thinking as she stares out from one of the world’s best-loved paintings?Johannes Vermeer can spot exceptional beauty. When servant girl Griet catches his eye, she soon becomes both student and muse. But then he gives her his wife’s pearl earrings to wear for a portrait, and a scandal erupts that could threaten Griet’s future… Vivid and captivating, this timeless modern classic has become a successful film and an international bestseller, with over 5 million copies sold around the world; now with a new introduction by the author. ‘A veritable work of art… one of those rare novels where all the decisions made by the author appear inevitable and right’ Rose Tremain‘Timeless, delicate and as exquisitely measured as one of Vermeer's paintings. Tense yet perfectly-paced and filled with the beauty of life's colours, Girl with the Pearl Earring is a masterpiece in its own right. Just a phenomenon. I will hold this novel close for the rest of my life’ Jessie Burton, author of The Minaturist‘If ever a novel rightly deserves its “five millions copies sold” achievement, it is this dazzling little masterpiece … Absolute magic’ Daily Mail'A portrait of radiance…Tracy Chevalier brings the real artist Vermeer and a fictional muse to life in a jewel of a novel' Time‘Chevalier doesn't put a foot wrong in this triumphant work … It is a beautifully written tale that mirrors the elegance of the painting that inspired it’ Wall Street Journal'A wonderful novel, mysterious, steeped in atmosphere, deeply revealing about the process of painting…truly magical' Guardian‘It is no wonder that this beautifully-written story has sold more than five million copies and been made into a successful film. An absolute triumph’ Woman’s Weekly

‘A triumph. Excellent’ Time Out ‘A beautifully crafted story shot with vivid colours’ The Times ‘An intriguing and poignant read’ Sunday Express ‘Such an achievement for a serious writer that you feel it deserves an award’ Independent She was called Isabelle, and when she was a small girl her hair changed colour in the time it takes a bird to call to its mate… Midwife Isabelle du Moulin is marked as different, by both her red hair and her love for the Virgin Mary in her rich blue robes. As religious fervour sweeps 16th-century France, Isabelle’s striking likeness to the Madonna puts her in danger when her village is enraptured by new Protestant doctrine.Four centuries later, Ella Turner moves to the French village of Lisle-sur-Tarn and finds her dreams are haunted by the colour blue. Ella hopes to become both a midwife and a mother, but her plans unravel as she discovers her link to Isabelle, and her ancestor’s shocking fate.

‘Addictively compelling’ The Times ‘A joy to read’ Maggie O’Farrell Honor Bright is a sheltered Quaker who has rarely ventured out of 1850s Dorset when she impulsively emigrates to America. Opposed to the slavery that defines and divides the country, she finds her principles tested to the limit when a runaway slave appears at the farm of her new family. In this tough, unsentimental place, where whisky bottles sit alongside quilts, Honor befriends two spirited women who will teach her how to turn ideas into action.

'A wonderful book; rich, evocative, original. I loved it' Joanne Harris “One in ten trees comes up sweet…”In the inhospitable Black Swamp of Ohio, the Goodenough family are barely scratching out a living. Life there is harsh, tempered only by the apples they grow for eating and for the cider that dulls their pain. Hot-headed Sadie and buttoned-up James are a poor match, and Robert and his sister Martha can only watch helplessly as their parents tear each other apart. One particularly vicious fight sends Robert out alone across America, far from his sister, to seek his fortune among the mighty redwoods and sequoias of Gold Rush California. But even across a continent, he can feel the pull of family loyalties…

‘This collection is stormy, romantic, strong – the Full Brontë’ The TimesA collection of short stories celebrating Charlotte Brontë, published in the year of her bicentenary and stemming from the now immortal words from her great work Jane Eyre.The twenty-one stories in Reader, I Married Him – one of the most celebrated lines in fiction – are inspired by Jane Eyre and shaped by its perennially fascinating themes of love, compromise and self-determination.A bohemian wedding party takes an unexpected turn for the bride and her daughter; a family trip to a Texan waterpark prompts a life-changing decision; Grace Poole defends Bertha Mason and calls the general opinion of Jane Eyre into question. Mr Rochester reveals a long-kept secret in “Reader, She Married Me”, and “The Mirror” boldly imagines Jane’s married life after the novel ends. A new mother encounters an old lover after her daily swim and inexplicably lies to him, and a fitness instructor teaches teenage boys how to handle a pit bull terrier by telling them Jane Eyre’s story.Edited by Tracy Chevalier, this collection brings together some of the finest and most creative voices in fiction today, to celebrate and salute the strength and lasting relevance of Charlotte Brontë’s game-changing novel and its beloved narrator.

FROM THE GLOBALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING ‘Bittersweet … dazzling’ Guardian ‘Deeply pleasurable … the ending made me cry’ The Times ‘Told with a wealth of detail and narrative intensity’ Penelope Lively Violet is 38.The First World War took everything from her. Her brother, her fiancé – and her future. She is now considered a ‘surplus woman’.But Violet is also fiercely independent and determined. Escaping her suffocating mother, she moves to Winchester to start a new life –a change that will require courage, resilience and acts of quiet rebellion. And when whispers of another world war surface, she must live with a secret that could change everything…

'Spellbinding' ELIF SHAFAK'Ingenious' THE TIMES, Book of the Year'Sparkling'OBSERVER'A triumph' PHILIP PULLMAN'As finely wrought as a dazzling Murano bead' INDEPENDENT'Meticulously researched and evoking the beauty of the Venice lagoon’ PHILIPPA GREGORY‘A spectacular feat, crafted by a maestra at the top of her game’ SPECTATOR FROM THE GLOBALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING Venice, 1486. Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives learning to handle.Women are not meant to work with glass, but Orsola Rosso flouts convention to save her family from ruin. She works in secret, knowing her creations must be perfect to be accepted by men. But perfection may take a lifetime.Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola as she hones her craft through war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.The beads she creates will adorn the necks of empresses and courtesans from Paris to Vienna – but will she ever earn the respect of those closest to her? Tracy Chevalier is a master of her own craft, and The Glassmaker is vivid, inventive, spellbinding: a virtuoso portrait of a woman, a family and a city that are as everlasting as their glass.

'Spellbinding' ELIF SHAFAK'Ingenious' THE TIMES, Book of the Year'Sparkling'OBSERVER'A triumph' PHILIP PULLMAN'As finely wrought as a dazzling Murano bead' INDEPENDENT'Meticulously researched and evoking the beauty of the Venice lagoon’ PHILIPPA GREGORY‘A spectacular feat, crafted by a maestra at the top of her game’ SPECTATOR FROM THE GLOBALLY ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING Venice, 1486. Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives learning to handle.Women are not meant to work with glass, but Orsola Rosso flouts convention to save her family from ruin. She works in secret, knowing her creations must be perfect to be accepted by men. But perfection may take a lifetime.Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola as she hones her craft through war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.The beads she creates will adorn the necks of empresses and courtesans from Paris to Vienna – but will she ever earn the respect of those closest to her? Tracy Chevalier is a master of her own craft, and The Glassmaker is vivid, inventive, spellbinding: a virtuoso portrait of a woman, a family and a city that are as everlasting as their glass.

A NEW EDITION WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JESSIE BURTON OVER FIVE MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE ‘A veritable work of art' Rose Tremain 'A truly magical experience' Guardian 'Triumphant' Wall Street Journal Those eyes are fixed on someone. But who? What is she thinking as she stares out from one of the world’s best-loved paintings? Johannes Vermeer can spot exceptional beauty. When servant girl Griet catches his eye, she soon becomes both student and muse. But then he gives her his wife’s pearl earrings to wear for a portrait, and a scandal erupts that could threaten Griet’s future. Vivid, captivating and much emulated, Girl With A Pearl Earring is a timeless modern classic and an international bestseller.