The Far Side of a Kiss

First edition. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 241, [7 (blank)]. Maroon cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine; burgundy endpapers.

Long-listed for the 2000 Booker Prize. "He has put me in a book. He had but a frail nib for his weapon but he has destroyed me by it as clean as if he used a blade and impaled me on its point." Historical novel, based on the life of Sarah Walker, subject of William Hazlitt's Liber Amoris (1823). Two centuries later, Anne Haverty in an act of ventriloquism and empathy, rescues the serving maid, and victim of Hazlitt's romantic obsession from silence, letting her tell her side of the story.

Author's literary debut, One Day as a Tiger, was shortlisted for the 1997 Whitbread First Novel Award. "Luminous intelligence, humour and sympathy. Early 19th-century London and the 19-year-old Sarah live and breathe." –The Times