Gould's Book of Fish. A Novel in Twelve Fish.

First UK edition. Tall 8vo. Pp. [viii], 404, [4, blank]. Teal green cloth lettered in copper gilt to spine; marbled endpapers. With 12 illus. colour plates, text printed in six different coloured inks, each being symbolic of a different narrative strand (later editions published in b/w).

Author's third novel. Winner of the 2002 Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal Award for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." Short-listed for the 2001 Miles Franklin Award. A 2002 New York Times Notable Book of the Year. In 1828, William Buelow Gould, a convict is condemned to Van Diemen's Land, "the most feared penal colony in the British Empire", and ordered to paint a book of fish. Flanagan went on to win the 2014 Booker Prize for his 2013 novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North. "A work of significant genius." –Chicago Tribune