Arthur and George

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize Arthur and George grow up worlds apart in late nineteenth-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, while George remains in hard-working obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events that made sensational headlines at the time as The Great Wyrley Outrages. This is a novel about low crime and high spirituality, guilt and innocence, identity, nationality and race. Most of all it is a profound and moving meditation on the fateful differences between what we believe, what we know and what we can prove.

Reviews of Arthur and George

"A beautiful and engrossing work" Independent on Sunday "Richly accomplished… Dazzling" Sunday Times "Excellent… Meticulously researched and vividly imagined, both gripping and thoughtful" Sunday Telegraph "From the first paragraphs we know ourselves to be in the hands of a major novelist… A compelling narrative, beautifully controlled… This novel is Barnes at his best" — P D James The Times "As ever, Barnes serves up a master-class in character observation, lavishing attention on the minutiae of personality, the subtle and conflicting impulses that drive men and women. Barnes seems equipped to write with humour and elegance about anything he turns his attention to" Financial Times