We’re delighted to be sharing Laura’s thoughts with you today on Little by Edward Carey.
- Paperback: 430 pages
- Publisher: Aardvark Bureau (4 Oct. 2018)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 9781910709566
- ISBN-13: 978-1910709566
- ASIN: 1910709565
The wry, macabre, unforgettable tale of an ambitious orphan in Revolutionary Paris, befriended by royalty and radicals alike, who transforms herself into the legendary Madame Tussaud.
In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Alsace. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation. As word of her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to Versailles, where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling: The revolutionary mob is demanding heads, and . . . at the wax museum, heads are what they do.
Edward Carey’s Little is a wonder – the incredible story of a ‘blood-stained crumb of a girl’ who went on to shape the world.
Little is available to purchase in digital, hardcover and paperback formats.
Book Review
I fell in love with Little and think it has to be my favourite book this year.
Exquisitely written, Edward Carey has created Little as a charming and unforgettable character.
A beautiful historical novel about the life of legendary Madam Tussard.
Born in Switzerland but an orphan at a young age, Marie Grosholtz moved to Paris with Dr Curtius, an eccentric wax sculptor. With a fascination for this craft, Marie was desperate to continue her apprenticeship and help Dr Curtius. Unfortunately living with Madam Pivot she was treated as the servant and struggled with this role.
Living in Paris during the French Revolution, working as a tutor for royalty and being sent to prison are a few examples of how extraordinary her life was.
Heartbreak, tragedy with a macabre feel, Little is an outstanding novel with illustrations by the author that help to tell Marie’s story.
I will be looking forward to reading more from this author.
Edward Carey is a writer and illustrator who was born in North Walsham, Norfolk, England, during an April snowstorm. Like his father and his grandfather, both officers in the Royal Navy, he attended Pangbourne Nautical College, where the closest he came to following his family calling was playing Captain Andy in the school’s production of Showboat. Afterwards he joined the National Youth Theatre and studied drama at Hull University.
He has written plays for the National Theatre of Romania and the Vilnius Small State Theatre, Lithuania. In England his plays and adaptations have been performed at the Young Vic Studio, the Battersea Arts Centre, and the Royal Opera House Studio. He has collaborated on a shadow puppet production of Macbeth in Malaysia, and with the Faulty Optic Theatre of Puppets.
He is the author of the novels Observatory Mansions and Alva and Irva: the Twins Who Saved a City, and of the YA Iremonger Trilogy, which have all been translated into many different languages and all of which he illustrated. His most recent novel is Little, which has taken him a ridiculous fifteen years to finish. He always draws the characters he writes about, but often the illustrations contradict the writing and vice versa and getting both to agree with each other takes him far too long. He has taught creative writing and fairy tales on numerous occasions at the Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, and at the Michener Center and the English Department at the University of Texas at Austin.
He has lived in England, France, Romania, Lithuania, Germany, Ireland, Denmark, and the United States. He currently lives in Austin, Texas, which is not near the sea.
Connect with Edward Carey