Description
"Oliver Twist with a twist...Waters spins an absorbing tale that withholds as much as it discloses. A pulsating story."--The New York Times Book Review The Handmaiden, a film adaptation of Fingersmith, directed by Park Chan-wook and starring Kim Tae-Ri, is now available.
Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a baby farmer, who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby's household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves--fingersmiths--for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.
One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives--Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a na ve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud's vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of--passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum.
With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways...But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.
Author: Sarah Waters
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Published: 10/01/2002
Pages: 608
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.02lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.20w x 1.30d
ISBN13: 9781573229722
ISBN10: 1573229725
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Historical | General
- Fiction | LGBTQ+ | Lesbian
- Fiction | Thrillers | Historical
About the Author
Sarah Waters is the New York Times-bestselling author of The Paying Guests, The Little Stranger, The Night Watch, Fingersmith, Affinity, and Tipping the Velvet. She has three times been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, has twice been a finalist for the Orange Prize, and was named one of Granta's best young British novelists, among other distinctions. Waters lives in London.