Little

About the book

COMES WITH POSTCARD

'Don't miss this eccentric charmer' (Margaret Atwood)

Delightful, eccentric, heartfelt, surprising, philosophical (Eleanor Catton, author of The Luminaries)

'Edward Carey is one of the strangest writers we are privileged to have in this country (The Observer)

'If this were music, Carey would be Eric Satie. If it were film, he would be Tim Burton (Newsday)

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 Careys Little is a wonder the incredible story of a blood-stained crumb of a girl who went on to shape the world.