Book details

The Giant, O'Brien

A Novel

Author: Hilary Mantel

The Giant, O'Brien

The Giant, O'Brien

$11.99

About This Book

The year is 1782; the place, London: the center of science and commerce, home to the newly rich and magnet to the desperately poor. Among the latter is the Giant, O'Brien, a freak of nature, a man of song and story who trusts in the old myths, in Irish kings and fairies.
Page Count
208
On Sale
06/12/2007

Book Details

New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year
Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year

London, 1782: center of science and commerce, home to the newly rich and the desperately poor. In the midst of it all is the Giant, O'Brien, a freak of nature, a man of song and story who trusts in myths, fairies, miracles, and little people. He has come from Ireland to exhibit his size for money. O'Brien's opposite is a man of science, the famed anatomist John Hunter, who lusts after the Giant's corpse as a medical curiosity, a boon to the advancement of scientific knowledge.

In her acclaimed novel, two-time Man Booker Prize winning author Hilary Mantel tells of the fated convergence of Ireland and England. As belief wrestles knowledge and science wrestles song, so The Giant, O'Brien calls to us from a fork in the road as a tale of time, and a timeless tale.

Imprint Publisher

Henry Holt and Co.

ISBN

9781429932196

In The News

“Smart, astringent, and marvelously upsetting fiction.” —Francine Prose, The New York Times Book Review

“A novelist without peer in her generation . . . No reader who loves fiction should miss this opportunity to read this extraordinary work.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Mantel's novel is in one sense a brilliant pastiche of Swift and Joyce [but] it becomes her own style, as acute and arresting as is her vision of history.” —The New York Review of Books

About the Creators

The Giant, O'Brien

The Giant, O'Brien

$11.99