This is an auction for THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE by Michel Faber.

Amazon.com review:

"THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE is the story of a well-read London prostitute named Sugar, who spends her free hours composing a violent, pornographic screed against men. Michel Faber's dazzling novel dares to go where George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss and Charles Dickens could not. We learn about the positions and orifices that Sugar and her clients favour, about her lingering skin condition, and about the suspect ingredients of her prophylactic douches. Still, Sugar believes she can make a better life for herself. When she is taken up by a wealthy man, the perfumer William Rackham, her wings are clipped, and she must balance financial security against the obvious servitude of her position. The physical risks and hardships of Sugar's life (and the even harder "honest" life she would have led as a factory worker) contrast - yet not entirely - with the medical mistreatment of her benefactor's wife, Agnes, and beautifully underscore Faber's emphasis on class and sexual politics. In theme and treatment, this is a novel that Virginia Woolf might have written, had she been born 70 years later. The language, however, is Faber's own - brisk and elastic - and the detail he offers (costume, food, manners, cheap stage performances, the London streets) slides effortlessly into his forward-moving sentences. Despite its 800-plus pages, THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE turns out to be a quick read, since it is truly impossible to put down."

More very favourable reviews on Amazon.com.

Paperback 2003.

835 pages.

Near new condition.

The cost of shipping is $4.95.

There is of course no charge for shipping if you collect this book from my shop in Palmerston North following the auction.

Payment within seven days, please.