Francis King

We Are Amused

The Crimson Petal and the White

By

Canongate 838pp £17.99 order from our bookshop

Over 800 pages long, this novel is impressive for the unflagging energy with which it covers stage after stage of a marathon in which it all too deliberately competes with the shades of Dickens and Wilkie Collins. It is also impressive for the candour, denied to those two master storytellers, with which it illuminates the dark, dangerous world of Victorian sexuality.

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