Tipping The Velvet

Name: Tipping The Velvet
Rating: 4.709090709686279 (55 reviews)

Sarah Waters

Feb 2011 · Hachette UK

4.7

55 reviews

Ebook

480

Pages

Eligible

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About this ebook

From the oyster huts of Whitstable to the music halls of Victorian London, Tipping the Velvet is the glorious first novel from this much-loved author

'Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in the centre of this was a girl: the most marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that I had ever seen.'

A saucy, sensuous and multi-layered historical romance, Tipping the Velvet follows the glittering career of Nan King - oyster girl turned music-hall star turned rent boy turned East End 'tom'.

'Erotic and absorbing... Written with startling power' New York Times Book Review

'An unstoppable read, a sexy and picaresque romp through the lesbian and queer demi-monde of the roaries Nineties' Independent on Sunday

'Waters is an extremely confident writer, combining precise, sensuous descriptions with irony and wit' Observer

Ratings and reviews

4.7

55 reviews

Mark Harrison

November 24, 2022

I suppose that I recognised, whilst reading the book, what the author regards as its weaknesses. Nonetheless, it is a good read and givesa good flavour of Victorian London.

Le-zaan Van der Westhuizen

May 12, 2016

Loved every single page that I read and couldn't stop, simply wished there was more.

1 person found this review helpful

Donna Chambers

October 7, 2015

I've read this book 5 times and as soon as I reach the last page I could read it again! Sarah Waters s an amazing author and I highly recommend each and everyone of her books.

1 person found this review helpful

About the author

Sarah Waters, who was born in Wales, has been described as 'one of the best storytellers alive today' (Matt Thorne, Independent), and there can be no doubt that readers and critics alike have been gripped by her extraordinary imagination. Sarah Waters' first novel, Tipping the Velvet, won a Betty Trask Award, and was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Her next novel, Affinity, won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award while Fingersmith and The Night Watch were both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. The former also won the CWA Ellis Peters Dagger Award for Historical Crime Fiction and the South Bank Show Award for Literature. The Little Stranger was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2009 and The Paying Guests was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize in 2015. Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, Fingersmith and The Night Watch have all been adapted for television, The Little Stranger was adapted as a film by Lenny Abrahamson, and Fingersmith inspired Park Chan-wook's film, The Handmaiden. Sarah Waters has been named Author of the Year five times: by the British Book Awards, The Booksellers' Association, Waterstone's Booksellers, Glamour Magazine Awards and the Stonewall Awards. In 2019 she was awarded an OBE for services to literature.

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