Free shipping on orders over $99
The Warlow Experiment

The Warlow Experiment

A Novel

by Alix Nathan
Hardback
Publication Date: 20/08/2019

Share This Book:

 
Named one of the best books of 2019 by the Daily Mail, The Sunday Times (London), and the BBC  

An utterly transporting and original historical novel about an eighteenth-century experiment in personal isolation that yields unexpected--and deeply, shatteringly human--results.

"The best kind of historical fiction. Alix Nathan is an original, with a virtuoso touch."
--Hilary Mantel


    Herbert Powyss lives in an estate in the Welsh Marches, with enough time and income to pursue a gentleman's fashionable investigations and experiments in botany. But he longs to make his mark in the field of science--something consequential enough to present to the Royal Society in London. He hits on a radical experiment in isolation: For seven years a subject will inhabit three rooms in the basement of the manor house, fitted out with rugs, books, paintings, and even a chamber organ. Meals will arrive thrice daily via a dumbwaiter. The solitude will be totally unrelieved by any social contact whatsoever; the subject will keep a diary of his daily thoughts and actions. The pay: fifty pounds per annum, for life.
    Only one man is desperate to apply for the job: John Warlow, a semi-literate laborer with a wife and six children to provide for. The experiment, a classic Enlightenment exercise gone more than a little mad, will have unforeseen consequences for all included.
ISBN:
9780385545334
9780385545334
Category:
Historical Fiction
Format:
Hardback
Publication Date:
20-08-2019
Language:
English
Publisher:
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Country of origin:
United States
Dimensions (mm):
242.82x161.8x25.4mm
Weight:
0.53kg
Alix Nathan

Alix Nathan read English and Music at York University. She lives in the Welsh Marches where she owns some ancient woodland with her husband. Her short stories have been published in Ambit, The London Magazine, New Welsh Review and read on BBC Radio 4. Her last two books were published by Parthian Press.

Click 'Notify Me' to get an email alert when this item becomes available

Reviews

Be the first to review The Warlow Experiment.